Thoughts on BitTorrent Sync?

[jkroeder]

Figured it'd be nice to have a sync solution that doesn't require backing up to the cloud. I was wondering what you guys thought about BitTorrent Sync. Any security/privacy concerns with it? How well does it work for you? Things like that.

I know of one open source solution called SyncThing. I tried it and in my experience, it was a little buggy and the interfaces weren't great to deal with.

Personally, I'm looking to use it on an Android phone and an Apple laptop.

 

[Mushkins]

Depends on what specifically you're looking to sync. Movies? Documents? Directories with full permissions settings? Big stuff, little stuff, lots of stuff?

From a security standpoint, bittorrent as a protocol was not designed with a security-first approach. BT clients have shoehorned over-the-top encryption features into their code but it's far from perfect and can have compatibility issues. No idea if this product supports encryption, but the protocol itself does not encrypt its traffic.

From a usability standpoint I would never use bittorrent as a sync tool. It's not at all designed for that. It's also the *least* likely protocol to actually function when you're out and about. ISPs and private guest networks try notoriously hard to lock down bittorrent traffic, whereas they're much more liberal with cloud sync services. Plus bittorrent is a data hog, it's gonna kill your data plan.

 

[lxskllr]

I use Mega and SpiderOak. Anything sensitive gets gpg encrypted first. I've tried SyncThing, but couldn't get it to reliably work. The above two services have been very reliable, but you're giving your data to a third party, using closed source software.

 

[jkroeder]

thanks for the info.

I was really only thinking of using it to sync photos between my phone and laptop. I'll consider my options and try to pick the best one.

 

[cirrrocco]

Just use Mega. 50 gigs ,encrypted. I have been using it since it was released. No issues so far. Been syncing between

home laptop, work lapotop and phone