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Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#281

Post by istingray »

vishnumohandas wrote: post #69
benbristow wrote: post #23

Your homepage says "protect your photos/faces etc. from algorithms" The algorithms are what makes Google Photos; Google Photos. If I wanted to just store my photos I'd throw them in a S3 bucket or Dropbox or something. Google Photos lets me automatically categorise my photos by person, lets me search my library using text search for anything (e.g. I can search 'museum' and see pictures I've taken in museums). That is…

> So you're going to implement algorithms then? Yes, we will implement the algorithms, purely on the client side, such that we don't hold indexes to your personal data. But I understand how that piece of text could have thrown you off, I'll think of ways to rephrase it. Thanks for pointing it out.

Agree with the above poster. I don't care about algorithms. I want algorithms. But I want algorithms that only work for me. Screw off everyone else.

Apple used to sell this. Then they stopped.

Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#282

Post by istingray »

vishnumohandas wrote: post #259
godelski wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I guess there is more to the question that I'm asking. > Our accuracy will not match that offered by services who index your data on their servers. But there's a trade off between user experience and privacy here, I think most people here understand that[0]. We are on Hacker News after all and not Reddit or a more general public place. The concern isn't that you are worse. The concern is that your product has to a…

> how are you going to improve your model in a privacy preserving method We will not improve our models with the help of user-data and will resort to only pre-trained models that are available in the public domain.

This is one of your best replies in the whole thread.

Yes to this. Prove it as well.

Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#283

Post by saladuh »

istingray wrote: post #265

Thank you! As someone who as of a week ago is hardcore switching from Apple to Linux, I applaud you. I've purchased a 16" MBP, both Airpod models, iPhone, and iPad in the last 24 months. Now on to System76! Whatever the past is, I believe there's a new market in 2021 for Apple-switchers that will unleash new funds for companies like yours. De-Google movement will pale in comparison to this in terms of economics. Look…

> without the ability to self host is a dead end

Indeed, this is why you would be foolish to use Ente as you cannot self host it. At any point they can choose to lock things down, make their clients closed source, etc etc, and you'd once again need to spend time jumping ship because you'd need to find a new ecosystem.

Ente is just convient and is coming at the right time (hence the massive amount of upvotes) but does not give you total control nor your freedom back. Using them instead of something you can self host is just running in circles.

> open source may suck...

What? This was extremely random and out of place with the rest of your comment.

What you really want, if you care about self hosting and all the other stuff you mentioned, is Nextcloud[0]. And if you don't want to self host yet, you'd be better off hosting Nextcloud in a VPS, even on Linode you can just 1 click deploy a Nextcloud instance in their app store[1]. That way you don't become dependent on a service you cannot control/deploy yourself.

[0] https://github.com/nextcloud [1] https://www.linode.com/marketplace/apps/linode/nextcloud/

Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#284

Post by mncharity »

Roritharr wrote: post #229
mrobins wrote: post #123

I’ve been watching this project for a long time and personally am very excited. The fact that it’s #1 on HN today (congrats!) makes me think I’m not the only one. There are also a lot of valid concerns in these comments about privacy and use of algorithms. A lot of it depends on what you’re looking to gain by adopting a new service/switching away from something else and individual concern. Personally, I’m looking for…

I'm in the same boat, have been watching, love that they have a businessmodel and am waiting for the time when they are covering my needs (face recognition, object / scene detection...). I'd even pay a 2$/month "lurker" subscription which has like 100mb of storage so I can check the features from time to time and support the team.

I wonder how sales psychology might differ between a "lurker" subscription and an inexpensive limited plan? Lurker might have a more explicit "I think you're interesting and want to support/encourage you - thanks, we appreciate it" exchange. Or maybe defuse "but is it usable?" or "do I want to bother attempting to use it?" or yet-another-thing commitment concerns. Not "am I really going to use this?" but "does this look worth encouraging?". And maybe has a funnel story of "ok, now it's looking good, and I'll start using it for real... and not the mere limited plan". Sort of a patreon vibe, but blended with plans?

Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#286

Post by istingray »

saladuh wrote: post #283
istingray wrote: post #265

Thank you! As someone who as of a week ago is hardcore switching from Apple to Linux, I applaud you. I've purchased a 16" MBP, both Airpod models, iPhone, and iPad in the last 24 months. Now on to System76! Whatever the past is, I believe there's a new market in 2021 for Apple-switchers that will unleash new funds for companies like yours. De-Google movement will pale in comparison to this in terms of economics. Look…

> without the ability to self host is a dead end Indeed, this is why you would be foolish to use Ente as you cannot self host it. At any point they can choose to lock things down, make their clients closed source, etc etc, and you'd once again need to spend time jumping ship because you'd need to find a new ecosystem. Ente is just convient and is coming at the right time (hence the massive amount of upvotes) but does…

Yes, Ente needs to have self-hosting on their roadmap or I won't support it.

