alt Hacker NewsSyncthing-Android have had a change of owner/maintainer
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Additional context from the original author of syncthing-android, Catfriend1: https://forum.syncthing.net/t/does-anyone-know-why-syncthing...
I love using Syncthing for syncing all my ROMs and saves across my handhelds (RG35XXSP running muOS, AYN Thor running Android), my NAS and MacBook. I'm trying to figure out what my concern level should be with a change in ownership of syncthing-fork for Android though. I guess let's see what happens?
Syncthing is such a reliable workhorse. I hope the Android situation gets sorted out. It's been tricky over the years as Android makes it harder and harder to work with simple files.
I’m using Syncthing, though not the Android version. After reading the forum thread, the whole situation seems to be mishandled pretty badly. I wouldn’t feel comfortable entrusting my sensitive data to them after such a sketchy handover process. As mentioned by the others there, it’s suspiciously similar to browser extensions being sold to the data mining / adtech companies.
I'm on v1.28.1. Didn't even notice it hasn't been updated for a while as it works fine for me as is. And unless Android gets more things that cause breakage I don't see a need for updating.
Seems like I hadn't switched away from the previously official Play store app (v 1.27.3) [0] archived on 2024-12-03.
I ended up moving from Syncthing to FolderSync, the Syncthing setup for adding folders is pretty tedious and I can reuse my existing webdav (or sftp) server with FolderSync.
My use case was probably simpler than some peoples use of syncthing as I just use it for backing up photos/messages/settings and dont need it to be instant.
My only issue with FolderSync is that its proprietary but its the only option i found that worked well. The various rclone frontends that exist also didnt work nicely with the webdav server I use so I settled on it, its very polished so I dont mind too much.
Urgh okay I'm confused about what's happening: looking at F-droid it looks like the handover has happened so what are people feeling about this now?
tldr. What should I use? I've got "Syncthing-Fork Wrapper Version v2.0.10.1"
This is how AGI takes over. A first, clumsy attempt, easily spotted. But soon we will wake up one morning and all of our bases belong to them. /s
I don't follow the Syncthing ecosystem, so it's difficult to understand what is happening.
[Edit: The GitHub repos are called "syncthing-android". The Android apps are called "Syncthing-Fork" or "Syncthing-Fork Wrapper", which adds to the confusion.]
If I recall, there used to be a syncthing-android app on Google PlayStore. That was discontinued by @imsodin in Oct 2024 (https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-androi...).
There was a version of sycnthing-android on F-Droid. I don't remember who maintained that. I have version 1.30.0.4 installed. But I cannot find any information about that version anymore.
The current version on F-Droid is 2.0.12.1. That seems to be maintained by a fellow named @researchxxl. Apparently @researchxxl claims to have inherited the source code and signing keys from a person named @Catfriend1 (Not sure who that is, the maintainer of version 1.30.0.4?)
There is another fellow named @nel0x who seems to be maintaining a different version of synchthing-android? (Edit: Here it is, https://github.com/nel0x/syncthing-android, which says that it is a fork of the one maintained by @Catfriend1).