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Syncthing is everything I used to love about computers

306 points by mrzool 6y ago

dddw 6y ago
I've tried switching to syncthing, but it consumed so many CPU cycles that I deed it unusable eventually
athorax 6y ago
Title might be better as: Syncthing is everything I used to love about computers.
- tromp 6y ago
  Yes, I thought this was going to be about the great hobby computers of the 80s, with approachable built-in BASIC interpreters.
  - tmountain 6y ago
    Same, a favorite topic no less.
    - retro64 6y ago
      As mine. I'll just leave this here for any other disappointed folks. Mega65 is due to begin taking orders for dev kits next week. I am so stoked: https://mega65.org/ https://mega65.org/ (note that dev kits do not include the final molded case, that should be coming later)
  - pvg 6y ago
    A title that isn't deliberately misleading but turns out to be about something other than what you expected is probably a good thing, more often than not.
- jonpurdy 6y ago
  Title sucks, but I did enjoy reading the review. I'm a Dropbox user since 2009 who recently switched to iCloud Drive. I miss the old Dropbox that just worked and stayed out of the way. Once Dropbox rebranded (2017?) I knew it was the beginning of the end. I cancelled my subscription a couple of years ago and just kept it around for syncing preferences, which I ditched a couple of months ago. iCloud Drive works well enough, but it doesn't indicate whether files are synced (with a checkmark like Dropbox used to do). I typically avoid Apple software because in trying to simplify it they end up making it vastly overcomplicated. I've heard good things about NextCloud but didn't want to self-host. I've tried SpiderOak and Google Drive before and both were just too slow (and Google Drive was very flakey).
  - java-man 6y ago
    I use sync.com Canadian, so five eyes. Not end to end encypted, so probably the same level of security as Dropbox or iCloud.
    - archenary 6y ago
      Sync.com claims to be end-to-end encrypted [0]. Is there any indication they are not? [0] https://www.sync.com/your-privacy/ https://www.sync.com/your-privacy/
      - java-man 6y ago
        JS gets loaded from a sync server, no verifiable open source client, no documentation explaining security architecture. It may or may not be E2E encrypted.
  - UnpossibleJim 6y ago
    So, if I might ask, what people are looking for (in simplest terms): a cloud synching platform that is cross platform, with a decent (or better) UI and a good indicator, that has end to end encryption. To be honest, given the proper team, that doesn't seem like the hardest bill to fill. I will admit, though, finding a tech company that is willing to spend money decent interface and graphic designers is sometimes difficult, but not impossible.
    - njharman 6y ago
      > with a decent (or better) UI I want no UI. It should transparently work like any other filesystem.
      - rsync 6y ago
        I believe this already exists in the form of 'rclone'[1] and I believe that we[2] are the only cloud storage provider that explicitly supports it[3]. Which is to say, we built the 'rclone' binary into our environment such that you can run it remotely: ssh user@rsync.net rclone s3:/bucket/blah /rsync/dir [1] https://rclone.org/ https://rclone.org/ [2] https://www.rsync.net/products/universal.html https://www.rsync.net/products/universal.html [3] https://www.rsync.net/products/rclone.html https://www.rsync.net/products/rclone.html
- dang 6y ago
  I was just considering making that change when I saw your comment. Good idea! We've changed the title above to that, which is a sentence from the article which more accurately represents what it's about.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
> Syncthing has reminded me how great computers can be if they are not made by corporations. It’s simple, predictable, sane, acts no-nonsense. Says someone running MacOS.
- tonsky 6y ago
  macOS becomes more and more crap, but does it mean I can’t express my opinion about other programs anymore?
dreamcompiler 6y ago
I applaud everything in this article except this: > Calendar sync? Why on Earth would FILE SYNCHRONIZATION application wants to access my calendar? It's very handy to have shared calendars across multiple devices. Dropbox's advertised solution for this is garbage because I have no interest in letting Google or Outlook manage my calendars. But there's another solution that used to work with Dropbox that doesn't any more. And the breakage is Apple's fault, not Dropbox's. Say you have two Macs and you want their Calendar apps to be in sync. Further, you don't want to use iCloud because you know from painful experience that Apple has no idea how to sync anything properly. It used to be possible to move ~/Library/Calendars to Dropbox and put a folder symlink in its place. If you do this on both machines, Dropbox automagically syncs your calendars. But in later versions of MacOS when you replace Library folders with symlinks the apps in question stop working. Thanks Apple. Looks like Syncthing might fix this problem for me again, and I won't even need Dropbox any more.
- flyx86 6y ago
  > It's very handy to have shared calendars across multiple devices. CalDAV should have you covered there. While the need for a server may be a bit inconvenient, I doubt that usability would be on par with it when you just copy the files instead (think of alerts, sharing calendars with others, etc). Also, there is no iOS Syncthing client when your phone probably is the most important device to have your calendars on.
- tonsky 6y ago
  I didn’t realize local calendars are still a thing. I though they are all hosted. That’s why I didn’t understand what was offered there
butz 6y ago
Is there any way to sync encrypted data to non-trusted server with Syncthing? I would like to have encrypted off-site backup.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  "borg" is the tool for one-way encrypted backup, not syncthing.
  - rsync 6y ago
    I think you should look into the 'borg' backup tool - it has become the de facto standard for remote backups because it does everything that rsync does (efficient, changes only backups) but also produces strongly encrypted remote backup sets that only you have a key to ... the provider has no access to the data. The borg website is here: https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ and a good description of how it works and why you should use it is here: https://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/ https://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/
    - catherd 6y ago
      When somebody uses borgbackup with you guys, is there any way you can include "hey you have a stale lock file" (that's probably keeping your backup from working) in the automated email that gets sent when disk usage doesn't change?
- 0xCMP 6y ago
  Borg or Restic are good for off site backup, but if you want basically an untrusted storage server Reslio does support "encrypted" folders. The UX is a little hard to figure out sometimes though, it's not open source, and is not free. But very good software.
- myu701 6y ago
  It's on the way. Not done just yet. TL;DR: watch this page: https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/wiki/Untrusted-devices-(encryption)-status https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/wiki/Untrusted-device... Short history: There was 1 attempt to do it which ended with nothing https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/109 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/109 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/4331 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/4331 Then there was a follow-up PR (which I was downright giddy to discover): https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6214 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6214 That PR was just closed yesterday in favor of https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6727 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6727 which is where the current flame of hope burns.
Syzygies 6y ago
