I’ve been de-coupling from the reliance on “cloud” services. Earlier I removed everything important from Google servies, and Google Drive in particular. However I still needed to share a couple of important things to my other devices, especially my phone, when not home. So, I still have to maintain a minimal prescence.

Then I found Syncthing. Essentially it lets any device sync to any other devices (which you cofigure), bypassing the Internet. That way, Big Tech companies do NOT have your critical data. It works on Windows, Linux, and mobile platforms.

Why is having your data on Big Tech clouds a big problem? Imagine if Google or Microsoft bans you for some stuff, you no longer can log in until you make a new account, or get the current ban revoked. You’ve just lost all access to your documents and data on your “cloud”.

Since I have a NAS (not a critical requirement, just something I happen to already have), I made it the “cloud server”. All my devices sync to it. Doesn’t matter if my device is offline, or if I am out of the house. Any changes will be held and synced when, and ONLY WHEN, I am home and the NAS is reachable. This is also known as a “hub-and-spoke” topology in networking terms. 1 server (my NAS, the hub), many devices (phones, PC, laptop etc – the spokes). All talking to just my NAS.

Or, you can do a “Mesh Network”. Every device syncs to every other devices that is online. So if something is edited and updated on PC1, it can sync to PC2 immediately, directly. The downside is – the sync only happens if both happen to be online. So, editing a file in PC1, and PC2 is not on, the file is “held” for syncing. However if you shutdown PC1, then later in the day you turn on PC2, the file won’t get synced – cuz PC1 is offline. Doing a hub-and-spoke method ensures the file is synced to the NAS, then when PC2 is online, it can sync with the NAS to get the new file (like how Google Drive/OneDrive is the “hub”).

Not going to lie, though. Syncthing has a bit of a learning curve. You may have to experiment a bit to see exactly how you can set up folders to sync on the various devices you have. But, it’s not very hard to learn.

With Syncthing, I have finally disconnected from every “cloud” service. None of my critical files now reside outside my home/NAS. My devices ONLY sync when I connect to my home network (configurable). If you want to sync even when out of your house (hence your network), Syncthing can be configured to sync thru Internet too, but you have to take care of firewalls and port forwarding etc networking stuff.