[Techtalk] Alternative to Dropbox

Veronica K. Berglyd Olsen veronica at berglyd.net
Tue Aug 6 11:50:31 UTC 2019


On 06/08/2019 13:28, David Sumbler wrote:
> I have used Dropbox for several years now (after recommendations from
> this list!)  But only last week I discovered that the free version now
> restricts the user to having no more than 3 linked devices.  Despite
> this, my account details still listed almost a dozen devices, mostly
> obsolete phones etc.  More importantly, it was still happily syncing my
> desktop computer, my laptop, my Samsung tablet and my phone.
>
> That has now changed: because of continual spontaneous reboots, I
> decided yesterday to do a factory reset on my tablet.  Dropbox now sees
> this as a new device, despite the fact that it shows the same reference
> number as it does for the previous manifestation of the same device.
> Now the only way for me to get the tablet to sync Dropbox files
> automatically is to deselect one of the other 3 devices that I use.
>
> I can work around this: obviously I only use the desktop at home, and I
> only use the laptop when I am away from home for a few days.  But
> obviously the process of, deselecting one device, selecting the other
> and then waiting for it all to sync is going to be a bit of a pain.
>
> I could, of course, pay Dropbox the £9.99 per month they want for
> allowing more than 3 linked devices; this would also give me more
> storage than the 4Gb I have currently, although I have never found that
> much of a problem.
>
> I have looked at some (free) alternatives to Dropbox, but so far none
> of them seem to have Dropbox's ability to keep things synchronized in
> the background.  With Dropbox I don't usually need to open a web-page
> or a different file browser: everything just "works" without me having
> to do anything special.  All I have to do when I create a new file is
> to decide whether I want it in a subfolder of my Dropbox folder or not.
> And, of course, I can always change my mind about that simply by moving
> the file into the appropriate directory.
>
> I'm slightly confused by the distinctions that Wikipedia, for instance,
> makes between file hosting services, synchronization software and
> online backup services, so I'm not even quite sure what I am looking
> for there.
>
> Can anyone suggest an alternative to Dropbox - preferably free in both
> senses - that has the convenience in use that Dropbox had for me until
> yesterday?
>
> David
>
I've spent a lot of time in the past researching alternatives to 
Dropbox. I used ownCloud for a long while, but since I sync a lot of 
source code and small files, I found it far to slow for my needs. It is 
very similar to Dropbox in features though. If you sync large files, you 
may consider it. It's for instance what my work uses. You can host your 
own sync server if you need.

Not being particularly trusting of US based corporations, I decided to 
mainly test client side encrypted services after that, and in the end 
gave up the search for centrally hosted solutions. I ended up instead 
going for a peer-to-peer implementation using Syncthing 
(https://syncthing.net <https://syncthing.net/>). Since I have a small 
micro PC running Debian always connected at home, I use it as a master 
node. Syncthing doesn't really need it though, but it works better when 
there's always a machine online to sync with. It also runs my backups.

Syncthing does have at least an Android app, but it's resource heavy, so 
I only switch it on whenever I need to sync to or from my phone. But for 
my laptops and desktops at home and at work, it works perfectly, and has 
for several years now. Both on Debian, Ubuntu and Windows 10.

It also has versioning built in, and this can be applied on a shared 
folder basis. I keep versions of changed files for 45 days, but the 
limit is just about disk space really.

It is definitely not as simple as Dropbox. And not as convenient in 
regards to sharing files with others. But it is also a lot more flexible 
than Dropbox, and allows you to sync any folder in any locations as 
individual units that it calls a Library. On Linux, it's managed through 
a web interface running on localhost:8384, and on Windows there is a 
third party GUI app as well. When it's all set up, it is definitely low 
maintenance though. It generally just works.

-Veronica



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