I am a long-term user of Unison (https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/) from the command line, to synchronize directories between my machines. If Unison weren't available, from studying the Syncthing documentation it would be my next choice. You wouldn't think that writing synchronization software would be rocket science, but apparently it is: Unison's author is Benjamin C. Pierce, a prominent computer scientist and author of "Types and Programming Languages". Together with an active user community, he makes the correct call on some key design decisions. I have tested many alternatives to expose these issues. I have not tested Syncthing, as this HN post is so poorly titled that it would sync into oblivion before I could complete the tests. I recommend writing your favorite sync software author if you find their handling of these issues problematic, though expect defensive replies. [1] Symbolic links. They should be copied as is, not considered for their semantic content. Would you want sync software taking a half hour break if it found porn on your computer? Why should it think about symbolic links, either? It is your responsibility that they have some meaning on the target machine. Unison and Syncthing copy Unix symbolic links. All other programs wreck them or follow them. It confuses matters that some users beg for such behavior, in hopes of extending the capabilities of sync software beyond their original design. On MacOS an application bundle, not meant to be examined by casual users, can contain internal symbolic links, for example from "latest" to a versioned directory. Software that mangles this will claim that it isn't meant for "system files" as if that is some dangerous art. It is not; they are simply handling symbolic links wrong. [2] "Atomic" directories. If one has for example a MacOS sparse disk image open on two machines, and makes conflicting changes, one cannot simply merge the pieces, deciding arbitrarily on conflicting index files. Think of the movie "The Fly". A sparse disk image is again a directory of many files. This has many advantages, including ease of incremental backup. However, one needs to decide which copy to keep in case of conflict, at the directory level. Unison has a way to declare this. I've never seen other software with this capability. This also applies for example to .git directories. [3] Interactive conflict management. Using Unison, one chooses interactively how to resolve conflicts before committing to the sync. I sync many gigabytes of data, and I have no interest in dealing later with scattered renamed copies of files, many of which matter to automated tools and will never see my manual attention. I either choose a preferred copy at the time of sync, or I abort and fix the problem before the sync. I prefer Unison's handling here to Syncthing.
meroje 6y ago
Good time to remind everyone that the password prompt from Dropbox (in the screenshots, located right below the "Turn on notifications" from the OS) is fake. They pretend to use the password only to turn on accessibility permissions. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dropbox-responds-to-mac-security-risk-accusations-updated.1994702/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dropbox-responds-to-mac...
- dazhbog 6y ago
  Wow i didnt know this! Thanks for the heads up.
- thedirt0115 6y ago
  That looks like it's from 2016 -- is this still the case? (I'm not a Dropbox user, but would like to know)
- pixxel 6y ago
  Gah. That is shitty. I deleted dropbox when Condoleezza Rice joined the board back in 2014ish.
  - ypcx 6y ago
    I've quit Dropbox when they capped the free account to (I think) 3 devices only. I'm now using Mega.nz which has end-to-end encryption and works well. I actually have a paid account with them to backup photos from my phones. My local cloud directory is still named Dropbox.
- Luc 6y ago
  It's not fake, it's using a standard Apple-provided API. They are not stealing your password. As is explained in the link you provided.
LeoPanthera 6y ago
I agree with all of this - except for the part about the iCloud Drive path containing a space being a problem. That should not be a problem, and if it is, it's a huge flaw in the software you are using, and you should file a bug. (Or if it's your software, fix it.) Seriously, UNIX has supported spaces in filenames since the 70s.
- Lammy 6y ago
  It’s not really possible to give a citation for the “feel” of something but I find it very satisfying to limit my frequently-referenced “trunk” path directories to single words.
  - floren 6y ago
    Yes, I also make it a policy that paths should not need any escaping to type.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- TheRealPomax 6y ago
  provided you type them with a slash, in large part confusing the clarity again.
  - LeoPanthera 6y ago
    You can "enclose paths in quotes" and then you don't need to escape the spaces.
    - dredmorbius 6y ago
      Which works fine until that context is quoted, or dequoted, in which case you're back to square one.
- tonsky 6y ago
anderspitman 6y ago
syncthing is an incredible piece of software. It should be noted that: * "Security" changes in recent versions of Android seem designed to kill use cases like syncthing. See links below. * There is no iOS version, as near as I can tell because iOS is already where Android is headed. The crux of the problem is syncthing is a single golang binary, but the only way to manage filesystem permissions on iOS (and now Android) is through tightly controlled OS dialogs, and there is no way to do this from golang. There aren't even NDK APIs for it. The closest thing Android is providing to an escape hatch is "all files access" [5], for which your app has to go through an approval process in order to be put on the play store. If you watch [2], GOOG makes it very clear that they want to minimize the number of apps that obtain this permission. It's unclear to me whether apps installed through FDroid or side-loaded will be able to use that permission at all, or if the APKs must be signed. I'm all for improved security, but never at the cost of controlling what I am ABLE to do with my computer. It's sad that our operating systems are turning into gatekeepers between developers/users and the hardware they "own". [0]: https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/29 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/29 [1]: https://www.xda-developers.com/android-q-storage-access-framework-scoped-storage/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-q-storage-access-fram... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJ3amzJM94& https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJ3amzJM94& [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19506544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19506544 [4]: https://commonsware.com/blog/2019/03/25/death-external-storage-what-now.html https://commonsware.com/blog/2019/03/25/death-external-stora... [5]: https://developer.android.com/preview/privacy/storage#all-files-access https://developer.android.com/preview/privacy/storage#all-fi...
- criddell 6y ago
  > There is no iOS version, as near as I can tell because iOS is already where Android is headed. I don't see why there couldn't be an iOS or Android version. It could work the same way Google Drive and Dropbox work. I also use Qfile on my iPad with my QNAP NAS and it works just fine.
  - anderspitman 6y ago
    There is an Android version, but Android is becoming a toxic environment for it. The reason is because of the way syncthing works. It expects broad access to the filesystem, to add and remove files/directories according to its algorithm. This is perfectly reasonable, but GOOG is killing the ability to do so. EDIT: Re Google Drive on Android: it works by not downloading most files, ie you have to be connected. You can pin files locally, but they go into a special directory controlled by the app. You can't access the files from other apps. For things like syncing a music library this is useless. They have workarounds specific for sharing media files between apps, but why all the complexity? Give me control over where I want to store my files.
anderspitman 6y ago
> Commercial solutions are interested in keeping users locked in and constantly upselling more features to them. As a result of that, you get notifications, features, popups. At this point I'm pretty convinced that non open source software simply isn't viable for end-user applications and tools. The incentives don't work. You always end up with upsells/ads, insane missing features, bad UX, etc. Closed source seems to work fairly well for some things like OSes, games, and perhaps some big-contract B2B, but not for apps.
- swiley 6y ago
  This is exactly the conclusion I’ve come to. If I can’t find it on github (or similar) and build it then it’s probably going to do something weird that I don’t like. I make exceptions for a very small number of games, Minecraft is one. Even then though I usually avoid closed stuff unless I know the game well. I totally disagree that closed source works with OSes, I couldn’t imagine living with OS X or Windows. Sometimes it feels like the people who build those OSes use a special version that isn’t distributed publicly, how else could they leave so much broken?
  - anderspitman 6y ago
    > I totally disagree that closed source works with OSes You might be right, I only rarely leave Linux.
- iak8god 6y ago
  > At this point I'm pretty convinced that non open source software simply isn't viable for end-user applications and tools. I would agree it's not ideal, or maybe even not desirable, but not viable is a very strong claim when the reality is that 99+% of end-users are using almost exclusively close source proprietary applications and tools.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - anderspitman 6y ago
AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
> You download a single binary executable. You run it. There’s no step three. Indeed. I'd like to personally thank probonopd for AppImage making applications on Linux sane, if only for the relatively few projects distributing that way.
dylan-m 6y ago
I set up Syncthing with an extra always-connected node on a NUC and it has been glorious :) Added Nextcloud on there for an easy way to share files with other people, and for more polished photo upload from my phone, contacts and calendar sync. The two work together great. The fact that it's so transparent is an interesting point. I'm very used to Dropbox reminding me it exists all the time, whereas Syncthing just quietly works. (I wouldn't mind if syncthing-gtk provided a bit more information in its dashboard, though, like the number of changes sent / received in the past hour. Sometimes I feel like I'm just trusting that it's doing the right thing).
pyrophane 6y ago
The amount of up-selling is showing me as a paying customer is pretty egregious. Multiple prompts to upgrade to a more expensive plan. Multiple disabled checkboxes and additional prompts about features I can't use because I am only giving ~$120/year.
canistel 6y ago
This strikes a chord, as we too made the switch from Dropbox to Syncthing recently. We also ended up using Syncthing-GTK, which is a cross-platform UI front-end for Syncthing. (For us the process does not get killed in Windows platforms when Syncthing-GTK exits, but we can live with us for the time being.)
_bxg1 6y ago
I've been thinking about switching to a self-hosted solution over the last couple years as Dropbox has gotten increasingly annoying. But I always assumed that would mean spending a weekend fighting with config files and trawling forums, and unlike iCloud, the core product of Dropbox has continued to work well enough for my needs. But after seeing how incredibly simple it is to set up Syncthing, I may go ahead and take the plunge.
- yogthos 6y ago
  I highly recommend NextCloud. It's trivial to set up with Digital Ocean, and I've been using it for a couple of years now without a hiccup. I use it as a file server, calendar, and a media streaming solution.
  - indigodaddy 6y ago
    But then you’re back to client/server model no? I like the idea of syncthing and the p2p/node aspect.
    - yogthos 6y ago
      yeah that's a trade off, but having your own server has some advantages as well since it's always available. Also provides an easy way to share stuff with friends. Syncthing is definitely nice if you just need p2p sync between devices though.
  - rdschouw 6y ago
    Also love you can encrypt your files at rest. Something which Dropbox does not offer.
  - NikolaeVarius 6y ago
    Syncthing vs NextCloud. I guess that nextcloud does alot more than syncthing, but I'm curious about the differences in implementing the file sync.
    - 6y ago
yogthos 6y ago
I've come to realize that open source is the only type of software worth investing into. No matter how great a commercial piece of software might be, sooner or later it's going to either disappear or change in a way that doesn't suit you. Commercial software has to constantly chase profit for the company to stick around. This necessarily means that the product has to continue evolving to chase what's currently in vogue. And if a company fails to do that, then it will die and the software will stopped being developed. This is a bad situation to be in as a user since you have little control over the evolution of a product that you rely on. Instead of the product being adapted to your needs, it's you who has to adapt to the way the product evolves, or spend the time investing in a different product. On the other hand, open source has a very different dynamic. Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they're often developed by the users who themselves benefit from these projects. Projects can also be easily forked and taken in different directions by different groups of users. Even when projects become abandoned, they can be picked up again by new teams. Evolution of GNOME is a great example of this. There are now many flavors of GNOME all catering to different workflows, and users don't have to compromise their preferred way of doing things to chase how GNOME is evolving. Meanwhile, users of Windows or MacOS have very little choice but to continue adjusting to the ways Apple and Microsoft choose to evolve the desktop. Microsoft even uses DMCA to prevent users from doing customization. [1] [1] https://torrentfreak.com/removing-annoying-windows-10-features-is-a-dmca-violation-microsoft-says-200611/ https://torrentfreak.com/removing-annoying-windows-10-featur...
- msla 6y ago
  > Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they're often developed by the users who themselves benefit from these projects. That's true, but I want to point out a different dynamic, which is very important as well: Projects can survive with multiple commercial contributors all active in it at once, and remain useful and not locked down due to a combination of copyleft licensing and companies being willing to share work if it benefits them. The Linux kernel is a prime example of this. > Evolution of GNOME is a great example of this. There are now many flavors of GNOME all catering to different workflows, and users don't have to compromise their preferred way of doing things to chase how GNOME is evolving. Zooming out, any user of an OS which uses X for its GUI can choose from a huge number of different window managers without someone coming along and deleting the ones "nobody uses" in the name of "streamlining the offering" or whatever "marketing synergy" or "confluent paradigm" is in vogue this month.
tjchear 6y ago
I thought about the kinds of system I would like that is no longer the norm today, and that would be low latency UIs, like those text-mode UIs. If I were building a user-oriented web app today, this is what I'd do. Store data locally (using PouchDB or plain localStorage, optionally syncs to remote CouchDB that user owns), with optional MS-DOS era UI (using Bootstrap 386) for clarity and minimal distraction, keyboard shortcuts for all major operations (like Windows' Alt+Letter shortcuts for easy discovery), and avoid implementing user authentication where possible.
pwenzel 6y ago
I love tools like this, but one of the reasons I use Dropbox is that storage and transfer costs are a constant. I also don't have to worry about maintaining a publicly-accessible server in my home. Are there any cloud services that syncthing can connect to that are comparable in cost to that of Dropbox?
- catherd 6y ago
  It's quite easy to let a VPS act as a central hub as long as your use case exactly matches "I want everyone to have full read-write access to everything and they understand things like being careful about simultaneous editing and not moving the shared folder wherever they please." I found trying to manage anything like restricted access to be impossible from a practical standpoint. Debugging what's going on when it doesn't want to sync is not fun. The logs are full of info that seems irrelevant and just finding the config file on Windows is a new adventure on each machine. Not sure why they can't at least show the path in the web UI somewhere. I would have gone with Dropbox, but it's blocked in the country most of us work in. Syncthing mostly gets the job done, but I'd probably pay for Dropbox if I could eliminate the frequent inexplicable 15-30 minute delays from Syncthing. In it's defense, though, the network quality it has to work with is pretty terrible.
jwr 6y ago
I've been using syncthing for several months now, syncing lots of files (code under active development) between a total of five computers, Linux and MacOS. It's been fantastic. It works well, it gets the job done, it doesn't pester you with notifications and upsells. It also doesn't eat all of your CPU/battery by watching changes everywhere, like Dropbox does. And it doesn't try to get at your photos. And other stuff. I have not run into a single problem with it over the course of several months now, which is impressive. I am about to sign up and start sponsoring it on a monthly basis — I started doing this recently with open-source software that I rely on. If everybody chipped in, we'd be in a world of great sustainable software, with people able to make a living on developing solutions like this. BTW, a plug for another similarly impressive piece of software: https://vpncloud.ddswd.de https://vpncloud.ddswd.de — if you need to set up an encrypted VPN between a bunch of servers.
- leipert 6y ago
