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My 24/7 server is my Android phone. It doesn't cost me anything more than before it had Syncthing on it and maintenance consists of running Android updates whic

My 24/7 server is my Android phone. It doesn't cost me anything more than before it had Syncthing on it and maintenance consists of running Android updates which I did anyway. I suspect that most people with smartphones also leave them on 24/7.

kranner 7y ago
That might work except for people who use iOS, for which Syncthing doesn’t have a client yet if I’m not mistaken.
- thekyle 7y ago
  That's true. I don't really know why Syncthing isn't on iOS. It could be missing APIs or licensing issues with GPL. Hopefully something gets worked out eventually.
  - veidr 7y ago
    It's not that, it's actually because of the best and most reasonable of reasons: the maintainers and core committers don't use / aren't interested in iOS. They aren't opposed to it, and they give advice and helpful comments to those who want to try it. But, this is just one of the many places where Apple's authoritarian platform model shows its disadvantages. Syncthing is written in Go, but Apple didn't provide a good story for doing Go development for iOS, and because of their lockdown rules, nobody other than Apple can. Therefore, to get Syncthing running on iOS, you'd need to do a complete from-scratch implementation in one of the languages Apple allows you to use. So it is a relatively huge effort. A few people have tried, but nobody's completed anything very compelling. [1]: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/on-syncthing-ios-port-again/8964/11 https://forum.syncthing.net/t/on-syncthing-ios-port-again/89...
cesarb 7y ago
Wouldn't that require the phone to always be on wifi, to avoid hitting the monthly data transfer cap? IIRC, the Android version of Syncthing comes configured by default to run only when the network connection is a wifi connection for that reason.
- Multicomp 7y ago
  > Wouldn't that require the phone to always be on wifi, to avoid hitting the monthly data transfer cap? True, but unlimited data plans do exist and I've found that more often than not, one laptop finds another laptop over the internet than using the fallback of using cellular data over the phone to sync. I just installed the F-Droid android client yesterday, it syncs over both Wi-Fi and cellular data by default since until you add devices/folders, it won't spend any mobile data at all, which is when it prompts you to make that choice.
- thekyle 7y ago
  That's a fair point. For me, I am pretty much always connected to WiFi except when I'm driving. However, I understand that may not be the case for everyone.

kranner 7y ago

That might work except for people who use iOS, for which Syncthing doesn’t have a client yet if I’m not mistaken.

thekyle 7y ago
That's true. I don't really know why Syncthing isn't on iOS. It could be missing APIs or licensing issues with GPL. Hopefully something gets worked out eventually.
- veidr 7y ago
  It's not that, it's actually because of the best and most reasonable of reasons: the maintainers and core committers don't use / aren't interested in iOS. They aren't opposed to it, and they give advice and helpful comments to those who want to try it. But, this is just one of the many places where Apple's authoritarian platform model shows its disadvantages. Syncthing is written in Go, but Apple didn't provide a good story for doing Go development for iOS, and because of their lockdown rules, nobody other than Apple can. Therefore, to get Syncthing running on iOS, you'd need to do a complete from-scratch implementation in one of the languages Apple allows you to use. So it is a relatively huge effort. A few people have tried, but nobody's completed anything very compelling. [1]: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/on-syncthing-ios-port-again/8964/11 https://forum.syncthing.net/t/on-syncthing-ios-port-again/89...

cesarb 7y ago

Wouldn't that require the phone to always be on wifi, to avoid hitting the monthly data transfer cap? IIRC, the Android version of Syncthing comes configured by default to run only when the network connection is a wifi connection for that reason.

Multicomp 7y ago
> Wouldn't that require the phone to always be on wifi, to avoid hitting the monthly data transfer cap? True, but unlimited data plans do exist and I've found that more often than not, one laptop finds another laptop over the internet than using the fallback of using cellular data over the phone to sync. I just installed the F-Droid android client yesterday, it syncs over both Wi-Fi and cellular data by default since until you add devices/folders, it won't spend any mobile data at all, which is when it prompts you to make that choice.
thekyle 7y ago
That's a fair point. For me, I am pretty much always connected to WiFi except when I'm driving. However, I understand that may not be the case for everyone.