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BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

forbes.com

21–30 of 97 posts

Re: BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

#22

1. BT Sync needs to be open sourced and their security practices need to be peer reivewed 2. No version control in BT Sync like Dropbox has - killer feature in Dropbox IMHO

Why does Sync deserve a security audit and Dropbox not? If anything I'd say Dropbox is the more risky, what with storing all your files on their own servers.

Re: BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

#23
post #5

I'd say it could be troubling for dropbox. It's probably game over for https://aerofs.com though unless AeroFS drastically changes/pivots. For dropbox, they do have some advantages. Bittorrent brings up thoughts of piracy. Dropbox doesn't have that reputation and would be much more acceptable in corporate environments. Additionally, Dropbox has integration with a lot of apps and I don't see that happening with BT Syn…

1. A service with the word "torrent" in it will never be adopted by a corporate entity. (edit: "typical" corporation. Technology companies don't count) 2. You may be overestimating how much the average person cares about file storage size, 3rd party servers, or transferring large files.

Amazon S3 allows to download files over BitTorrent: http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/S3Torrent.htm...

Ubuntu is also available via official torrent releases: http://www.ubuntu.com/download/alternative-downloads

A few cloud companies use torrent to distribute images across servers (not really a proof, bu anyway: http://www.jcmartin.org/posts/large-scale-file-distribution-...)

Aren't Amazon, Canonical, and these cloud companies corporate entities?

Re: BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

#24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. A service with the word "torrent" in it will never be adopted by a corporate entity. (edit: "typical" corporation. Technology companies don't count) 2. You may be overestimating how much the average person cares about file storage size, 3rd party servers, or transferring large files.

@1. You might have missed how many game companies distribute the patches nowadays. @2. Indeed. To find broader adoption by private users it MUST be click and go. But I don't see a reason why BTSynch can't achieve that in the short term even.

1. True, but game companies are still in the tech-friendly sector. For an average manager at OfficeCorp, a torrent is some illegal website you download stuff from.

2. It could, but BT isn't built around the idea of dead simplicity, like DropBox is. Perceived branding does matter.

Re: BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

#25
post #5

I'd say it could be troubling for dropbox. It's probably game over for https://aerofs.com though unless AeroFS drastically changes/pivots. For dropbox, they do have some advantages. Bittorrent brings up thoughts of piracy. Dropbox doesn't have that reputation and would be much more acceptable in corporate environments. Additionally, Dropbox has integration with a lot of apps and I don't see that happening with BT Syn…

1. A service with the word "torrent" in it will never be adopted by a corporate entity. (edit: "typical" corporation. Technology companies don't count) 2. You may be overestimating how much the average person cares about file storage size, 3rd party servers, or transferring large files.

If I was aspera or filesociety, I'd be rather worried.

I'm planning on using this to sync terrorbytes between london and LA. Why should I pay the ridiculous cost of a thinly wrapped rsync over UDP when I can have it for free? (the latency between the two means that the maximum throughput on tcp based protocols get about 2-3 megs a second tops)

I will be testing the throughput of torrentsync. Currently it appears to be painfully single threaded (it looks to be python)

Re: BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

#26
post #6

Hilarious article. "there is no need to route through the cloud which can slow things down " wtf, no editorial oversight of tech material at Forbes? The rest is shit too.

This is not a Forbes article, it is an article by a Forbes "contributor" which is a barely-vetted blogger given permission to publish articles.

Yep, for more evidence on how little oversight contributors are given: http://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmatonis/2013/05/27/donations/

Re: BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

#27
post #21

One thing I've wanted to do is access files remotely without downloading them (streaming/virtual drives, etc). Do any of these services allow that (BTsync, dropbox, aeroFS), or am I forced to download files before accessing them?

Forced to download, its not a remote filesystem

Re: BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

#28

1. BT Sync needs to be open sourced and their security practices need to be peer reivewed 2. No version control in BT Sync like Dropbox has - killer feature in Dropbox IMHO

At least with BT sync your files are stored on thirdparty server encrypted, unlike dropbox.

Re: BitTorrent Sync Is A Dropbox Killer, Or Maybe Much More Than That

#30
I consider "sync" to only be a feature of Dropbox. Its the absolute best way to get files into their cloud storage platform (as compared to something like uploading files manually via a web portal).

But I think the value of Dropbox is in their cloud storage platform itself. It is the platform that is responsible for integration into a bevy of mobile apps, backup, and many other useful tools.

In my opinion, BitTorrent is a feature that doesn't offer the value of a platform. This feature is super awesome for a select use-case (maybe moving my media library across all of my home devices), but its no Dropbox killer. Its not a full platform at its current state.

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