  To add to their reliability: I have been running it on my Synology NAS and my computers for six years now. I have been switching systems three times, ran it on Android. Never had a hiccup. Will probably contribute some money to the project tomorrow.
- smichel17 6y ago
  > If everybody chipped in, we'd be in a world of great sustainable software, with people able to make a living on developing solutions like this. This is exactly the goal of Snowdrift.coop. (Disclaimer: I am a volunteer contributor and "replacement cofounder"). Unfortunately, not many people currently do donate. We posit that there's order(s) of magnitude more people who are willing to donate, but not willing to be the "sucker" who donates while others free-ride. (The game theory term for what they're after is mutual assurance). Fundamentally it's a coordination problem. To solve it, we need a mechanism that allows those folks to say, "I'm willing to do my bit, but only if others do theirs." Snowdrift.coop is a crowdfunding platform (in development) that aims to provide such a mechanism. We call it crowdmatching. To support a project, patrons pledge to give a monthly donation of $1 per 1000 patrons of that same project. By pledging to match others, you invite them to join you, so we can reach that world of great sustainable software. And if they don't, you're left with a tiny bill, so it's safe to pledge to all the projects you'd like to support, without worrying that your lone $10/month is going to a project where it won't really move the needle. There are two "safety measures" that are not part of crowdmatching, but I have to mention (opinions tend to be split on whether they are too obvious to be worth mentioning or too important not to say up front): - You can set a monthly limit so you're not on the hook for more than you can afford. - At low levels, donations are sometimes delayed and pooled (charged in arrears) to minimize processing fees. I'll stop here to keep this a reasonable length, but will check back later and follow-up with replies. If you don't want to wait, I'd suggest reading down the list at https://wiki.snowdrift.coop https://wiki.snowdrift.coop until you get as far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Finally, we can use help getting all the way launched, especially if you're experienced with css or haskell (or, on the off chance, are a layer interested in doing pro bono work and/or serving on our board).
betimsl 6y ago
upspin from Go people is also a good one.
jason0597 6y ago
What the author doesn't realise is that Dropbox is not aimed at programmers or people who know how to work a computer. For example, when he says "And Dropbox? Well… I still have nightmares about this Dropbox UI <picture>", he doesn't realise that to a "normal" person, the UI looks absolutely fine and easy to use, much easier than "that horrible looking terminal! it must contain viruses and be dangerous!"
- cocoa19 6y ago
  With all due respect, I think you missed the point. This is not a terminal vs GUI problem. He's discussing a 1 step process (terminal) vs 10-15 step process (GUI). If Dropbox allowed you to install in 1 single step, I'm sure the author wouldn't be as vocal.
  - ketzu 6y ago
    The ignorance about the reasons for those steps and the way they count feels disingenuous to me. Examples: At the end of the installation of both pieces of software, you did not accomplish the same things. Complications of ST (device id's for example) are presented as good solutions to a problem, glossing over the fact that the others wouldn't need them or they were counted towards the setup.
- tonsky 6y ago
  The problem with Dropbox is that I have to go to that UI and explicitly exclude each target/classes folder after I create a new project. And I have to do it on every machine. With syncthing it’s just a regexp that will work for existing and all future folders automatically
  - jpalomaki 6y ago
    Dropbox has added ignore feature. Works also from command line. https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignore...
seaghost 6y ago
Synching but with cloud storage support like B2 or S3 compatibility is what I need.
- leipert 6y ago
  I sync my files to a Synology NAS with syncthing and have another app uploading to B2 for Backups. Works wonderfully.
- ledauphin 6y ago
  this could quite easily be built on top of Syncthing, even as a simple sidecar daemon script
Epskampie 6y ago
Does syncthing still use filesystem polling to detect changes? That's what turned me off it last time I tried it. Now I'm using Resilio Sync, but would prefer an open source solution.
- karlicoss 6y ago
  it's had inotify support for several years now
jftuga 6y ago
ST works great with my Android phone and syncing to my Windows 10 PC. What is a good solution to sync photos, music, contacts, etc from an iPhone to a PC? There is not a ST app for iPhones.
elagost 6y ago
Been using syncthing as a dropbox replacement since 2017 - It scales from a raspberry pi with a USB disk, to a docker container on my NAS. It even works if the devices aren't on the same network via relays. It has very low system load, there are basically zero dependencies, and you can run it on your android phone too.
nordicdyno 6y ago
«I can’t run bazel, etc. Useless.» Can't agree more on bazel's usefulness :troll:
AtlasBarfed 6y ago
"Control it by editing XML config" NOOOOOOOOOOO! So close! Ack! The example is blinding my eyes! The example even shows arbitrary attribute-heavy vs tag-heavy mixing. Truly a blast from the past.
coffeeling 6y ago
This honestly sounds like "FOSS advocate yells at cloud". Many things the article paints as bad are pretty much "I like vanilla ice cream" level arguments, not actual faults. eg. log in vs. generate and exchange codes. "Sharing is so easy, just exchange public keys". Yes, and sharing with a serverside cloud storage solution is as easy as giving someone the link or typing their email into a share dialog, and I don't have to do jack anymore. It's completely onesided to share files is wanted and need be. Not liking a default share folder is, again, personal preference. Having a dedicated cloud storage folder is nice and clear to most people. Being able to pick and choose is a legit advantage, though. > How do you connect two devices, if there’s no registration, accounts, email, etc? Simple! > Each device has a unique id, generated automatically when you first run the program. > Share this id with another device, let them share their, and you are good to go. Totally easier than typing your account info, right? Also means you have to install an app while with traditional storage services you can just log into a webpage and grab what you need. > More “features”: > > Desktop sync, > Photos sync, > Screenshots sync. > > These are at least file-like? I don’t understand why they have to be “special features”, though, > if you already have an app whose primary task is to sync files. It already does that. Why are some files more special than others? > > The answer is simple: the only way Dropbox can survive is by building and selling more features. You’ll never have peace of mind with them. Highly tech-savvy FOSS advocate is oblivious to the existence of non-UNIX operating systems. Most of these are summarizable as "Dropbox sucks" more than "cloud storage services suck."
- mrzool 6y ago
  Dropbox does suck though.
magwa101 6y ago
The computer has become a commercial ad delivery device. No doubt. These days work on my computers makes me feel like I'm in AdOps optimizing their ad delivery to me.
GeeDeezy 6y ago
1) I agree with what you shared mostly, and I love SyncThing! 2) I think you over exaggerated how difficult DropBox is. For typical users, just selecting the defaults is good enough, and let's be honest DP is pretty rock solid. 3) I think you WAY under exaggerated how technical setting up SyncThing is .. for non-technical users. It was a stretch for me, it would be a nightmare for most of my users. 4) If ST is reliable (I am testing now), I can see some place I would like to use it. Take care! Gary
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mileusna1 6y ago
About .stignore ... Dropbox actually offers tool for power user to exclude files from syncing, and no, it is not the tool in UI from you post. As a developer I use it a lot to exclude folders bloated with compiler/linker temp files from syncing. https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignore...
m4rc3lv 6y ago
Nice program. Too bad it can not sync with a phone.
- antepodius 6y ago
  It can! At least, there are android apps for it. I don't know about ios.
rcarmo 6y ago
For the record, since nobody mentioned it in the past three days or so, SyncThing does not sync extended attributes, which makes it lose data (mostly metadata, but _useful_ metadata like file tags, and other info that traditional apps store alongside the data fork) when syncing some macOS files. YMMV, but right now it find it more useful for source code trees than media projects (or any kind of macOS bundle).

