[Techtalk] Dropbox alternative

Sun Aug 11 20:54:53 UTC 2019

Thank you for these 3 helpful suggestions, and I'm sorry it has taken
me so long to respond.

I had looked at pCloud and syncThing some months or years ago, and they
didn't seem to do quite what I wanted as simply as I would like it
done.  Having looked again at these, as well as the other suggestions
that were made, it seemed almost as if Dropbox has a monopoly on the
sort of automatic, minimum user-input syncing that I was looking for.

But having looked closer at pCloud, it looks as if it can be used in
the hands-off way I wanted.  And as suggested, it does give 10Gb of
storage.  Also the website says "We recommend linkining" (sic) "up to 5
devices to your pCloud account."  I assume that this means that they
limit you to 5, although why they don't actually say that I don't know.

Anyway 5 devices is enough for me, and 10Gb is 5 times as much as
Dropbox gives me, so let's hope pCloud doesn't start moving the
goalposts as Dropbox have done.

I need a few more days to see whether the pCloud solution really is all
I'm hoping for, but I'm optimistic.

Thanks again, all, for your recommendations.

David

On Tue, 2019-08-06 at 16:42 +0200, fortune elkins wrote:
> 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:
> > 
> >    1. Alternative to Dropbox (David Sumbler)
> >    2. Re: Alternative to Dropbox (Veronica K. Berglyd Olsen)
> > 
> > 
> > -----------------------------------------------------------------
> > -----
> > 
> > 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
> > 
> > 
> > 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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