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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 L

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
    > 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. My best guess at this point is that this will hinge on whether syncthing is able to get "All files access" approval for the play store. Otherwise they'll need to basically re-write syncthing-android from scratch in Java/Kotlin, so it can integrate with the system. They've discussed doing that but frankly it's ridiculous that should even be required. > To answer your question, yes you can access files from your Dropbox in other applications. Based on your description, I'm pretty sure this works because you're specifically dealing with media files, as there is special support for sharing those. Does it also work if you try to share a PDF from Dropbox with a generic PDF reader app?
    - necrotic_comp 6y ago
      If I'm in the Dropbox app, I can export the PDF to say, my printer, I can open it with a reader (I have Adobe Reader installed) from the Dropbox App, or if I'm in Adobe Reader, I can open the file from Dropbox. I haven't tried any non-Adobe readers, but my experience is that there's a pretty good interop between applications and I haven't yet really run into a pain point where I need to get something from or export something to Dropbox and needed to create or download a shim.
      - anderspitman 6y ago
        That sounds like you're sharing a single file at a time, which has decent OS integration. If you had a directory of PDFs that you wanted to sync with Dropbox and open with a reader on your Android, I'd wager that's impossible these days.
        necrotic_comp 6y ago
        It may be, but that's kind of out of the scope of what I do with my phone.
grey_earthling 6y ago
> but Windows, Android, and IOS can be picky and not play well with open source. It scares me off a bit from using it. This is what scares me off from using Windows, Android or iOS :)
- cesarb 6y ago
  For phones, unfortunately there's not much of an option. I went the Maemo route, and then it became a dead end; I went the Openmoko route, and then it became a dead end too; Windows was obviously going to become a dead end (and unsurprisingly it did). There's now Pine64 and Purism, but given how many failed before, I'm not too hopeful they'll last. So the only real options are Android and Apple, and of these Android is the least closed (and also the one which doesn't require buying a whole new laptop, plus a paid registration, just to develop for it).
  - grey_earthling 6y ago
    Pine64 and Purism don't need to last. As long as the phone can run without proprietary software and there are enough geeks to maintain a port, I can probably run Debian on 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
  > 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. My best guess at this point is that this will hinge on whether syncthing is able to get "All files access" approval for the play store. Otherwise they'll need to basically re-write syncthing-android from scratch in Java/Kotlin, so it can integrate with the system. They've discussed doing that but frankly it's ridiculous that should even be required. > To answer your question, yes you can access files from your Dropbox in other applications. Based on your description, I'm pretty sure this works because you're specifically dealing with media files, as there is special support for sharing those. Does it also work if you try to share a PDF from Dropbox with a generic PDF reader app?
  - necrotic_comp 6y ago
    If I'm in the Dropbox app, I can export the PDF to say, my printer, I can open it with a reader (I have Adobe Reader installed) from the Dropbox App, or if I'm in Adobe Reader, I can open the file from Dropbox. I haven't tried any non-Adobe readers, but my experience is that there's a pretty good interop between applications and I haven't yet really run into a pain point where I need to get something from or export something to Dropbox and needed to create or download a shim.
    - anderspitman 6y ago
      That sounds like you're sharing a single file at a time, which has decent OS integration. If you had a directory of PDFs that you wanted to sync with Dropbox and open with a reader on your Android, I'd wager that's impossible these days.
      - necrotic_comp 6y ago
        It may be, but that's kind of out of the scope of what I do with my phone.

grey_earthling 6y ago

> but Windows, Android, and IOS can be picky and not play well with open source. It scares me off a bit from using it. This is what scares me off from using Windows, Android or iOS :)

cesarb 6y ago
For phones, unfortunately there's not much of an option. I went the Maemo route, and then it became a dead end; I went the Openmoko route, and then it became a dead end too; Windows was obviously going to become a dead end (and unsurprisingly it did). There's now Pine64 and Purism, but given how many failed before, I'm not too hopeful they'll last. So the only real options are Android and Apple, and of these Android is the least closed (and also the one which doesn't require buying a whole new laptop, plus a paid registration, just to develop for it).
- grey_earthling 6y ago
  Pine64 and Purism don't need to last. As long as the phone can run without proprietary software and there are enough geeks to maintain a port, I can probably run Debian on it.