>Honestly, what are the real good uses for it outside of media? Games? WebTorrent?
You could use it to implement p2p collaborative editing in a productivity app, which could actually give you privacy and security benefits that aren't available when a central server is involved.
> I have been thinking of "nextcloud" but I do not see the benefit.
Nextcloud does a lot and supports "apps" for things like Google Docs-style editors in the browser. You can even do encrypted messaging, voice, and video chat with it. More here: https://apps.nextcloud.com/
If all you need is network storage, it's definitely overkill.
What if you could host it on your laptop or a server you pay for?
When I suggested something a company could host I imagined it replacing Office 365 or Google Docs (a concern governments may have about having American companies host their data). Being able to self host and allow collaboration without relying on a third party application is important.
> Then you can create hardware and software that let people host their own media and backup their own devices, instead of handing it over to giant corporations with government backdoors.
I have 3 gbps of upload bandwidth at my house. (1 Comcast fiber line with 2 gbps symmetric, and one Verizon fiber line with 1 gbps symmetric.) I still host everything on One Drive because what the heck is the point of hosting your own servers as a consumer?
> Doesn't the fun begin quite a bit higher with just any more modern software?
You tell me, I'm not a sysadmin:) I can only attest to the fact that without any kind of RAID or suitable hardware setup (RAM for caching, fast networking etc.), even a dozen people accessing the same file can be very problematic (provided the file is large enough).
As for the use case: digital content creation comes to mind. Sharing assets globally especially in times like these when more people are working remotely is such use case.
Personal cloud. You have a domain name and you host the sync on cheap hardware in your home. For a single application this seems wildly expensive, but if you had a decent ecosystem of apps it'd suddenly be a bargain. This also has secondary benefits like not sending your data to shady 3rd parties.
> This for me is the key: we expect tools to live on the network. All those apps of old, they were based around files
I agree and it's why I'm a fan of apps that sync data via something like Dropbox or Google Drive. The application can still be file based and the developer doesn't have to run servers. There are the obvious limitations, but for personal use it works pretty well.
> My question is: should we bother? Anyone with sufficient clue could setup a linux instance to do the same thing.
You indeed could setup some basic stuff this way, but I wouldn't recommend it as a long term strategy. The way that our privacy product was built protected users from a variety of issues. I also wouldn't recommend using AWS for this till you can install your own trusted hypervisor and encrypt memory/disk/etc.
> This sounds like such an insane proposition relative to the Dropbox we know today.
Does it? If you used WebDAV then you can mount a share in Windows or Linux even over the Internet, and windows at least is good at caching it while you're offline for short periods. For someone who has their own always-on Apache it seems like this would replicate most of the use cases for Dropbox. I think the point that's being missed is simply that most people would rather see a few ads or pay a small fee than administer their own Apache, not that what Dropbox offers is technically so far ahead.
> I personally wouldn't keep my private photos on a public network, but everyone is different.
Well, that's exactly the problem, isn't it? IPFS could be extremely useful for local and private storage, as it provides a network file system with proper directories, an optional HTTP interface, content addresses and an fuse implementation to mount it on Linux, along with automatic distribution and caching of the data. Those are all excellent features that I haven't really seen in any other system.
But the actual support for local or private hosting is basically non-existent. On IPFS everything is public all the time. The whole thing is way to much focused on being a globally spread protocol, while it neglects the benefits it could provide on the local PC, by just being a file format.
What I am missing is something like Git build in top of IPFS hashes. Something that allows me to manage my files on my local PC without any of the networking, but with the content addressing. Something that allows me to quickly publish them to a wider audience if I desire, but doesn't force me to. Or even just something I can use as a way to access my local files via content address instead of filename.
> The problem of the cloud is that data is held captive by SaaS companies
Only if you want it that way. An NFS share can serve as a single source for your files (extra points if it's on a block-deduped, snapshotted volume). Since well before DropBox, I used a Subversion server to hold data I wanted to share across multiple laptops (back when git didn't exist, wifi was not ubiquitous, and phone data was expensive and only usable via USB). While there is nothing comparable to Google docs or Office 365 that I can host myself (that I know of), I am pretty happy with them (even though they may not be as capable as Office or LibreOffice or Python with Pandas, they do the job).
> We need something that lets you retain ownership
A small cloud server costs about $5/month. You can set up one at your house and use whatever broadband you have.
Carrying around a computer that's optimized for small size like my Celeron-based laptop, but smaller, like my phone, but also fast like my Xeon W desktop, with enough memory for me to work - 16 GB may be enough, with a capable mid-range GPU for number crunching, but also with a long battery life and a enough storage to hold my projects is not possible yet and, when it is, I doubt it'll be enough.
