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What open-source software would you like more people to know about? (reddthat.com)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/opensource@lemmy.ml
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[–] 119 points 2 years ago (18 children)

Syncthing, a peer to peer file synchronize that basically everyone needs, they just don't know it.

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  • [–] 45 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    It's insane how many services sell file synchronisation as a premium feature when syncthing can do it for free and no one seems to use it

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago (4 children)

    I mean, true...but I don't think the average user is paying for the service rather than they're paying for not having to worry about setting up everything needed to get syncthing working.

    I don't consider myself a luddite in any way, but within five seconds of reading syncthing's install instructions even I basically just said, "yeah...no." And I say that AS a nearly 12 year semi-advanced linux user. It's not that it's difficult. But difficult enough to not be worth it for the average person.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    but within five seconds of reading syncthing's install instructions even I basically just said, "yeah...no."

    Install instructions: download tarball, unpack, run. Done.

    Did I miss something?
    Autostart at system startup can be done with the basic utilities of the OS.
    Windows: scheduled tasks. Systemd/Linux: they have a basic service file that you just have to drop in the right folder, and run 2 commands (start, enable).
    Piece of cake. Not telling this because I already know how these work, but because as I remember, these steps are documented.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Eh, there's always something people with a lot of tech knowledge think are obvious to people without a lot of tech knowledge. Just look at the mess that Linux can be.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago* (1 child)

    I don't consider myself to have a lot of tech knowledge. I'm not working in the field, and there's lots of things I want to do better than now.

    If you don't yet know about what is systemd and how does it work, it's fine. The documentation of the unit files is a bit more complicated than warranted, like, it's structure is not that readable, but the syncthing documentation helps in what you need to do

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  • [–] 16 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    The best part is it works with Android as well. Whenever I turn my computer on, all my photos on my phone sync to my computer to a folder that gets regularly backed up (using Vorta which is an excellent and easy to use open source backup program for Windows, Linux, and Mac)

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Can you explain a bit more about what file synchronization is?

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  • [–] 23 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    You know Dropbox? Google drive? OneDrive? That's file synchronisation. Files across multiple devices kept in sync by the software provider. Except in the named cases above, all your data is uploaded to their servers. With syncthing there's no cloud server, just your devices operating over the internet. So you have some backup responsibility to cover.

    Caveat: I've never used syncthing and I wrote the above with a total of 10 seconds of reading their website and so it is entirely possible I'm completely wrong about everything and so I emplore you to do your research.

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