306 points by mrzool 6y ago

dddw 6y ago

I've tried switching to syncthing, but it consumed so many CPU cycles that I deed it unusable eventually

athorax 6y ago

Title might be better as: Syncthing is everything I used to love about computers.

tromp 6y ago
Yes, I thought this was going to be about the great hobby computers of the 80s, with approachable built-in BASIC interpreters.
- tmountain 6y ago
  Same, a favorite topic no less.
  - retro64 6y ago
    As mine. I'll just leave this here for any other disappointed folks. Mega65 is due to begin taking orders for dev kits next week. I am so stoked: https://mega65.org/ https://mega65.org/ (note that dev kits do not include the final molded case, that should be coming later)
- pvg 6y ago
  A title that isn't deliberately misleading but turns out to be about something other than what you expected is probably a good thing, more often than not.
jonpurdy 6y ago
Title sucks, but I did enjoy reading the review. I'm a Dropbox user since 2009 who recently switched to iCloud Drive. I miss the old Dropbox that just worked and stayed out of the way. Once Dropbox rebranded (2017?) I knew it was the beginning of the end. I cancelled my subscription a couple of years ago and just kept it around for syncing preferences, which I ditched a couple of months ago. iCloud Drive works well enough, but it doesn't indicate whether files are synced (with a checkmark like Dropbox used to do). I typically avoid Apple software because in trying to simplify it they end up making it vastly overcomplicated. I've heard good things about NextCloud but didn't want to self-host. I've tried SpiderOak and Google Drive before and both were just too slow (and Google Drive was very flakey).
- java-man 6y ago
  I use sync.com Canadian, so five eyes. Not end to end encypted, so probably the same level of security as Dropbox or iCloud.
  - archenary 6y ago
    Sync.com claims to be end-to-end encrypted [0]. Is there any indication they are not? [0] https://www.sync.com/your-privacy/ https://www.sync.com/your-privacy/
    - java-man 6y ago
      JS gets loaded from a sync server, no verifiable open source client, no documentation explaining security architecture. It may or may not be E2E encrypted.
- UnpossibleJim 6y ago
  So, if I might ask, what people are looking for (in simplest terms): a cloud synching platform that is cross platform, with a decent (or better) UI and a good indicator, that has end to end encryption. To be honest, given the proper team, that doesn't seem like the hardest bill to fill. I will admit, though, finding a tech company that is willing to spend money decent interface and graphic designers is sometimes difficult, but not impossible.
  - njharman 6y ago
    > with a decent (or better) UI I want no UI. It should transparently work like any other filesystem.
    - rsync 6y ago
      I believe this already exists in the form of 'rclone'[1] and I believe that we[2] are the only cloud storage provider that explicitly supports it[3]. Which is to say, we built the 'rclone' binary into our environment such that you can run it remotely: ssh user@rsync.net rclone s3:/bucket/blah /rsync/dir [1] https://rclone.org/ https://rclone.org/ [2] https://www.rsync.net/products/universal.html https://www.rsync.net/products/universal.html [3] https://www.rsync.net/products/rclone.html https://www.rsync.net/products/rclone.html
dang 6y ago
I was just considering making that change when I saw your comment. Good idea! We've changed the title above to that, which is a sentence from the article which more accurately represents what it's about.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago

> Syncthing has reminded me how great computers can be if they are not made by corporations. It’s simple, predictable, sane, acts no-nonsense. Says someone running MacOS.

tonsky 6y ago
macOS becomes more and more crap, but does it mean I can’t express my opinion about other programs anymore?

dreamcompiler 6y ago

I applaud everything in this article except this: > Calendar sync? Why on Earth would FILE SYNCHRONIZATION application wants to access my calendar? It's very handy to have shared calendars across multiple devices. Dropbox's advertised solution for this is garbage because I have no interest in letting Google or Outlook manage my calendars. But there's another solution that used to work with Dropbox that doesn't any more. And the breakage is Apple's fault, not Dropbox's. Say you have two Macs and you want their Calendar apps to be in sync. Further, you don't want to use iCloud because you know from painful experience that Apple has no idea how to sync anything properly. It used to be possible to move ~/Library/Calendars to Dropbox and put a folder symlink in its place. If you do this on both machines, Dropbox automagically syncs your calendars. But in later versions of MacOS when you replace Library folders with symlinks the apps in question stop working. Thanks Apple. Looks like Syncthing might fix this problem for me again, and I won't even need Dropbox any more.

flyx86 6y ago
> It's very handy to have shared calendars across multiple devices. CalDAV should have you covered there. While the need for a server may be a bit inconvenient, I doubt that usability would be on par with it when you just copy the files instead (think of alerts, sharing calendars with others, etc). Also, there is no iOS Syncthing client when your phone probably is the most important device to have your calendars on.
tonsky 6y ago
I didn’t realize local calendars are still a thing. I though they are all hosted. That’s why I didn’t understand what was offered there

butz 6y ago

Is there any way to sync encrypted data to non-trusted server with Syncthing? I would like to have encrypted off-site backup.

LeoPanthera 6y ago
"borg" is the tool for one-way encrypted backup, not syncthing.
- rsync 6y ago
  I think you should look into the 'borg' backup tool - it has become the de facto standard for remote backups because it does everything that rsync does (efficient, changes only backups) but also produces strongly encrypted remote backup sets that only you have a key to ... the provider has no access to the data. The borg website is here: https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ https://borgbackup.readthedocs.io/en/stable/ and a good description of how it works and why you should use it is here: https://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/ https://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/
  - catherd 6y ago
    When somebody uses borgbackup with you guys, is there any way you can include "hey you have a stale lock file" (that's probably keeping your backup from working) in the automated email that gets sent when disk usage doesn't change?
0xCMP 6y ago
Borg or Restic are good for off site backup, but if you want basically an untrusted storage server Reslio does support "encrypted" folders. The UX is a little hard to figure out sometimes though, it's not open source, and is not free. But very good software.
myu701 6y ago
It's on the way. Not done just yet. TL;DR: watch this page: https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/wiki/Untrusted-devices-(encryption)-status https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/wiki/Untrusted-device... Short history: There was 1 attempt to do it which ended with nothing https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/109 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/109 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/4331 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/4331 Then there was a follow-up PR (which I was downright giddy to discover): https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6214 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6214 That PR was just closed yesterday in favor of https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6727 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/pull/6727 which is where the current flame of hope burns.

