Free Online Backup
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Hello! I've been using Spideroak for online backup of documents etc., but it's come to my attention that it's not free. Does anyone know of a free alternative? Thanks for your time!
I am a translator!
What you do there is storing data in "the cloud", thus you give control over your data to someone else, which is a bad concept of security and privacy. You should store everything locally and only access servers for looking at websites, not storing your personal data there.
However, if you really need to store stuff online and there is no other option for you except setting up a private server to do the same thing, use Spideroak as before (or setup a private server for the same thing obviously). It doesn't really matter what software the spideroak server runs, as long you as you can access and use it with your free software. There is no moral issue, not for you.
There is only a moral issue if you have to use a computer set up for your personal use, a computer where you are supposed to be able to install/remove software. Then you are "obligated" to install a free OS and only free software on top, but there is no such obligation with servers. You aren't supposed to install software there, so the moral issue is only with the company who runs the server, not with you.
If you wanted to access a webserver that has Windows Server running on it, you wouldn't object to that fact either. One may hope for the sake of the people who run the site that they install a GNU/Linux on their machine, but it's their business, not ours ;)
Spideroak actually encrypts the data on the client side. They claim they cannot read the data on their server. However this is hard to know for sure without an access to the source code.
You should care about the client software installed on your system. If it is proprietary, it is problematic. There are two free software clients I am aware of for online backup:
* SparckleShare ( http://sparkleshare.org ) that, unfortunately does not encrypt your data. As a consequence, if you are concerned about the privacy of your data (it depends on them), you should encrypt them yourself before sending them.
* Syncany ( http://www.syncany.org ) that looks awesome. In particular the data is encrypted on the client side. Unfortunately it is still in an early stage of development.
It is definitely true that you give control of your data to someone else, but conceptually an online storage service acts just like a bank - You give your money to a bank without thinking twice about it, and the same is true of online storage service companies.
Some are definitely more secure than others, and really, when you think about it, majority of your space isn't taken up by highly valuable documents like your social security number, bank statements, etc - Your space is taken up by media, which doesn't need to be super secure.
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Syncany looks impressive. It's free, works with various types of storage such as FTP (i.e. you don't need to install a "Syncany server"), and even integrates into Nautilus file manager. I'll keep an eye on this one.
I read about Sparkleshare a while ago but I think I'd prefer Syncany. Sparkleshare depends on the Mono framework, which doesn't come with Trisquel preinstalled (although it is available in the repo). Mono, which is a free implementation of the Microsoft .NET framework, is possibly covered in part by Microsoft patents. Personally, I'm not comfortable using an imitation of Microsoft technology in my OS... since by definition the Microsoft version will always be ahead of Mono (like Wine) and Microsoft is not very free software friendly. If none of the risks of using Microsoft-inspired technology bother you, you may wish to consider Sparkleshare.
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Am also watching Syncany; looks impressive. Till then, I'm keeping data
local. I had been a fan of Dropbox.
Cheers,
Dave
On 09/25/2011 11:36 AM, name at domain wrote:
> Syncany looks impressive. It's free, works with various types of
> storage such as FTP (i.e. you don't need to install a "Syncany
> server"), and even integrates into Nautilus file manager. I'll keep an
> eye on this one.
>
> I read about Sparkleshare a while ago but I think I'd prefer Syncany.
> Sparkleshare depends on the Mono framework, which doesn't come with
> Trisquel preinstalled (although it is available in the repo). Mono,
> which is a free implementation of the Microsoft .NET framework, is
> possibly covered in part by Microsoft patents. Personally, I'm not
> comfortable using an imitation of Microsoft technology in my OS...
> since by definition the Microsoft version will always be ahead of Mono
> (like Wine) and Microsoft is not very free software friendly. If none
> of the risks of using Microsoft-inspired technology bother you, you
> may wish to consider Sparkleshare.
Thank you all for your input. I'll do some investigation before deciding on which to use. In reality, local backup is all I really need, so that is ultimately what I should use. Thanks again!
Yeah there are free backup programs you can get. Ideally you would get something like a USB hard drive and back all your data up to it. If you are really paranoid/need offsite backup you could have an old PC with a USB drive somewhere else (someplace like maybe Grandma's house) and rsync your data over to her house on a daily basis.
Handing your data over to a 3rd party organization is something I wouldn't do. Especially since basically all those organization's main motive is $$.
...but what happens to G-ma when there is a home invasion and she is hung upside down with her mouth taped shut and getting whipped with jumper cables as the other accomplice is smashing her computer to bits with a shovel because they came for an iPhone and it "wasn't an iPhone."
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