Insynchq : A Google Docs-Loving Dropbox Rival | Hacker News Reader

Insynchq : A Google Docs-Loving Dropbox Rival

thenextweb.com

68 pointsvidyesh25 comments

I second the recommendation of Insync. I use it on three Macs, and so far it has worked flawlessly as far as I can tell. I haven't beat on it mercilessly, but I did use it for all the course material for the two free Stanford classes I took, along with the Octave code I wrote.

Re how they are going to make money: They used to charge $20 a year if you wanted to sync more than the free 1GB that Google Docs gives you. This apparently was very confusing for customers, so now they will sync any amount for free and plan to offer some additional extra-cost features, but they haven't announced these yet. So at the moment, Insync is completely free.

I've lobbied them to support opaque syncing of symbolic links and to have a mechanism specifying files to ignore (a la .gitignore) as an extra-cost feature, so that I can use Insync for syncing code that I am working on between my work computer and my home computer. (I currently use Unison for this purpose, but I find Unison to be something of a chore to use.) Whether they will ultimately support these features, I don't know, but they did show some interest. At the moment, neither Dropbox nor Windows Live Mesh nor Insync are no good for this purpose, as none of them support ignores and both Dropbox and Insync treats symlinks transparently rather than opaquely. Live Mesh is a bit better than Dropbox and Insync with regard to symlinks: it just ignores them completely. This means that I could conceivably sync them out of band, but since it doesn't support ignores, the issue is moot.

Boy, what did I say to offend people?

I provide useful feedback on some services that I am actually using for real work, and I get downvoted?

I don't usually vote, but when I see that a useful comment has been downvoted, I upvote, as I did just now. The reason I am pointing this out is because I strongly suggest that the system be somehow changed so as not to alienate people who create useful comments. Also, we should be able to buy and sell points.

Thanks! Yeah, it's rather unsettling to spend some time to writing up my experiences only to have my post end up in the negative numbers and all grayed out for no apparent reason. I'm not sure what's up with that -- it makes you feel like you're back on Slashdot. All's well that ends well, though. The post is well into the positives now.

May I ask you what does it mean "opaque syncing of symbolic links"?

"Opaque" syncing of symbolic links means to sync the link itself, rather than syncing what the link points to. Copying or syncing what the link points to, rather than the link itself is called "transparent" copying or syncing of symlinks.

Transparent treatment of symlinks has been known to be incorrect and dangerous for about 20 years now. Unfortunately, both Dropbox and Insync treat symlinks transparently. In contrast, Unison, "rsync -a" and "cp -R" all do opaque syncing of symlinks, which is the correct behavior for a syncing tool.

Insynchq is cool... Nicely done. However it seems like Dropbx is still the best client software which works well on all platforms.

Shameless plug: So if you want to sync in the cloud (Dropbox <-> GoogleDocs) try https://cloudhq.net (Dropbox does excellent sync with your PC and then cloudHQ ensure that GDoc is sync'd with Dropbox).

The competition looks stiff, but I'm rooting for them. Terence Pua, Insync's co-founder, is a seasoned internet entrepreneur -- one of the guys behind Friendster (Philippines) back in the day, before getting killed by Facebook.

I had the opportunity to join Insync's team back when I was living in Manila; but I came across Payguard ( http://www.younoodle.com/startups/payguard ) and decided to try to revolutionize online payments instead.

Dude, I looked you up & you're coconuter. I've been following your adventures in the Philippines for a while. I didn't know you worked with Terence.

I met Terence here in the Bay Area and I had lunch with Terence when I was in Manila last May.

yup....PayGuard will rock the payments industry by putting an end to the localization trend in e-commerce and create a truly global payments platform.....of course I am biased for it.....LOL

This is cool, but what the cloud needs to truly work is a standard for communicating between any two services. Optimally, I should be able to use any Dropbox-type service with any web app, by setting "file opener" URLs. There would be some authentication method between the servers, and the file would be transferred over to the app for editing, and back to Dropbox when I press "save".

Is this feasible?

Yes. There seems to be a need to connect cloud services so that, for example, service A and talk with service B without involving your PC into that connection. Something like DCE/RCP or DCOM for public cloud.

BTW, we started doing this with the following Chrome extension which allows you to edit Dropbox/Basecamp/Sugarsync files inside GoogleDocs: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/iobcbdgacfkninlcbp...

How are they monetizing? Google Docs doesn't give them money for referrals, does it?

Sounds like they're going to charge for premium features but not for storage:

"Everyone is stuck on the “more GBs as 100% of the value” model. We want to change that. It should be about personalized features you want."

Translation: very few people's stash of word and excel documents will ever exceed 2GB.

You can store any kind of files now on Google Docs.

I'm not so sure. Given time, people will start to appreciate (and depend on) a service like this. After a while thy might start to stash pictures etc there, and constantly cleaning up to stay under x GB's will become a hassle.

Anyone know what happend to Google Drive? Was really looking forward to it...

It was killed by Google Docs:

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/05/how-google-docs-kil...

short version: google engineers have fast wifi everywhere they go, synchronizing to the hd looks pointless to them.

Mashable would disagree: http://mashable.com/2011/12/22/google-drive-predictions/ - and Google would be wise to follow. Google's arch enemies - Amazon, Apple and Microsoft - all have their clouds to dance on.

I have been looking for a way to sync to (and from) Google Docs conveniently for a while. Insynchq looks nice, unfortunately "Linux Coming Soon".

In my opinion, it can't come soon enough. If this service gets significant uptake, it should finally push Dropbox to lower their long-stagnant prices.

Does it do encryption? I would love a Dropbox with client side encryption. I don't care about web access.

Perhaps this will encourage Dropbox to up the ante and release an official sync with Google Docs. Please?

There is unofficial Google Docs <-> Dropbox sync: https://cloudHQ.net/dropbox Please let me know what you think about it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com