[Techtalk] Dropbox alternative

Tue Aug 6 14:42:28 UTC 2019

I use pCloud in Switzerland. The free version gives you 10gig & iirc 5
devices. It's good on Linux & has mobile apps.

It lets you sync manually or you can go to the website & configure whatever
folders you want to auto-sync.

YMMV. Enjoy!

Frelkins

On Tue, Aug 6, 2019 at 14:00 <techtalk-request at linuxchix.org> wrote:

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> Today's Topics:
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>    1. Alternative to Dropbox (David Sumbler)
>    2. Re: Alternative to Dropbox (Veronica K. Berglyd Olsen)
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> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
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> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 06 Aug 2019 12:28:05 +0100
> From: David Sumbler <david at aeolia.co.uk>
> To: Techtalk at linuxchix.org
> Subject: [Techtalk] Alternative to Dropbox
> Message-ID:
>         <4e387848881157ce460af545d70cc9141237f8f5.camel at aeolia.co.uk>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"
>
> 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
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Message: 2
> Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2019 13:50:31 +0200
> From: "Veronica K. Berglyd Olsen" <veronica at berglyd.net>
> To: techtalk at linuxchix.org
> Subject: Re: [Techtalk] Alternative to Dropbox
> Message-ID: <3cb8e0fa-54a7-5b4e-bf85-3c04b77f7172 at berglyd.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8; format=flowed
>
> 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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