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Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

dropboxforum.com

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Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#81
post #47
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More seriously: Syncthing exists, and it is beautiful. I set my grandmother up with Synctrayzor and she doesn't know the difference between that and Dropbox. It is missing the ability to share things with a direct link, or share a repository or folder "easily" (read: in the same way it's done with Dropbox), but the trade off has been worth it for me.

Which cloud backend do you have it sync to?

None.

You run it on your machines and they will sync among themselves. No need for any cloud backend.

Some people with Synology or QNAP run an instance on their NAS.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#82
post #36

No problem, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.

More seriously: Syncthing exists, and it is beautiful. I set my grandmother up with Synctrayzor and she doesn't know the difference between that and Dropbox. It is missing the ability to share things with a direct link, or share a repository or folder "easily" (read: in the same way it's done with Dropbox), but the trade off has been worth it for me.

I can't read that name without rearranging it to Snytching. Am I dyslexic?

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#83
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because Linux users know what they're getting and store more data then "regular" users. It's the same reason "unlimited" storage plans from Backblaze don't have a Linux client.

Then put a limit and don't claim unlimited

Bad for business. Better slap "unlimited" everywhere but just shoo away the hoarders.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#84

No problem, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem.

Just in case anyone doesn't recognize this quote, it is from the 2007 hacker news post about Dropbox: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863

I thought it sounded familiar!

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#85
post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The modern alternative is probably Syncthing. I intermittently maintain a list of these things at https://github.com/pjc50/pjc50.github.io/blob/master/secure-... ; none of them have ever been precisely what I wanted. The cheap alternative to Dropbox with Linux support you want was "Hubic" from OVH (edit: now discontinued)

But where would you sync to? Dropbox also keeps a copy of your files which makes it attractive without the need to set up configure your home nas. Although it's arguably a more intelligent decission to share private files not with a company like dropbox.

Similar to the Mac backup software Arq, just give me a list of object stores I can point to (Backblaze would be my first pick). Although, for my purposes, I think iCloud Files is going to turn into most of what I need from Dropbox fast enough that'll be where I move to.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#86
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about Keybase? It has a pretty seamless files experience, I find. Open source, end-to-end encryption, Windows client, painless sync, free for 250GB...

Stores your private keys, though.

Well, according to this, they can't read your data.

"These folders are encrypted using only your device-specific keys and mine.

The Keybase servers do not have private keys that can read this data. Nor can they inject any public keys into this process, to trick you into encrypting for extra parties. Your and my key additions and removals are signed by us into a public merkle tree, which in turn is hashed into the Bitcoin block chain to prevent a forking attack. Here's a screenshot of my 7 device keys and 9 public identities, and how they're all related."

https://keybase.io/docs/kbfs

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#87
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a really great example of worse is better.[1] We went from sophisticated network file system to a daemon that destroys your battery life (at least on Mac) watching for file changes in a directory. [1] https://www.dreamsongs.com/RiseOfWorseIsBetter.html

Your situation is different than mine; this is the first I've heard of Dropbox even registering as a top use of battery. How many files do you have? I've got 26000 files in my Mac's dropbox folder. (Granted, very few of them change more than once or twice a day; maybe 20 or so of those do.)

I last used Dropbox in 2011 or so (I stopped using it because it killed my battery life). It may have gotten better since then. (But my point is addressed to what it takes to get popular, i.e. that its easier to make a “dumb” tool popular, and Dropbox was popular back then.)

EDIT: Clearly not just me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12464901 (thread from 2016)

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#88
post #63
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The other famous one of those is "No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame." https://slashdot.org/story/01/10/23/1816257/apple-releases-i...

I like it. iTunes, for those that haven't used a Mac, is REALLY slick. This has aged gloriously, thank you!

Back in the day, it was pretty slick!

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#89
post #27

It's a shame that btrfs seems to be dead in the water. I guess nobody with the resources to build such a filesystem actually needs its snapshotting and integrity features at the filesystem level?

Does ZFS gaining steam on Linux in recent years have anything to do with the state of btrfs?

Does it really gain steam? Last time I checked the CDDL license incompatibility with GPL made it impossible to ship ZFS with Linux, and as such, distros have separate packages not maintained by the core team (I'm thinking of Arch right now).

For the record I would be very glad if I could seamlessy use ZFS, but from my perspective it looks like a lot of work that can break in unexpected places.

Re: Ending support for Dropbox syncing to drives with certain uncommon file systems

#90
post #60
post #51

Dropbox isn't even the cheapest or best file syncing service, they're basically all a commodity at this point and if they don't want you as customers... just go elsewhere.

Would you kindly provide recommendations? I'm looking for a sync service which can run on windows AND linux (which is why onedrive and google drive are out)...and i'm willing to pay a fair monthly fee.

Just use syncthing. It works better, is open source, and runs on everything.
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