Syzygies 6y ago

I am a long-term user of Unison (https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/) from the command line, to synchronize directories between my machines. If Unison weren't available, from studying the Syncthing documentation it would be my next choice. You wouldn't think that writing synchronization software would be rocket science, but apparently it is: Unison's author is Benjamin C. Pierce, a prominent computer scientist and author of "Types and Programming Languages". Together with an active user community, he makes the correct call on some key design decisions. I have tested many alternatives to expose these issues. I have not tested Syncthing, as this HN post is so poorly titled that it would sync into oblivion before I could complete the tests. I recommend writing your favorite sync software author if you find their handling of these issues problematic, though expect defensive replies. [1] Symbolic links. They should be copied as is, not considered for their semantic content. Would you want sync software taking a half hour break if it found porn on your computer? Why should it think about symbolic links, either? It is your responsibility that they have some meaning on the target machine. Unison and Syncthing copy Unix symbolic links. All other programs wreck them or follow them. It confuses matters that some users beg for such behavior, in hopes of extending the capabilities of sync software beyond their original design. On MacOS an application bundle, not meant to be examined by casual users, can contain internal symbolic links, for example from "latest" to a versioned directory. Software that mangles this will claim that it isn't meant for "system files" as if that is some dangerous art. It is not; they are simply handling symbolic links wrong. [2] "Atomic" directories. If one has for example a MacOS sparse disk image open on two machines, and makes conflicting changes, one cannot simply merge the pieces, deciding arbitrarily on conflicting index files. Think of the movie "The Fly". A sparse disk image is again a directory of many files. This has many advantages, including ease of incremental backup. However, one needs to decide which copy to keep in case of conflict, at the directory level. Unison has a way to declare this. I've never seen other software with this capability. This also applies for example to .git directories. [3] Interactive conflict management. Using Unison, one chooses interactively how to resolve conflicts before committing to the sync. I sync many gigabytes of data, and I have no interest in dealing later with scattered renamed copies of files, many of which matter to automated tools and will never see my manual attention. I either choose a preferred copy at the time of sync, or I abort and fix the problem before the sync. I prefer Unison's handling here to Syncthing.

meroje 6y ago

Good time to remind everyone that the password prompt from Dropbox (in the screenshots, located right below the "Turn on notifications" from the OS) is fake. They pretend to use the password only to turn on accessibility permissions. https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dropbox-responds-to-mac-security-risk-accusations-updated.1994702/ https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dropbox-responds-to-mac...

dazhbog 6y ago
Wow i didnt know this! Thanks for the heads up.
thedirt0115 6y ago
That looks like it's from 2016 -- is this still the case? (I'm not a Dropbox user, but would like to know)
pixxel 6y ago
Gah. That is shitty. I deleted dropbox when Condoleezza Rice joined the board back in 2014ish.
- ypcx 6y ago
  I've quit Dropbox when they capped the free account to (I think) 3 devices only. I'm now using Mega.nz which has end-to-end encryption and works well. I actually have a paid account with them to backup photos from my phones. My local cloud directory is still named Dropbox.
Luc 6y ago
It's not fake, it's using a standard Apple-provided API. They are not stealing your password. As is explained in the link you provided.

LeoPanthera 6y ago

I agree with all of this - except for the part about the iCloud Drive path containing a space being a problem. That should not be a problem, and if it is, it's a huge flaw in the software you are using, and you should file a bug. (Or if it's your software, fix it.) Seriously, UNIX has supported spaces in filenames since the 70s.

Lammy 6y ago
It’s not really possible to give a citation for the “feel” of something but I find it very satisfying to limit my frequently-referenced “trunk” path directories to single words.
- floren 6y ago
  Yes, I also make it a policy that paths should not need any escaping to type.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
TheRealPomax 6y ago
provided you type them with a slash, in large part confusing the clarity again.
- LeoPanthera 6y ago
  You can "enclose paths in quotes" and then you don't need to escape the spaces.
  - dredmorbius 6y ago
    Which works fine until that context is quoted, or dequoted, in which case you're back to square one.
tonsky 6y ago

anderspitman 6y ago

syncthing is an incredible piece of software. It should be noted that: * "Security" changes in recent versions of Android seem designed to kill use cases like syncthing. See links below. * There is no iOS version, as near as I can tell because iOS is already where Android is headed. The crux of the problem is syncthing is a single golang binary, but the only way to manage filesystem permissions on iOS (and now Android) is through tightly controlled OS dialogs, and there is no way to do this from golang. There aren't even NDK APIs for it. The closest thing Android is providing to an escape hatch is "all files access" [5], for which your app has to go through an approval process in order to be put on the play store. If you watch [2], GOOG makes it very clear that they want to minimize the number of apps that obtain this permission. It's unclear to me whether apps installed through FDroid or side-loaded will be able to use that permission at all, or if the APKs must be signed. I'm all for improved security, but never at the cost of controlling what I am ABLE to do with my computer. It's sad that our operating systems are turning into gatekeepers between developers/users and the hardware they "own". [0]: https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/29 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/29 [1]: https://www.xda-developers.com/android-q-storage-access-framework-scoped-storage/ https://www.xda-developers.com/android-q-storage-access-fram... [2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJ3amzJM94& https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnJ3amzJM94& [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19506544 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19506544 [4]: https://commonsware.com/blog/2019/03/25/death-external-storage-what-now.html https://commonsware.com/blog/2019/03/25/death-external-stora... [5]: https://developer.android.com/preview/privacy/storage#all-files-access https://developer.android.com/preview/privacy/storage#all-fi...

criddell 6y ago
> There is no iOS version, as near as I can tell because iOS is already where Android is headed. I don't see why there couldn't be an iOS or Android version. It could work the same way Google Drive and Dropbox work. I also use Qfile on my iPad with my QNAP NAS and it works just fine.
- anderspitman 6y ago
  There is an Android version, but Android is becoming a toxic environment for it. The reason is because of the way syncthing works. It expects broad access to the filesystem, to add and remove files/directories according to its algorithm. This is perfectly reasonable, but GOOG is killing the ability to do so. EDIT: Re Google Drive on Android: it works by not downloading most files, ie you have to be connected. You can pin files locally, but they go into a special directory controlled by the app. You can't access the files from other apps. For things like syncing a music library this is useless. They have workarounds specific for sharing media files between apps, but why all the complexity? Give me control over where I want to store my files.

anderspitman 6y ago

> Commercial solutions are interested in keeping users locked in and constantly upselling more features to them. As a result of that, you get notifications, features, popups. At this point I'm pretty convinced that non open source software simply isn't viable for end-user applications and tools. The incentives don't work. You always end up with upsells/ads, insane missing features, bad UX, etc. Closed source seems to work fairly well for some things like OSes, games, and perhaps some big-contract B2B, but not for apps.

swiley 6y ago
This is exactly the conclusion I’ve come to. If I can’t find it on github (or similar) and build it then it’s probably going to do something weird that I don’t like. I make exceptions for a very small number of games, Minecraft is one. Even then though I usually avoid closed stuff unless I know the game well. I totally disagree that closed source works with OSes, I couldn’t imagine living with OS X or Windows. Sometimes it feels like the people who build those OSes use a special version that isn’t distributed publicly, how else could they leave so much broken?
- anderspitman 6y ago
  > I totally disagree that closed source works with OSes You might be right, I only rarely leave Linux.
iak8god 6y ago
> At this point I'm pretty convinced that non open source software simply isn't viable for end-user applications and tools. I would agree it's not ideal, or maybe even not desirable, but not viable is a very strong claim when the reality is that 99+% of end-users are using almost exclusively close source proprietary applications and tools.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- anderspitman 6y ago

AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago

> You download a single binary executable. You run it. There’s no step three. Indeed. I'd like to personally thank probonopd for AppImage making applications on Linux sane, if only for the relatively few projects distributing that way.

dylan-m 6y ago

I set up Syncthing with an extra always-connected node on a NUC and it has been glorious :) Added Nextcloud on there for an easy way to share files with other people, and for more polished photo upload from my phone, contacts and calendar sync. The two work together great. The fact that it's so transparent is an interesting point. I'm very used to Dropbox reminding me it exists all the time, whereas Syncthing just quietly works. (I wouldn't mind if syncthing-gtk provided a bit more information in its dashboard, though, like the number of changes sent / received in the past hour. Sometimes I feel like I'm just trusting that it's doing the right thing).

pyrophane 6y ago

The amount of up-selling is showing me as a paying customer is pretty egregious. Multiple prompts to upgrade to a more expensive plan. Multiple disabled checkboxes and additional prompts about features I can't use because I am only giving ~$120/year.

canistel 6y ago

This strikes a chord, as we too made the switch from Dropbox to Syncthing recently. We also ended up using Syncthing-GTK, which is a cross-platform UI front-end for Syncthing. (For us the process does not get killed in Windows platforms when Syncthing-GTK exits, but we can live with us for the time being.)

