Computers as I used to love them • Hacker News Board

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#91

Post by magicalhippo » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 1:54 PM UTC

Strilanc wrote: post #42

thom wrote: post #24

I suppose I’ve just become used to saying no to a bunch of things when installing Dropbox, but once that’s done I have no interactions with it at all. I don’t remember being pestered at any point recently and I’ve got it on three devices. I keep waiting for it to annoy me in some way that causes me to find another solution but it’s yet to happen. I migrated several G Suite accounts to Fastmail recently so I suspect i…

Personally I've noticed how dropbox has gone from being a tool that fits well into a larger context, to instead trying to encompass the entire experience of touching synced files. For example, the number of clicks (and the precision of those clicks and the distractions around them) to open the dropbox folder in your OS's file explorer has gradually increased. And the amount of attention dropbox asks for, things like…

I'm about to drop Dropbox as well, due to how PITA it is to use.

Have a picture in your Dropbox you want to send as a message on Android? Well, just click Share button of course! Wait, no, that just shares a link not the image itself...

No, you gotta do "Open with...", find suitable image app (gallery or picture viewer), wait for it to download and open the image, and share from that app...

Though I imagine Dropbox would be glad to get rid of me, not being a paying customer. I don't need 2TB so $10/mo is way too much.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#92

Post by JackMcMack » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:00 PM UTC

midasuni wrote: post #87

square_usual wrote: post #49

I love syncthing as much as the next guy on here, but this article feels very much like "why doesn't this square peg fit my round hole?!" Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce. I couldn't go to a less tech savvy friend and say, "Oh, you use Dropbox for backups? Here, use syncthing instead!" For one, most people don't have multiple computers they want to keep in sy…

If you change a file does it keep older versions?

Versioning is supported:

* keep x previous revisions, or

* keep old revisions for x time, or

* diy with hook script

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/versioning.html

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#93

Post by tibbydudeza » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

Onedrive and a NAS and not having multiple computers around.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#94

Post by kache_ » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

I still use computers as I used to love them.

I don't use garbage bloatware that constantly nags. If I have to, I imprison it into the confines of a browser sandbox.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#95

Post by JackMcMack » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:08 PM UTC

grimgrin wrote: post #50

jwr wrote: post #9

I've been using Syncthing for about a year now, with multiple computers, and it's fantastic. Dropbox has become a real pain over the years (I've also been a paid Dropbox customer for a long time): * adding bloat and features that I don't want or need * constantly nagging me for upgrades * lying that the admin password is required (it isn't) * consuming large amounts of CPU when anything changes anywhere in the filesy…

Can you summarize what they maybe introduced/fixed to quell your old review? > over the last week, syncthing has corrupted my git repository twice. I reported this as an issue, but the issue was immediately closed with an explanation I disagree with. > I no longer trust syncthing until this gets resolved, unfortunately. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23660438 — I would absolutely be syncing directories containi…

I sync a folder containing multiple git repos, never had a corruption happen.

@jwr can you link the issue you reported?

The only major issue I had was performance on TrueNAS/FreeBSD, Syncthing tends to keep a lot of files open. Increasing maxfiles/maxvnodes fixed it. [0]

On a sidenote, what's the point of these limits if your entire system becomes unusable if you reach them?

[0] https://jira.ixsystems.com/browse/NAS-104534

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#96

Post by contravariant » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

JackMcMack wrote: post #92

midasuni wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you change a file does it keep older versions?

Versioning is supported: * keep x previous revisions, or * keep old revisions for x time, or * diy with hook script https://docs.syncthing.net/users/versioning.html

I'm still looking for some way to have a nice (web) UI for this versioning though.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#97

Post by xutopia » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:16 PM UTC

leokennis wrote: post #12

This website has a great design and an absolutely hilarious “dark mode” toggle.

Thanks for mentioning it! Had me laughing out loud!

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#98

Post by EGreg » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:18 PM UTC

Syncthing has reminded me how great computers can be if they are not made by corporations. It’s simple, predictable, sane, acts no-nonsense

Most open source software is like that. In this very article you see exactly what capitalism and the profit motive does to software.

Ancaps will constantly say the refrain “this is due to government, and corporatism, which is very different from capitalism” but I insist — do get into the details of how “pure” capitalism wouldn’t lead to this.

It is similar to how socialists always say about living in state socialism “it’s not REAL socialism, if we ever reached REAL communism all these problems of the ovebearing government bureaucrat class would go away”

Anyway… we do need an economic model to properly compensate open source, journalism and other work on digital content. I think that we can move past these issues with cryptocurrency, which can enable a form of socialism (the network is owned by the users) while compensating people fairly for their work. See for example https://qbix.com/QBUX/whitepaper.html#Monetizing-Open-Source for details on how a micropayment system could actually work !

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#99

Post by k4rli » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

bodge5000 wrote: post #88

Somewhat off topic, but does anyone have any recommendations for personal cloud storage. I've heard good things about Syncthing, but thats for syncing, not for storing. Preferably something as simple and easy to use/setup as possible. I want to use it mostly for storing old projects, I don't want it to be a project.

Google One (Drive storage) is one of the cheapest (if not the cheapest) I think. Paying just 1.99 for 100GB monthly.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#100

Post by ubermonkey » Fri, Jan 07, 2022, 2:20 PM UTC

square_usual wrote: post #49

I love syncthing as much as the next guy on here, but this article feels very much like "why doesn't this square peg fit my round hole?!" Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce. I couldn't go to a less tech savvy friend and say, "Oh, you use Dropbox for backups? Here, use syncthing instead!" For one, most people don't have multiple computers they want to keep in sy…

>Dropbox (and iCloud) are meant more for cloud file storage than pure device-to-device synce

Device to device sync was literally the value prop for Dropbox when it launched > 10 years ago. That's why I started using it.

Dropbox does now allow a more cloud-native file system / cloud backup usage pattern, but its roots are absolutely "keep my files in sync across several computers."