According to reports Google is gearing up to launch Gdrive next year. The new service would potentially mean any device with an internet connection could perform the tasks of a PC.

The new free service would be an extension of Google's current online data storage product tied into its Gmail email offering, which allows users to store documents and images.

It would also be powerful enough to boot up programmes and, potentially, a Google operating system.

 

However there are concerns among privacy campaigners over whether it is a good idea to allow such a quantity of commercial and private data to be available online.

Google would not comment on the launch date of Gdrive.

Gdrive would rival Microsoft’s Sky Drive which offers 25GB of free storage but with a limit of 500MB per file.

A beta version of Sky Drive keeps automatically synchronises files across the PC, mobile and web.