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DIY Dropbox Alternatives

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-quite-as-parent-friendly dept.

jfruhlinger writes "Dropbox was a service that many techies fell in love with, only to be disappointed when they found out about its dodgy security and dubious copyright claims. The company's tried to make amends — but what other options are there for those who have had enough? While there's nothing quite as seamless out there, it's not difficult to build your own Dropbox alternatives from freely available software and services from other vendors."

22 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Is using another third party service by Neil_Brown · · Score: 5, Insightful

    really "building your own" solution?

    I appreciate that one could argue that using software you haven't written yourself shouldn't count, but putting something together with a Linux box running Apache, WebDAV and various other things seems more "building your own" than simply using an existing third party alternative, as the article recommends.

    1. Re:Is using another third party service by Neil_Brown · · Score: 2, Insightful

      If that is "building your own", I guess I can say proudly that I built my own washing machine, in that I bought a washing machine, put it in place, plumbed it in and switched it on...

    2. Re:Is using another third party service by simoncpu+was+here · · Score: 2

      My experience with WebDAV is that Windows support for it beyond XP is sucky. Heck, even under XP you can't mount it as a drive (that's what users want and expect) if you're using https. There are commercial WebDAV clients and there is an abandonware Novell client, but isn't this stuff that should be supported out of the box? WebDAV is not a solution.

      I've just made a Dropbox-like alternative for a client. We used S3 for the storage and exposed it via WebDAV. Yeah, Windows support is sucky; however the trick into making it work is to use Digest Auth (not Basic), and to use a valid certificate (the CN should correctly match).

    3. Re:Is using another third party service by xaxa · · Score: 2

      If that is "building your own", I guess I can say proudly that I built my own washing machine, in that I bought a washing machine, put it in place, plumbed it in and switched it on...

      Don't laugh so hard at this... 99.9999% of modern americans who sign a contract with a corporate house builder will go around telling people "I'm building a house!".

      That's shows how the choice of language reflects culture.

      In Britain I think we'd normally say "I'm having a house built", or "We've had a new fence put up" or "The garage was re-roofed", though the "I built" way is not uncommon. I think it depends on what follows -- "We've had a new fence put up" will probably continue with a complaint about how expensive/slow/unsatisfactory the process or result was :-)

    4. Re:Is using another third party service by somersault · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Well, that is kind of how things work. The person in charge takes the credit. I wouldn't use the turn of phrase myself, but I can imagine some people doing it. Like the general of an army boasting about how he defeated some opposing army, when in fact it was his men that did all the hard work.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    5. Re:Is using another third party service by jawtheshark · · Score: 2

      Just checked, it's Digest Auth. Damn... Our main troubles lie within the fact that PDFs work badly on it (Load in a browser in the Adobe Plugin), sometimes office files corrupt on it and in rare cases files just vanish. It's always office files that vanish. My users usually want my head at that point and I have to go and fetch from backup.

      --
      Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
    6. Re:Is using another third party service by GillyGuthrie · · Score: 2

      When somebody says they "built a house," do you ask them if they grew the trees that supplied the lumber? I can smell your superiority complex from here.

  2. That's not DIY! by Robert+Zenz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    DIY stand for Do-It-Yourself...installing other third-party-applications which are doing the same does not count as DIY!

    1. Re:That's not DIY! by dr.newton · · Score: 3, Funny

      I know, right?

      He probably didn't even write the kernel his machines are running, or the compiler he used to build it (if he even compiled it himself)!

      --
      Just another proletarian malcontent.
  3. I thought we cleared these up already by F69631 · · Score: 2

    DropBox includes sharing functionality (you can choose that some of the files are accessible by anyone through browser) and DropBox doesn't want you to sue them for that so they need you to give them a permission to share your files. It's as simple as that and is the same reason why Google+ asks similar rights to all the content you upload. As for the dodgy security... When a program is configured to login automatically, it stores the login credentials somewhere that a hostile person with access to your files can probably copy. I doubt you get around this with DIY version...

    Even ignoring those (=assuming that dropbox isn't to be trusted with your data and that their security sucks)...What problem do you want to solve that you can't solve with DropBox + encryption?

    1. Re:I thought we cleared these up already by shish · · Score: 2

      I thought the problems were that dropbox employees have access to your files, they just aren't allowed to read them (they originally said they didn't have access to the files); and that for a few hours it was possible to log into any account without needing a password; you don't seem to have addressed either of those...