_bxg1 6y ago

I've been thinking about switching to a self-hosted solution over the last couple years as Dropbox has gotten increasingly annoying. But I always assumed that would mean spending a weekend fighting with config files and trawling forums, and unlike iCloud, the core product of Dropbox has continued to work well enough for my needs. But after seeing how incredibly simple it is to set up Syncthing, I may go ahead and take the plunge.

yogthos 6y ago
I highly recommend NextCloud. It's trivial to set up with Digital Ocean, and I've been using it for a couple of years now without a hiccup. I use it as a file server, calendar, and a media streaming solution.
- indigodaddy 6y ago
  But then you’re back to client/server model no? I like the idea of syncthing and the p2p/node aspect.
  - yogthos 6y ago
    yeah that's a trade off, but having your own server has some advantages as well since it's always available. Also provides an easy way to share stuff with friends. Syncthing is definitely nice if you just need p2p sync between devices though.
- rdschouw 6y ago
  Also love you can encrypt your files at rest. Something which Dropbox does not offer.
- NikolaeVarius 6y ago
  Syncthing vs NextCloud. I guess that nextcloud does alot more than syncthing, but I'm curious about the differences in implementing the file sync.
  - 6y ago

yogthos 6y ago

I've come to realize that open source is the only type of software worth investing into. No matter how great a commercial piece of software might be, sooner or later it's going to either disappear or change in a way that doesn't suit you. Commercial software has to constantly chase profit for the company to stick around. This necessarily means that the product has to continue evolving to chase what's currently in vogue. And if a company fails to do that, then it will die and the software will stopped being developed. This is a bad situation to be in as a user since you have little control over the evolution of a product that you rely on. Instead of the product being adapted to your needs, it's you who has to adapt to the way the product evolves, or spend the time investing in a different product. On the other hand, open source has a very different dynamic. Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they're often developed by the users who themselves benefit from these projects. Projects can also be easily forked and taken in different directions by different groups of users. Even when projects become abandoned, they can be picked up again by new teams. Evolution of GNOME is a great example of this. There are now many flavors of GNOME all catering to different workflows, and users don't have to compromise their preferred way of doing things to chase how GNOME is evolving. Meanwhile, users of Windows or MacOS have very little choice but to continue adjusting to the ways Apple and Microsoft choose to evolve the desktop. Microsoft even uses DMCA to prevent users from doing customization. [1] [1] https://torrentfreak.com/removing-annoying-windows-10-features-is-a-dmca-violation-microsoft-says-200611/ https://torrentfreak.com/removing-annoying-windows-10-featur...

msla 6y ago
> Projects can survive with little or no commercial incentive because they're often developed by the users who themselves benefit from these projects. That's true, but I want to point out a different dynamic, which is very important as well: Projects can survive with multiple commercial contributors all active in it at once, and remain useful and not locked down due to a combination of copyleft licensing and companies being willing to share work if it benefits them. The Linux kernel is a prime example of this. > Evolution of GNOME is a great example of this. There are now many flavors of GNOME all catering to different workflows, and users don't have to compromise their preferred way of doing things to chase how GNOME is evolving. Zooming out, any user of an OS which uses X for its GUI can choose from a huge number of different window managers without someone coming along and deleting the ones "nobody uses" in the name of "streamlining the offering" or whatever "marketing synergy" or "confluent paradigm" is in vogue this month.

tjchear 6y ago

I thought about the kinds of system I would like that is no longer the norm today, and that would be low latency UIs, like those text-mode UIs. If I were building a user-oriented web app today, this is what I'd do. Store data locally (using PouchDB or plain localStorage, optionally syncs to remote CouchDB that user owns), with optional MS-DOS era UI (using Bootstrap 386) for clarity and minimal distraction, keyboard shortcuts for all major operations (like Windows' Alt+Letter shortcuts for easy discovery), and avoid implementing user authentication where possible.

pwenzel 6y ago

I love tools like this, but one of the reasons I use Dropbox is that storage and transfer costs are a constant. I also don't have to worry about maintaining a publicly-accessible server in my home. Are there any cloud services that syncthing can connect to that are comparable in cost to that of Dropbox?

catherd 6y ago
It's quite easy to let a VPS act as a central hub as long as your use case exactly matches "I want everyone to have full read-write access to everything and they understand things like being careful about simultaneous editing and not moving the shared folder wherever they please." I found trying to manage anything like restricted access to be impossible from a practical standpoint. Debugging what's going on when it doesn't want to sync is not fun. The logs are full of info that seems irrelevant and just finding the config file on Windows is a new adventure on each machine. Not sure why they can't at least show the path in the web UI somewhere. I would have gone with Dropbox, but it's blocked in the country most of us work in. Syncthing mostly gets the job done, but I'd probably pay for Dropbox if I could eliminate the frequent inexplicable 15-30 minute delays from Syncthing. In it's defense, though, the network quality it has to work with is pretty terrible.

jwr 6y ago

I've been using syncthing for several months now, syncing lots of files (code under active development) between a total of five computers, Linux and MacOS. It's been fantastic. It works well, it gets the job done, it doesn't pester you with notifications and upsells. It also doesn't eat all of your CPU/battery by watching changes everywhere, like Dropbox does. And it doesn't try to get at your photos. And other stuff. I have not run into a single problem with it over the course of several months now, which is impressive. I am about to sign up and start sponsoring it on a monthly basis — I started doing this recently with open-source software that I rely on. If everybody chipped in, we'd be in a world of great sustainable software, with people able to make a living on developing solutions like this. BTW, a plug for another similarly impressive piece of software: https://vpncloud.ddswd.de https://vpncloud.ddswd.de — if you need to set up an encrypted VPN between a bunch of servers.