> [Has] one very valid use case left: easy file sharing, especially for shared hosting.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Not easy. Not secure. Not user friendly. Not anything good. Have an iPhone and need to FTP something? Don't have installation rights on your Windows workstation and need to FTP something? Unpleasant if not confusing as all hell.
Dropbox or a Dropbox-like program is significantly easier to get people on board with.
Any "ecosystem" built around FTP is rotten to the core. Blow it up and get rid of it as soon as you can.
Some vendors insist on using FTP because reasons, but those reasons are always laziness. I can't be the only one that would prefer they use ssh/scp/rsync with actual keys so I can be certain the entity uploading a file is actually them and not some random dude who sniffed the plain-text password off the wire.
> Why are people doing so much peer level file sharing anyway? Performance? Security? In a company it would be a lot better to have centralized servers with high availability, probably with some kind of web-based CMS to store files, something like Confluence or Sharepoint.
You have to assume that the majority of Apple's users are home/edu/SMB users, who don't have centralised infrastructure.
They just want to share files between each other, or from a small NAS. Those who have Macs in an enterprise environment likely have a working solution via other methods.
> I think a lot of people do that, and I think it is a good idea in general
My experience is the opposite. I don't know a lot of people who have a machine turned on 24/7.
Additionally, I think that leaving a client machine running 24/7 is not a good idea, considering heat/consumption, (potential) noise and wear.
Also, I think other people missed one point in this discussion. If one has a local filesharing server, and carries a machine (laptop/tablet) out, they need to sync immediately every time when they come back home. It's a hassle.
I do have a 24/7 server, and used to have a filesync service on it, but all things considered, a free Dropbox account turned out to be the most conventient choice.
> I have ple ty of perfectly running applications where the vendor has long gone
Hmm, thinking about it, for simple image editing stuff I still use a version of Paint Shop Pro from something like 10-15 years ago, and it still works great.
I think then that it depends on the kind of software, and the expectations of the user: is it beneficial to store data in the cloud for easy access from multiple devices?; do you want security updates? do you want new features?; do you want support?
I also use Keepass, with passwords stored on a cheap VPS using SFTP. Works great on Android with Keepass2Android too. But of course, this is not something a general comsumer is going to setup.
> alternatively, what's a quick way to share a file with a random person that I meet on the street without unnecessary friction or leaving unnecessary traces.
There’s a lot of things that cumulatively make this hard. Some of them are “social” more than technical, and some are technically hard because of society. But importantly, people have made webpages that just p2p link two devices (eg wormhole).
Generally, no one wants to be the third party to facilitate anonymous, easy content sharing. Because people do bad things with such power. Due to the way most people consume the internet, everything is behind NATs and we’ve exhausted the IP(4) space, so p2p is pretty hard, but doable especially with a signaling server. It’s really hard to leave no trace because again, no one wants to be anonymous really, and pseudonymous tools like BitTorrent still leave subtle traces in the DHT.
> What's the best solution for this?
First, define “unnecessary”. But then…
Probably to change your criteria. I’ve never been in or can imagine a (legal and good for society) situation where I needed truly anonymous file sharing, without any ability to install anything, at a moments notice.
If you’re eg sharing with a journalist, you can take time to install software, or host content for download, or upload content to them, even if you needed to be anonymous.
If you need to it be on the street in a moment, no time for an app, you can probably just share an email or Google drive link.
If you can’t install anything, and you can’t use a 3rd party server, you should just hand them an SD card with the content. You already need to be in person to exchange public keys and hashes and whatnot.
The only true use case I can imagine needing so many anonymous protections is to share… bad media files that shouldn’t be shared with people who want them.
> Share content between two random devices
Easy… Dropbox, SFTP, torrents, USB drive etc
> without having to install an app
You’re limited to built in tools only. So either trust SMS or email, or use a browser. Either way, you need a third party server to relay the content or the software (email server, or server to host a webpage et ).
You can use Dropbox etc, you can use web torrent. You can email. USB drive.
> without having to share the content with a third party
Ok… less tools already available, you can still use webtorrent but you’ll need to exchange the magnet link and the content hashed would be in a DHT. Sorta a 3rd party but you can minimize actual content leak.
Knowing I’d the server (or other party) is logging a lot of data is question you might not be able to know.
Also a usb drive.
> having to have a verified (by third party) identity
I wouldn’t host a service without identities but at this point you have options already in the p2p space. IPFS, web torrent, p2p chat services, DAT, a bunch of things exist.
I don’t think the use case of this project is to share clipboard data with a VM. Especially not if you’re hosting the VM yourself (“clipboard access” implies you’re using the host). That’s an option in the readme BUT… why do all that? You don’t really need encrypted traffic, or identities, etc.
This project is probably for learning purposes of the developer, which is great, but I don’t know what actually use case I’d find for it is.
You could use it to implement p2p collaborative editing in a productivity app, which could actually give you privacy and security benefits that aren't available when a central server is involved.
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