      --
      I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
  4. Spideroak? by jimwormold · · Score: 2

    Why not use Spideroak instead of dropbox. Spideroak have a zero-knowledge privacy policy. I'd say it's not quite as polished a product as dropbox, but everything is encrypted before it leaves my computer (come on spideroak open source your client so we can check!) and stored encrypted, so NO ONE can read it. I have access to files from android to. (I am not affiliated with Spideroak in away way.) Join via this link and we both get an extra 1GB (I believe you start with 2GB free): https://spideroak.com/signup/referral/dd998cb68d2fba5eb916a000411c2263/

  5. 2 simple and one complex solutions by roman_mir · · Score: 2

    First simple solution: host your own secure ftp.

    Second simple solution: call Dropbox and tell them you'll pay to use their service if they sign your contract. Write your contract and mail it to them.

    Complex solution: build your own software to do what they do. I don't see how that's going to be cheaper or easier than the first 2 simple solutions.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  6. Lame article. DNRTFA. by subreality · · Score: 2

    #1, "building your own" misses the entire point of using a cloud service. The whole idea is that I don't have to build my own infrastructure - I just sign up and use theirs.

    #2, changing to another provider or buying a piece of sync software is not building your own.

  7. Wuala by pfiver · · Score: 2

    Although offtopic, because not DIY, the answer, for now, for me, is "Wuala". http://www.wuala.com/ High quality java software, all content fully encrypted, sophisticated neatly designed access rights management (cryptree). It's not open source, but otherwise really close to perfect. I am in no way associated with the company (originally "Caleido", now merged into "Lacie").

    1. Re:Wuala by moronoxyd · · Score: 2

      Same here.

      I have been using Dropbox for quite some time and loved it's ease of use. But security concerns and the rather steep price of additional space made me look for alternatives. Enter Wuala.

      Support for Linux, Windows and Android? Check (+ others like Mac)
      Encrypted on client, Passphrase nevers leaves the Client? Check (as long as we trust the makers, of course)
      Mobile access via web browser? Check (Java, so not available everywhere, but almost)
      Inexpensive options to add additional space? Check (I currently can use 50 GB withouth paying a cent, by sharing some of my hard drive space to store encrypted data of other users, only viable if you have a rather decent broadband connection without data caps)

      I do agree: Wuala is not perfect, but close enough.

    2. Re:Wuala by aarongadberry · · Score: 2

      If you like(d) dropbox then go to Wuala.

      http://www.gadberry.com/aaron/2011/04/29/wuala-for-dropbox-users/

      It is so much more, and so much better.

      "The design of a worldwide, fully transparent distributed file system for simultaneous use by millions of mobile and frequently disconnected users is left as an exercise for the reader."

      - Andrew S. Tanenbaum (Distributed Operating Systems)

  8. rsync by AVryhof · · Score: 2

    rsync + ssh + cron + unlimited web hosting (that allows ssh access)

    or

    rsync + ssh + cron + a tunnel between the computers you want to sync

    You might also want a manual update script to update between cron syncs.... or better yet.... write your manual update script and have cron call it for easy maintenance.

    --
    Make America grate again!
    1. Re:rsync by AVryhof · · Score: 2

      Alternatively ... http://fak3r.com/geek/howto-build-your-own-open-source-dropbox-clone/

      --
      Make America grate again!
  9. Open-Source-Alternative-To-Dropbox by ei4anb · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/06/16/1618206/Open-Source-Alternative-To-Dropbox

  10. It just got easier on Android by phonewebcam · · Score: 2

    The basic "cloning a commercial service is easy" tone of this article used to be ok up to a point - realtime push notifications. All clients need to know when items were dropped, not just what. For Android, up until version 2.2 this was a pain - you had to implement long poll http battery-draining lookup schemes. Not so nowadays - 2.2+ gives developers C2DM - cloud to device messaging - which should put the nail amongst the pigeons, to deliberately mix my metaphors. Now any app/server can basically push to any handset (that's running your listening software, natch), so it's hello to IM'ing every app etc, and a genuine worry for those previously in this exclusive space.

    Disclaimer - I wrote the drop.io Android client before Facebook bought them out and I never heard from them again.

  11. Can't beat unison by digitalderbs · · Score: 2

    Every two years or so, I critically evaluate my options for this problem--even going through the trouble of posting an AskSlashdot on the topic--and every time, I always come back to unison. There are many DIY, non-cloud managed solutions out there; see this article for a useful comparison matrix. I've even tried using git for automated versioning and syncing. However, none seem to work as cleanly as a unison setup combined with a DynDNS IP forward to my home box. Include snapshot backups using StoreBackup--the best backup tool, IMHO--and you have a setup that is tough to beat.