leipert 6y ago
To add to their reliability: I have been running it on my Synology NAS and my computers for six years now. I have been switching systems three times, ran it on Android. Never had a hiccup. Will probably contribute some money to the project tomorrow.
smichel17 6y ago
> If everybody chipped in, we'd be in a world of great sustainable software, with people able to make a living on developing solutions like this. This is exactly the goal of Snowdrift.coop. (Disclaimer: I am a volunteer contributor and "replacement cofounder"). Unfortunately, not many people currently do donate. We posit that there's order(s) of magnitude more people who are willing to donate, but not willing to be the "sucker" who donates while others free-ride. (The game theory term for what they're after is mutual assurance). Fundamentally it's a coordination problem. To solve it, we need a mechanism that allows those folks to say, "I'm willing to do my bit, but only if others do theirs." Snowdrift.coop is a crowdfunding platform (in development) that aims to provide such a mechanism. We call it crowdmatching. To support a project, patrons pledge to give a monthly donation of $1 per 1000 patrons of that same project. By pledging to match others, you invite them to join you, so we can reach that world of great sustainable software. And if they don't, you're left with a tiny bill, so it's safe to pledge to all the projects you'd like to support, without worrying that your lone $10/month is going to a project where it won't really move the needle. There are two "safety measures" that are not part of crowdmatching, but I have to mention (opinions tend to be split on whether they are too obvious to be worth mentioning or too important not to say up front): - You can set a monthly limit so you're not on the hook for more than you can afford. - At low levels, donations are sometimes delayed and pooled (charged in arrears) to minimize processing fees. I'll stop here to keep this a reasonable length, but will check back later and follow-up with replies. If you don't want to wait, I'd suggest reading down the list at https://wiki.snowdrift.coop https://wiki.snowdrift.coop until you get as far down the rabbit hole you want to go. Finally, we can use help getting all the way launched, especially if you're experienced with css or haskell (or, on the off chance, are a layer interested in doing pro bono work and/or serving on our board).

betimsl 6y ago

upspin from Go people is also a good one.

jason0597 6y ago

What the author doesn't realise is that Dropbox is not aimed at programmers or people who know how to work a computer. For example, when he says "And Dropbox? Well… I still have nightmares about this Dropbox UI <picture>", he doesn't realise that to a "normal" person, the UI looks absolutely fine and easy to use, much easier than "that horrible looking terminal! it must contain viruses and be dangerous!"

cocoa19 6y ago
With all due respect, I think you missed the point. This is not a terminal vs GUI problem. He's discussing a 1 step process (terminal) vs 10-15 step process (GUI). If Dropbox allowed you to install in 1 single step, I'm sure the author wouldn't be as vocal.
- ketzu 6y ago
  The ignorance about the reasons for those steps and the way they count feels disingenuous to me. Examples: At the end of the installation of both pieces of software, you did not accomplish the same things. Complications of ST (device id's for example) are presented as good solutions to a problem, glossing over the fact that the others wouldn't need them or they were counted towards the setup.
tonsky 6y ago
The problem with Dropbox is that I have to go to that UI and explicitly exclude each target/classes folder after I create a new project. And I have to do it on every machine. With syncthing it’s just a regexp that will work for existing and all future folders automatically
- jpalomaki 6y ago
  Dropbox has added ignore feature. Works also from command line. https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignore...

seaghost 6y ago

Synching but with cloud storage support like B2 or S3 compatibility is what I need.

leipert 6y ago
I sync my files to a Synology NAS with syncthing and have another app uploading to B2 for Backups. Works wonderfully.
ledauphin 6y ago
this could quite easily be built on top of Syncthing, even as a simple sidecar daemon script

Epskampie 6y ago

Does syncthing still use filesystem polling to detect changes? That's what turned me off it last time I tried it. Now I'm using Resilio Sync, but would prefer an open source solution.

karlicoss 6y ago
it's had inotify support for several years now

jftuga 6y ago

ST works great with my Android phone and syncing to my Windows 10 PC. What is a good solution to sync photos, music, contacts, etc from an iPhone to a PC? There is not a ST app for iPhones.

elagost 6y ago

Been using syncthing as a dropbox replacement since 2017 - It scales from a raspberry pi with a USB disk, to a docker container on my NAS. It even works if the devices aren't on the same network via relays. It has very low system load, there are basically zero dependencies, and you can run it on your android phone too.

nordicdyno 6y ago

«I can’t run bazel, etc. Useless.» Can't agree more on bazel's usefulness :troll:

AtlasBarfed 6y ago

"Control it by editing XML config" NOOOOOOOOOOO! So close! Ack! The example is blinding my eyes! The example even shows arbitrary attribute-heavy vs tag-heavy mixing. Truly a blast from the past.

coffeeling 6y ago

This honestly sounds like "FOSS advocate yells at cloud". Many things the article paints as bad are pretty much "I like vanilla ice cream" level arguments, not actual faults. eg. log in vs. generate and exchange codes. "Sharing is so easy, just exchange public keys". Yes, and sharing with a serverside cloud storage solution is as easy as giving someone the link or typing their email into a share dialog, and I don't have to do jack anymore. It's completely onesided to share files is wanted and need be. Not liking a default share folder is, again, personal preference. Having a dedicated cloud storage folder is nice and clear to most people. Being able to pick and choose is a legit advantage, though. > How do you connect two devices, if there’s no registration, accounts, email, etc? Simple! > Each device has a unique id, generated automatically when you first run the program. > Share this id with another device, let them share their, and you are good to go. Totally easier than typing your account info, right? Also means you have to install an app while with traditional storage services you can just log into a webpage and grab what you need. > More “features”: > > Desktop sync, > Photos sync, > Screenshots sync. > > These are at least file-like? I don’t understand why they have to be “special features”, though, > if you already have an app whose primary task is to sync files. It already does that. Why are some files more special than others? > > The answer is simple: the only way Dropbox can survive is by building and selling more features. You’ll never have peace of mind with them. Highly tech-savvy FOSS advocate is oblivious to the existence of non-UNIX operating systems. Most of these are summarizable as "Dropbox sucks" more than "cloud storage services suck."

mrzool 6y ago
Dropbox does suck though.

magwa101 6y ago

The computer has become a commercial ad delivery device. No doubt. These days work on my computers makes me feel like I'm in AdOps optimizing their ad delivery to me.

GeeDeezy 6y ago

1) I agree with what you shared mostly, and I love SyncThing! 2) I think you over exaggerated how difficult DropBox is. For typical users, just selecting the defaults is good enough, and let's be honest DP is pretty rock solid. 3) I think you WAY under exaggerated how technical setting up SyncThing is .. for non-technical users. It was a stretch for me, it would be a nightmare for most of my users. 4) If ST is reliable (I am testing now), I can see some place I would like to use it. Take care! Gary

deleted 6y ago

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mileusna1 6y ago

About .stignore ... Dropbox actually offers tool for power user to exclude files from syncing, and no, it is not the tool in UI from you post. As a developer I use it a lot to exclude folders bloated with compiler/linker temp files from syncing. https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignored-files https://help.dropbox.com/files-folders/restore-delete/ignore...

m4rc3lv 6y ago

Nice program. Too bad it can not sync with a phone.

antepodius 6y ago
It can! At least, there are android apps for it. I don't know about ios.

rcarmo 6y ago

For the record, since nobody mentioned it in the past three days or so, SyncThing does not sync extended attributes, which makes it lose data (mostly metadata, but _useful_ metadata like file tags, and other info that traditional apps store alongside the data fork) when syncing some macOS files. YMMV, but right now it find it more useful for source code trees than media projects (or any kind of macOS bundle).