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Computers as I used to love them

tonsky.me

101–110 of 265 posts

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#101
post #77

The part comparing the installation is a little disingenuous IMHO. You cannot seriously be complaining about Gatekeeper if you’re using a Mac. Dropbox has a web interface so it needs an account. 2FA enhances account security. Installing Homebrew also used sudo . In fact, you had to install it first. If you didn’t, you also wouldn’t have the Homebrew-services helper. And what’s wrong with an OOBE wizard? It’s software…

Why does zfs put you off Dropbox?

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#102
post #77

The part comparing the installation is a little disingenuous IMHO. You cannot seriously be complaining about Gatekeeper if you’re using a Mac. Dropbox has a web interface so it needs an account. 2FA enhances account security. Installing Homebrew also used sudo . In fact, you had to install it first. If you didn’t, you also wouldn’t have the Homebrew-services helper. And what’s wrong with an OOBE wizard? It’s software…

I think everything you say is true and understandable. But all these 'good practices' add up to a convulted experience.

I recently tried moving my family over to a password manager. Something that can be understood and managed by my SO even if I should die etc. Something also usable for my 12 yo kid.

Not as simple as it sounds. Across iPad/Pixel Phone/Edge Browser/Surface Book for my kid for example.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#103
post #77

The part comparing the installation is a little disingenuous IMHO. You cannot seriously be complaining about Gatekeeper if you’re using a Mac. Dropbox has a web interface so it needs an account. 2FA enhances account security. Installing Homebrew also used sudo . In fact, you had to install it first. If you didn’t, you also wouldn’t have the Homebrew-services helper. And what’s wrong with an OOBE wizard? It’s software…

Why does zfs put you off Dropbox?

There was a period where Dropbox announced they dropping support for everything except straight ext4 on linux, though they eventually rolled back on that

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#104
post #77

The part comparing the installation is a little disingenuous IMHO. You cannot seriously be complaining about Gatekeeper if you’re using a Mac. Dropbox has a web interface so it needs an account. 2FA enhances account security. Installing Homebrew also used sudo . In fact, you had to install it first. If you didn’t, you also wouldn’t have the Homebrew-services helper. And what’s wrong with an OOBE wizard? It’s software…

[deleted]

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#105

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."

Yep and when it first came out it was by far the best option too. IMO it still is.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#106

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.

Hetzner offers hosted Nextcloud instances starting at 3.45€/m for 100gb:

https://www.hetzner.com/storage/storage-share

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#107
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 had the exact same thing, granted, it was ten years ago already, with dropbox. Something something file versioning, ending up with neighboring files of conflicting revisions, the disease spreading over to all instances.

My takeaway was „never keep git repos in a system that does its own distributed versioning”. I just do git push around so my remotes are up to date. Git is sort of dropbox with a manual gearbox, after all (and more, but that’s not the point).

I’m really unsure that this is a kind of easily solvable problem for either dropbox or syncthing. Unless your syncing product gets smart enough to understand what a git repository is and how some files have to be checked in in lockstep, that is. Otherwise, expect race conditions.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#108

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.

rclone is very good. Choose any cloud storage provider, and then run it through a nightly cronjob or whatever.

https://rclone.org/

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#109

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."

That was 10 years ago. Yes, I also started using it because of that. These days the the more important feature (at least for me) is being able to offload rarely used files from my drive. SSDs in MacBooks are still crazy expensive.

Re: Computers as I used to love them

#110

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."

>>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.

It's what was advertised. I find it interesting that its initial reception on HN is so frequently slammed for saying "we could already do this, if we wanted to", and then... 10+ years later, Dropbox has had to switch to doing something people want.

The only value I ever saw people getting from Dropbox was in using it as a way to hand off files to someone else across the internet. Which is a use case Dropbox has spent many years fighting against.

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