Q. Is it true that Google Drive is being discontinued?

A. Google announced this month that it will end support for the Google Drive desktop apps for Windows and Mac computers on Dec. 11 and that the software will be shut down for good on March 12. But while those handy desktop programs for managing your files in the cloud are destined for retirement, Google’s online backup service is not going anywhere soon. You just get to it through different desktop programs. (You can also continue to just upload and download stored files through your Google Account in a web browser.)

For desktop users who backed up files to cloud servers with the Google Drive app, the company has two newer programs to do the job instead. The Backup and Sync app for Windows and Mac, introduced in July, is Google’s software for users of its free services. The program can be set to synchronize copies of locally stored photos and other files on the computer to Google’s cloud servers. (Note that you get a free 15 gigabytes of storage from Google, but if you max it out, you need to buy more space if you want to keep storing all your files on the company’s servers.)