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Comment by akvadrako | Hacker News Reader

An e2e Dropbox alternative would be great. Though for it to actually count as a Dropbox alternative (to me) it would need:

  1) a Linux app
  2) an Android app
  3) on-demand syncing, aka "smart sync"

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Those are some great requests. Thank you!

We currently have a macOS app available and are targeting January for a Windows launch and a Linux launch soon after. We also have an iOS and Android app with a few beta users, and will release it around Jan/Feb'22.

Slik’s desktop apps have the ability to automatically detect changes in your local connected folder and sync those changes.

About On-demand syncing - we built Slik in a way that, once backed up, no files are required on your local machine. This doesn't prevent you from searching through all your files, and you can selectively download files based on your need.

However, I have added an item on our roadmap that would selectively download folders for offline syncing and faster access. Thanks again!

The other half of what I'd consider "smart sync" is delta sync -- basically only uploading the bit of a file (or other reasonable small chunk) which has changed. Dropbox does this well, and is very useful if you're only making a small change to a GB file. Last I checked, this has not yet been handled well with encryption. Even worse if you try to do a naïve e2ee cloudstore by e.g. putting an encrypted volume on dropbox.

Nextcloud does this, you need to install an extension (they call it "app") [1] to enable e2e encryption. It offers all features you require.

[1] https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/end_to_end_encryption

Nextcloud syncing is terrible because it's based on WebDAV. It's slow, especially with lots of files. And it's not reliable.

Speed leaves something to be desired but I have not had problems with reliability. I've used it - and Owncloud before that - for almost 10 years without losing any files. Which problems are you seeing?

Are you looking for Syncthing? https://syncthing.net/

I am looking for syncthing but with an iOS app.

Has iOS just not been implemented yet or is there a technical hurdle?

There was a propriety implementation a few years ago (written in Rust of all things), but I think it's dead.

I think the bigger problem is that both iOS and Android are doing everything they can to deprecate the concept of a filesystem. Android has a history of killing filesystem features, receiving tons of developer backlash, and then hacking in workarounds with reduced performance. I think the writing is on the wall.

In my experience, porting general purpose tools to Android is a nightmare.

Hopefully something like pinephone gets good enough before things are too bad.

As long as Android has a Linux kernel running in the background there will be filesystem access. If Google ends up switching to Fuchsia this might change but we're not there yet. General purpose tools seem to run just fine on Android for the most without the need for much porting as can be seen by glancing through the list of patches [1] needed to build a host of packages for Termux.

[1] https://github.com/termux/termux-packages/tree/master/packag...

Not trying to come across as argumentative, but have you personally worked on porting something to Android? Termux actually illustrates my point. That situation is an absolute mess[0].

[0]: https://www.xda-developers.com/termux-terminal-linux-google-...

Yes, I ported a few tools to Android and worked on a few Android ports to random devices (Motorola Defy and Ainol Novo Advanced 8 being the ones I was most involved in). With regard to the problems of the "Play store" requiring $things I'm not affected since I do not use it, there is no Google-proprietary software on any of my devices. If I ever need something from the store I get it anonymously through Aurora Store. Maybe this is why my opinion of/experience with porting *nix tools is less negative?

There's https://www.mobiussync.com/

Syncthing doesn't do smart sync. The library of stuff I want available is larger than can fit on my phone.

Syncthing has ignore files which can be used to selectively not sync certain files or folders per device. I'm not familiar with Dropbox's smart sync, so if it's like a transparent on-demand sync then no, Syncthing doesn't have that.

Maybe it's possible to implement that as an extra app though, without even touching Syncthing. Android seems to have some concept of virtual file systems provided by apps so perhaps one could on-demand un-ignore files then block until they're available. (But yeah, that's definitely more than a quick hack.)

The syncthing ignore file works exactly like picking what folders to sync in drop box, just in a text file instead. (and the ability to use file globs if you want)

That isn't a usable UI on Android.

In Dropbox, if I want a file I haven't synced yet, I just browse to it and open it. I can also mark folders as available offline.

Does Syncthing support manual on-demand downloading? What I'd really like is a way to browse files and download only what I need without eagerly syncing everything all the time.

I'm using Seafile for that now, but I don't like that it needs hosting and I'd love to switch to something P2P and get rid of the server.

It's no longer maintained I think but probably still works: they did have Syncthing Lite which functions like a traditional client - https://f-droid.org/packages/net.syncthing.lite - https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-lite

Interesting thanks. So the protocol supports it, but the official app doesn't expose functionality shaped the way I want. I'll have to see if I can get that lite app running on PC somehow.

I have multiple top-level syncthing folders to work around that. Different machines get different sets of folders.

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