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Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

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Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#251

Post by robenkleene »

fennecfoxen wrote: post #15

Adobe Lightroom (Classic). Yes, you pay real money for the stupid cloud model, but — I can add gradient and circular filters, correct for the lens distortion with profiles for most major cameras and lenses (including your iPhone), get one-click perspective correction so a building facade is square against the image plane ... and it's all lossless editing. You want a map of your photos over time? Of course we have the…

For the record, I don't think Adobe is ever moving away from Lightroom Classic. I think the naming is a bit of a mirage, or more specifically a way to push consumers towards a more valuable (charge for cloud storage), less demanding (objectively less capable), product. A customer paying for Classic and CC, and only using CC is a better customer for Adobe.

But the problem is Adobe Lightroom CC has effectively zero penetration with professional photographers. If I had to summarize the pro market opinion of CC, it would be contempt. Here's an example: This article (https://petapixel.com/2020/01/02///why-im-sticking-with-ligh...), about choosing Classic over CC, has about 100 comments, the maximum allowed, most panning CC. Of those 100, it's easy to find the single positive comment about CC: it's at the bottom, with the most downvotes.

The problem is the whole basis of CC (cloud storage) is antithetical to how professional photographers work (thousands of large photos per shoot). Adobe can't grow CC into eventually supporting this market because it can't support offline storage, because the whole reason CC exists is to have a product that's cloud only...

So I think Adobe will effectively be supporting Classic forever. Here's an example: Adobe has committed to native support for Classic on Apple Silicon (https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/macos-big-sur-c...).

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#252

Post by [deleted] »

TimPC wrote: post #203
gtirloni wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The self-hosted audience is also very small. I think you made the right choice.

For photos I’d agree as most customers are end users. Don’t underestimate this for other products though. Self hosting is a huge feature for selling into large corporations with data security policies.

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#253

Post by sp332 »

jablan wrote: post #239
sp332 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They were owned by Yahoo for a while. Has the management changed since the one that broke your trust?

Why would anyone need to care who sits in the management? The trust was broken by a company.

A company is run by people. It's not like the logo decided to screw users over.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#254

Post by KineticLensman »

StavrosK wrote: post #216
nsteel wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got and email about this few weeks back (I must have signed up to the list at some point) but I was put off by two things. > We've already preserved 100,000+ files, and are quite reliable at this point. "quite reliable" doesn't cut it for a paid service for me, even a new one. My second issue, and I might be wrong about this, is that there's no way to share photos with someone who isn't a (paying) ente user.

I think this is a mismatch between UK English where "quite" means "extremely" and US English where "quite" means "mostly".

I think most Brits (I am a Brit) would write "very" when they mean "extremely" rather than "quite". In spoken English there is a lot of nuance, but if you said a meal was "quite good" it would often have a connotation of "better than just okay" rather than "excellent". Saying a meal was "really good" would be closer to "excellent".

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#255

Post by ghaff »

kingosticks wrote: post #222
StavrosK wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this is a mismatch between UK English where "quite" means "extremely" and US English where "quite" means "mostly".

I'm British and to me "quite" here means "mostly" i.e. not entirely. Could well be a misunderstanding but it should be made clearer as this data is priceless.

>as this data is priceless

Personally, I'd never trust the only copy of something important to a service provider--especially one that isn't a "big name." (Though even in the case of big names there can be issues with account access, etc.)

ADDED: Curious why people find this a controversial statement. I understand if you have AWS set up with various redundancies but even a service like Backblaze I consider a belt and suspenders-type backup. This is in no way a commentary on the OP but simply an acknowledgement that stuff happens.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#256

Post by beagle3 »

Jabbles wrote: post #240
dolmen wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As always, we don’t sell your information to anyone, and we don’t use information in apps where you primarily store personal content—such as Gmail, Drive, Calendar and Photos—for advertising purposes, period. As always with privacy policies, the information is in what is NOT said. 1. They don't sell to anyone. But what giving away for free? 2. They don't use personal content for advertising purposes. But what about…

1 seems unlikely to me - why would Google do that? It would always be in exchange for something, which is pretty much selling. 2 seems more plausible.

FB effectively gave data away to app developers (e.g. Cambridge analytica).

They got something in return - as they do with all their partners - but this is not generally considered a sale, and often not even a trade.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#257

Post by JamesDeepDown »

mceachen wrote: post #3

You're certainly welcome to try PhotoStructure! It's got very robust de-duplication, supports portable libraries (so you can automatically sweep your photos scattered across many drives and computers into a single timestamped folder structure), and a novel UI showing a random sampled view of your library. There's also an active forum for both support and to discuss what and how new features are built out. https://pho…

WARNING! Be aware that this is an Electron app. I tried it, and using the interface was like swimming in glue. I presumed this meant "Electron app" and a quick check confirmed it.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#258

Post by jasim »

vishnumohandas wrote: post #27

Hey, over the last year we've been building ente[1], an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos. We have shipped open-source[2] web and mobile apps that have preserved 180,000+ files. Apart from cross-device sync, you can share your albums end-to-end encrypted, and filter photos by location and time. We recently had a "successful" launch on r/degoogle[3]. We wanted to Show HN after incorporating the feedbac…

Kudos to the name! The meaning ("ente" = "mine" in Malayalam) meshes deeply with what the service is, and it is short and easy for everyone to pronounce.

Re: Ask HN: Alternatives to Google Photos?

#260

Post by vishnumohandas »

jasim wrote: post #258
vishnumohandas wrote: post #27

Hey, over the last year we've been building ente[1], an end-to-end encrypted alternative to Google Photos. We have shipped open-source[2] web and mobile apps that have preserved 180,000+ files. Apart from cross-device sync, you can share your albums end-to-end encrypted, and filter photos by location and time. We recently had a "successful" launch on r/degoogle[3]. We wanted to Show HN after incorporating the feedbac…

Kudos to the name! The meaning ("ente" = "mine" in Malayalam) meshes deeply with what the service is, and it is short and easy for everyone to pronounce.

Glad you like it. :)
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