Related: backing up data.
Purely cloud-based network drives just aren’t awesome at fast or distributed work. Realising this is why the Dropbox founders are now rich. They invented a thing which keeps the files locally and syncs them with your co-workers online. Well done them.
However, Dropbox’s solution, as groundbreaking as it was, is also unsatisfactory, being hamstrung by technical and legal shortcomings. Same goes for the Google and Microsoft options. These services creepily read my documents in the name of convenience. However well-intentioned it may be, it does not change the fact that this is by nature not secure, and increases the risk that my stuff will be exposed in a breach, or sent to whichever agency would like to read it in whichever jurisdiction has the weakest protection for confidentiality.
Historically the Dropbox client app used to do all manner of suspicious things to further undermine my trust; enough suspicious things that I will never trust them. TBH I am not so excited I can be bothered going in to see if it is still happening or not; there are other alternatives. Suffice it to say, I am not keen to opt in to their nonsense. How can I get something like Dropbox without all the security holes and creepy behaviour?
Peer-to-peer synchronising (i.e. no special server at all) is one robust option and I do a lot of this. I then have no 3rd party helping me, which is a plus and a minus. Plus: I can feel safer. Minus: I do not synchronise if my computers are not simultaneously online.
Taking it further, how about everything be sneakernets?
Or I can use some hacks to make Dropbox less awful, by e.g. encrypting my files to inhibit potential Dropbox data mining, and by using alternative clients that are less suspect and so on.
Pro tip: some of these options can be made easier to set up if one used a VPN from the house, maybe even a cheeky mesh-vpn system like tailscale.
Syncthing
Choose this if… You have a collection of various folders that you need shared to various different machines, and you would like many of the different machines to be able to edit them. You don’t need a server and thus you are happy for syncing to happen if and when the peers are online. And you don’t care about iOS. And you don’t mind wasting a few CPU cycles. I use this for synchronising my music production files across my studio machines, studio backup machines and gig machines.
I am all in on Syncthing. I install it on every machine I use regularly. It makes my life much better.
I have a whole notebook of deep tips about it — see syncthing.
Opencloudmesh
TBD. Some kind of system to replicate/share across different other sync services. Currently supports Nowtcloud and seafile. I am not sure how it works with host-proof encryption.
Seafile
Choose this if… You have a collection of various folders that you need to synchronise between macOS, Windows, Linux, Android and iOS. You don’t mind installing or paying for a central server to coordinate all this.
Seafile is an open-source file sync service with a premium enterprise server with more features available for a fee. It has clients for browsers and desktop and mobile. Semi-host-blind encryption is available but optional and doesn’t work from browsers or encrypt metadata. FWIW it looks simpler than Nextcloud to install manually, (there is even an automatic script) although in either case it’s easiest to run pre-made docker images. You can build your own; this starts to feel like a looot of work. You would use this if you wanted a convenient iOS client, which is otherwise tricky to get. I would happily pay for a hosted version of this if there was one available, but there isn’t. Supports Open Cloud Mesh.
Peergos
Peergos is a sort-of file sync based on IPFS. Currently they do not seem to support me using my own storage, but rather I need to pay them money to use their centralised filestore based on a decentralised protocol. I am confused about what the point of that would be; classic decentralised rhetoric struggling to find a business model? I am quite happy to pay them money but also, what if I want to have a terabyte of shared data on a spare hard drive sitting idle? I have not inspected the source-code but this might be something almost like file sync, in that it does not really sync the files but it does cache them and provide a virtual FS onto the wacky cached distributed FS, or something.
dat
Choose this if… You have a large data set that you wish to share amongst many strangers, and if there is a single source of truth. I would use this for sharing predictably updated research, although not distributed research.
Dat is similar to syncthing, with a different emphasis — sharing data to strangers rather than friends, with a special focus on datasets. You could also use it for backups or other sharing. See Dat/data versioning.
NB it’s one-writer-many-readers, so don’t get excited about multiple data sources, or inter-lab collaboration. For this price, though, you get data versioning and robust verifiability, which is a bargain.
The flagship dat client is no longer prominent (or visible at all?) on the home page so I am slightly suspicious about the viability of this project right now. Maybe wait for it to settle down first.
Mega
Choose this if… You want to share files, chats, data and whatever else, with people who can’t or won’t install their own software and so must use a browser to download stuff, and if you don’t care that the company behind it is dicey. e.g. I used this for some temporary file sharing music collaboration projects, but now that those are over, I’ve deleted the app.
Mega Easy to run. Public source, but not open source. (Long story.) Host-blind encryption business from New Zealand.
Anyway it’s relatively easy to use because it works in the browser, so it won’t terrify your non-geek friends. Ok, maybe a little
