[Techtalk] Alternative to Dropbox

[Kagan MacTane]

I tried SpiderOak some years back. It seemed similar to Dropbox, but at 
least some of the code is open-source. I went back to Dropbox because 
SpiderOak's Android client wouldn't automatically pick up on edits to 
files and re-upload them, but maybe they've fixed that? Anyway, 
https://spideroak.com/ might help you.

On 8/6/2019 04:28, 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
>
>
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-- 
Kagan MacTane