> What? This was extremely random and out of place with the rest of your comment.

Edited to say "open source options may suck today"

Thanks for giving me the chance to explain. My comment here may give more context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28321460

I've tried NextCloud, even 1-click hosted by a third party. For all the power, it's not built with me in mind, it seems to treat my photos like files/data, not like photos. I want to pay money for that extra oomph, for algorithms, searchability (about $10/month for my photos seems about right), and I want to pay money so I don't have to pay with my time. Is there something I can buy that's on top of NextCloud?

Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#287

Post by raman162 »

saladuh wrote: post #283
istingray wrote: post #265

Thank you! As someone who as of a week ago is hardcore switching from Apple to Linux, I applaud you. I've purchased a 16" MBP, both Airpod models, iPhone, and iPad in the last 24 months. Now on to System76! Whatever the past is, I believe there's a new market in 2021 for Apple-switchers that will unleash new funds for companies like yours. De-Google movement will pale in comparison to this in terms of economics. Look…

> without the ability to self host is a dead end Indeed, this is why you would be foolish to use Ente as you cannot self host it. At any point they can choose to lock things down, make their clients closed source, etc etc, and you'd once again need to spend time jumping ship because you'd need to find a new ecosystem. Ente is just convient and is coming at the right time (hence the massive amount of upvotes) but does…

I think ente does fill a niche, people don't mind paying dollars for companies because it is supposed to guarantee a level of service/polish. And in the case of photos, if the service were to shut down, there's very likely a path one can take to perform a migration.

I'm a big user of open source solutions, I use Linux on my machine and use syncthing to sync files across all my devices. I'm aware that my solution is not doable for everyone and that's the problem with most open source solutions, the lack of polish/ease of use. There are tons of systems that aren't open source that we are forced to rely upon for day to day, airplane software, traffic lights, telecommunications) and we've just accepted it because of convenience and trust.

What I'm trying to say is that we don't have to worry about self-hosting everything and force ourselves to only use open source tools. I do think that if we do use private tools, we should understand how our data can be exported to a new system if necessary so we're not "locked in".

Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#288

Post by istingray »

raman162 wrote: post #287
saladuh wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without the ability to self host is a dead end Indeed, this is why you would be foolish to use Ente as you cannot self host it. At any point they can choose to lock things down, make their clients closed source, etc etc, and you'd once again need to spend time jumping ship because you'd need to find a new ecosystem. Ente is just convient and is coming at the right time (hence the massive amount of upvotes) but does…

I think ente does fill a niche, people don't mind paying dollars for companies because it is supposed to guarantee a level of service/polish. And in the case of photos, if the service were to shut down, there's very likely a path one can take to perform a migration. I'm a big user of open source solutions, I use Linux on my machine and use syncthing to sync files across all my devices. I'm aware that my solution is n…

Standard Notes seems like a good example of this balance to me. While you can self host, I assume 99% of people don't. It must be an option, otherwise I wouldn't use it.

Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#289

Post by Spooky23 »

istingray wrote: post #265

Thank you! As someone who as of a week ago is hardcore switching from Apple to Linux, I applaud you. I've purchased a 16" MBP, both Airpod models, iPhone, and iPad in the last 24 months. Now on to System76! Whatever the past is, I believe there's a new market in 2021 for Apple-switchers that will unleash new funds for companies like yours. De-Google movement will pale in comparison to this in terms of economics. Look…

I think that you are overestimating the size of the audience of people who have nerd rage over whatever we’re pissed off at Apple about or have meaningful concerns about government surveillance.

They’d be better off focusing on making a better user experience instead of E2EE drama.

Re: Show HN: We built an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos

#290

Post by raman162 »

istingray wrote: post #286
saladuh wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> without the ability to self host is a dead end Indeed, this is why you would be foolish to use Ente as you cannot self host it. At any point they can choose to lock things down, make their clients closed source, etc etc, and you'd once again need to spend time jumping ship because you'd need to find a new ecosystem. Ente is just convient and is coming at the right time (hence the massive amount of upvotes) but does…

Yes, Ente needs to have self-hosting on their roadmap or I won't support it. > What? This was extremely random and out of place with the rest of your comment. Edited to say "open source options may suck today" Thanks for giving me the chance to explain. My comment here may give more context: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28321460 I've tried NextCloud, even 1-click hosted by a third party. For all the power, it…

There are many people like you willing to spend money on a good solution that gets the job done who have no interest in self hosting and reviewing the source.

After experiencing the ease of Google photos, any basic file management system to store photos is a downgrade after that.

If ente can figure out how to do the extras (search, face matching) without invading privacy (not even sure how possible this is) I can see this being valuable to the people who want to de-google and maybe even de-apple.

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