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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 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.
  - criddell 6y ago
    Do you think Dropbox is going to stop working on Android?
    - anderspitman 6y ago
      Well I don't use it so I'm not sure what functionality it currently has. It depends on if it stores any files outside its app directory, and if it needs files to be accessible from other apps. I would suspect though that apps like Dropbox won't have much trouble getting "All files access" approval, so they should be fine in any case.
      - criddell 6y ago
        Is "all files access" actually something that an app can be granted? Seems dangerous.
        anderspitman 6y ago
        GOOG agrees with you, and so do I for the most part. That's the way Android worked until recently. Any app (with storage permissions) could store anything in shared locations (except SD cards; those have always had these issues), and could mess with other apps' data in these locations. I'm not saying this isn't a security concern. I'm saying they've thrown the user control baby out with the security concern bath water. Why not have a designated area where apps can share whatever they want, and warn the user that information there can be seen by any app?
necrotic_comp 6y ago
This is my main issue with using something like Syncthing. I have several computers that I use daily - a Windows machine for some work and most of my music, a Linux box as my daily driver, and my Andriod phone/tablets for watching videos and interacting with the physical world. All of these are synced through Dropbox, and I have the confidence that 1) my files are backed up on a server that I don't own 2) the software will be updated and continue to work across all the disparate machines I currently own and will own in the future. I don't doubt that Syncthing will work on Linux super-well, but Windows, Android, and IOS can be picky and not play well with open source. It scares me off a bit from using it.
- anderspitman 6y ago
  Forgive me if I'm missing something, but I'm not sure how this is connected to Android locking down filesystem access? To your point, I've been using restic/rclone to backup my syncthing directory tree to Backblaze B2. That's worked quite well and is cheap. Also I have a question. For Dropbox on Android, are your Dropbox files accessible from other apps? I'm pretty sure that's not possible.
  - necrotic_comp 6y ago
    Short version is - I both automatically back up a lot of data and manually export items from Android, and also use the app to grab files (i.e. PDFs or audio) that I don't necessarily want persisted. My understanding from the parent is that if the Android ecosystem becomes toxic to Syncthing, its functionality becomes restricted, and some of the base cases I use it for won't be available. --- To answer your question, yes you can access files from your Dropbox in other applications. For example, I make a lot of video doodles for my Instagram, and the Inshot app lets you import audio and music directly into the app from Dropbox. This means I can render some audio on my computer,sync it to dropbox, make a silly video doodle on my phone, combine them and then upload to Instagram. It's fairly seamless, something I actively use and definitely something I would want in a file-syncing tool.
    - anderspitman 6y ago
jeromenerf 6y ago
I tried to get it working on ish (the shell, in beta, similar to termux on Android) but could not even get the « go get » command to finish. I would not mind syncthing to be limited to ish permissions. I guess we will have to wait for a decent Linux on phones.
- anderspitman 6y ago
  > I guess we will have to wait for a decent Linux on phones. That's basically my conclusion as well. Though if we can come up with enough killer apps that aren't supported by Android/iOS, it might also open up an opportunity for someone like Microsoft to fork Android and open it back up for developers (feels weird even saying that).
  - jeromenerf 6y ago
    I would be happy with a terminal and a web browser for the most part. Some terms apps feel really mobile friendly (ranger, cmus, etc). I would really miss the plant’net app though, to recognize plants from pictures.
ww520 6y ago
Is there plan for a native iOS version?
- benhurmarcel 6y ago
  No. https://forum.syncthing.net/t/ios-iphone-crowdfunding-on-bountysource/13136/16 https://forum.syncthing.net/t/ios-iphone-crowdfunding-on-bou... https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102

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.
- criddell 6y ago
  Do you think Dropbox is going to stop working on Android?
  - anderspitman 6y ago
    Well I don't use it so I'm not sure what functionality it currently has. It depends on if it stores any files outside its app directory, and if it needs files to be accessible from other apps. I would suspect though that apps like Dropbox won't have much trouble getting "All files access" approval, so they should be fine in any case.
    - criddell 6y ago
      Is "all files access" actually something that an app can be granted? Seems dangerous.
      - anderspitman 6y ago
        GOOG agrees with you, and so do I for the most part. That's the way Android worked until recently. Any app (with storage permissions) could store anything in shared locations (except SD cards; those have always had these issues), and could mess with other apps' data in these locations. I'm not saying this isn't a security concern. I'm saying they've thrown the user control baby out with the security concern bath water. Why not have a designated area where apps can share whatever they want, and warn the user that information there can be seen by any app?

necrotic_comp 6y ago

This is my main issue with using something like Syncthing. I have several computers that I use daily - a Windows machine for some work and most of my music, a Linux box as my daily driver, and my Andriod phone/tablets for watching videos and interacting with the physical world. All of these are synced through Dropbox, and I have the confidence that 1) my files are backed up on a server that I don't own 2) the software will be updated and continue to work across all the disparate machines I currently own and will own in the future. I don't doubt that Syncthing will work on Linux super-well, but Windows, Android, and IOS can be picky and not play well with open source. It scares me off a bit from using it.

anderspitman 6y ago
Forgive me if I'm missing something, but I'm not sure how this is connected to Android locking down filesystem access? To your point, I've been using restic/rclone to backup my syncthing directory tree to Backblaze B2. That's worked quite well and is cheap. Also I have a question. For Dropbox on Android, are your Dropbox files accessible from other apps? I'm pretty sure that's not possible.
- necrotic_comp 6y ago
  Short version is - I both automatically back up a lot of data and manually export items from Android, and also use the app to grab files (i.e. PDFs or audio) that I don't necessarily want persisted. My understanding from the parent is that if the Android ecosystem becomes toxic to Syncthing, its functionality becomes restricted, and some of the base cases I use it for won't be available. --- To answer your question, yes you can access files from your Dropbox in other applications. For example, I make a lot of video doodles for my Instagram, and the Inshot app lets you import audio and music directly into the app from Dropbox. This means I can render some audio on my computer,sync it to dropbox, make a silly video doodle on my phone, combine them and then upload to Instagram. It's fairly seamless, something I actively use and definitely something I would want in a file-syncing tool.
  - anderspitman 6y ago

jeromenerf 6y ago

I tried to get it working on ish (the shell, in beta, similar to termux on Android) but could not even get the « go get » command to finish. I would not mind syncthing to be limited to ish permissions. I guess we will have to wait for a decent Linux on phones.

anderspitman 6y ago
> I guess we will have to wait for a decent Linux on phones. That's basically my conclusion as well. Though if we can come up with enough killer apps that aren't supported by Android/iOS, it might also open up an opportunity for someone like Microsoft to fork Android and open it back up for developers (feels weird even saying that).
- jeromenerf 6y ago
  I would be happy with a terminal and a web browser for the most part. Some terms apps feel really mobile friendly (ranger, cmus, etc). I would really miss the plant’net app though, to recognize plants from pictures.

ww520 6y ago

Is there plan for a native iOS version?

benhurmarcel 6y ago
No. https://forum.syncthing.net/t/ios-iphone-crowdfunding-on-bountysource/13136/16 https://forum.syncthing.net/t/ios-iphone-crowdfunding-on-bou... https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102 https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing/issues/102