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Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

ente.io

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Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#31

Post by soziawa »

reacharavindh wrote: post #28

Does it do background sync on iOS?. There are so many alternatives to Apple Photos, all with this handicap. “Leave the app open for it to sync” Photos are the only reason I pay for the 2 TB plan on iCloud. I don’t need all the photos on device all the time. If I can _reliably_ stash them in remote servers and have a way to access them on-demand on the phone, I can take the money I give Apple and pay for the app that…

> There are so many alternatives to Apple Photos, all with this handicap.

Apple doesn't allow background execution for third party apps. Can't increase service revenue if you allow competition.

Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#32

Post by vishnumohandas »

Hey, Ente's CEO here.

We had opensourced our server[1] yesterday, which is perhaps why we are on the front page. Stoked to be here

Ente had launched on HN[2] a while ago and has been sustainably growing since.

We took the feedback from our Show HN seriously and have since

- undergone a cryptography audit [3]

- published our replication strategy [4]

- added requested features (family plans, collaborative albums and links, ...) [5][6][7]

- made progress with Edge ML [8][9]

- built a CLI for incremental data exports (our desktop app supports this as well) [10]

- and in general matured as a company [11]

Also, apart from our source code, our Figma[12] is public as well.

If you've feedback on what we could do better, please do share, it'd be very helpful.

And if you've any questions, do ask, I'd love to make myself useful.

[1]: https://ente.io/blog/open-sourcing-our-server/

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28347439

[3]: https://ente.io/blog/cryptography-audit/

[4]: https://ente.io/reliability

[5]: https://ente.io/blog/family-plans

[6]: https://ente.io/blog/collaborative-albums/

[7]: https://ente.io/blog/collect-photos/

[8]: https://ente.io/blog/image-search-with-clip-ggml/

[9]: https://ente.io/blog/desktop-ml-beta/

[10]: https://github.com/ente-io/cli

[11]: https://ente.io/blog/reflections-on-trusting-trust/

[12]: https://www.figma.com/file/SYtMyLBs5SAOkTbfMMzhqt/ente-Visua...

Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#33

Post by Daviey »

I'm looking forward to trying our the self-hosted option, but I will say the transparency they've provided to their reliability model for hosted is awesome.

https://ente.io/reliability/

Compare this to the approach of CSP's, their model is mostly around "trust me bro", and even on enterprise/commercial terms the transparency they provide is poor. I would love to see this sort of transparency by service providers in the future.

Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#34

Post by flakeoil »

robertwt7 wrote: post #25

The best decision for me is still to buy synology and store everything locally on Synology photos. No subscription, expandable storage, and full privacy. It is 100% worth the extra $ if you plan on subscribing for a loong time anyway

> It is 100% worth the extra $ if you plan on subscribing for a loong time anyway

I think many people forget about this. They pay for a monthly or yearly cloud storage subscription, but forget they have to pay this amount every year for the rest of their lifes if they want to keep their data. That's why I also use a Synology disk. I also have an additional lifetime subscription at a cloud storage provider (which pays back within 3.5 years). Sure they can disappear after say 10 years, but at least I have the Synology and I got a much better deal during those 10 years and can look for something else.

Another thing, don't upload all pics you take immediately, only sync after you have cleaned out all the bad photos and near duplicates.

Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#35

Post by vishnumohandas »

infogulch wrote: post #7
Aeolun wrote: post #4

Interesting I’d never even heard of this before. I was fairly certain I’d seen all the common open source solutions, but apparently not.

It seems to have been open sourced very recently.

Hey, one of the folks working on Ente here. Our clients were always open source, we published the code to our server[1] into a monorepo[2] just yesterday.

[1]: https://ente.io/blog/open-sourcing-our-server/

[2]: https://github.com/ente-io/ente

Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#36

Post by mcfedr »

reacharavindh wrote: post #28

Does it do background sync on iOS?. There are so many alternatives to Apple Photos, all with this handicap. “Leave the app open for it to sync” Photos are the only reason I pay for the 2 TB plan on iCloud. I don’t need all the photos on device all the time. If I can _reliably_ stash them in remote servers and have a way to access them on-demand on the phone, I can take the money I give Apple and pay for the app that…

Apple is the reason.

They make it impossible to compete, their apps have permissions no one else can have.

Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#37

Post by vishnumohandas »

danlugo92 wrote: post #3

Great now I just need Google's export/data migration feature to actually work.

Hey, you can use Ente's desktop app[1] to import the archives you export via Google Takeout. The app stitches together metadata with their original files so you'll have your library in one-piece.

[1]: https://ente.io/download/desktop

Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#39

Post by vishnumohandas »

jacques-noris wrote: post #6

I’m looking exactly for something like that. But 2.99 Euro a month is too expensive, when even Apple only wants 99 cents.

Hey, one of the reasons Ente is expensive is because we maintain 3 copies of your data across 3 clouds.

You can read about our replication strategy here: https://ente.io/reliability

We could in the future offer cheaper plans at the cost of additional replicas.

Re: Ente: Open-Source, E2E Encrypted, Google Photos Alternative

#40

Post by yau8edq12i »

flakeoil wrote: post #34
robertwt7 wrote: post #25

The best decision for me is still to buy synology and store everything locally on Synology photos. No subscription, expandable storage, and full privacy. It is 100% worth the extra $ if you plan on subscribing for a loong time anyway

> It is 100% worth the extra $ if you plan on subscribing for a loong time anyway I think many people forget about this. They pay for a monthly or yearly cloud storage subscription, but forget they have to pay this amount every year for the rest of their lifes if they want to keep their data. That's why I also use a Synology disk. I also have an additional lifetime subscription at a cloud storage provider (which pays…

To be fair, the underlying storage of the synology won't last forever. A cheap SSD might reliably last five years, a nice one, about ten years, as far as I know. You also need to pay for the electricity necessary to keep your server running 24/7, if you want a service level equivalent to a cloud storage service. All this adds up. The scales will probably stay in favor of the self-hosting options, but you have to take all this into account for a fair comparison.
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