The administration GUI is presented through a localhost webpage that can be easily configured for external access (if necessary). This is less than ideal for the vast majority of users since it requires use of the terminal environment during setup. The biggest difference is that Syncthing does not install or run as a normal application on your computer, it is an executable binary. I figured I would try it out and see how well it handled transmitting my data around between Windows, OS X, and Ubuntu computers. While it did not look as easy to use as BitTorrent Sync, it appeared to offer many of the same features with verifiable data security. I started looking at alternatives late last year and repeatedly saw Syncthing mentioned as a strong, open-source alternative. The folder hash is only used to discover the IP address of devices with the same folder and cannot be used to obtain access to the folder itself. These claims turned out to be unfounded because the folder hash transmitted to the GetSync website is NOT the same as the folder key (secret). BitTorrent has even been accused of leaking folder hashes in communication with the Sync website, which could possibly give them (or anyone demanding it) access to all of your shared data. And because the software is proprietary, it is difficult to verify the safety and security of any shared data. While setting up and sharing new folders is now exceedingly easy, it started feeling like the software was heading in the wrong direction. The release of v2.0 was met with controversy because of the implementation of a paid tier that severely limited the usefulness of the software (no selective sync and 10 folder limit reverted in v2.2). Over the course of its development during the past three years, the software has evolved considerably. BitTorrent Sync seemed to fulfill that need almost perfectly and was vastly easier than constantly running rsync commands. While I have much more free storage than your average non-paying Dropbox user, I needed to regularly transfer tens of gigabytes of files without any need of uploading to the Internet/cloud. I needed an easy way to automatically transfer data from my collection computer to the lab server for storage and to my office computer for post-processing. I first started using BitTorrent Sync back during its Alpha release in early 2013 as an alternative to Dropbox for syncing large quantities of files across my work computers.
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