This can also be done with entirely Free Software (for those that care about such things) by combining things like OwnCloud (<a href="http://owncloud.org/" rel="nofollow">http://owncloud.org/</a>) and MediaGoblin (<a href="http://www.mediagoblin.org/" rel="nofollow">http://www.mediagoblin.org/</a>), and maybe PageKite (<a href="https://pagekite.net/" rel="nofollow">https://pagekite.net/</a>) if port forwarding is not an option.<p>I think OwnCloud has a mobile interface and syncing features as well now.
I've always been surprised that GPL-licensed Dropbox-clone iFolder hasn't gotten more attention: <a href="http://ifolder.com/" rel="nofollow">http://ifolder.com/</a> Sponsored by Novell, last release within the past year, seems fairly robust. I've looked at it but never set it up since I'm comfortable just encrypting my Dropbox content. And Dropbox is so convenient and increasingly integrated with other applications (I use it with Epistle, for example). But I'm curious if anyone has tried iFolder out...
I'm pretty interested in something like this. It seems to me that all these services like Dropbox and Google Drive are charging for something the vast majority of people don't need - online storage of data - when what they really want is just sync of data between devices. While storing the data online makes the process more user friendly, it opens up a raft of other problems like legal liability and of course, most of these services are built around models that charge for storage, so you end up paying more and more the longer you use them.<p>I'm sad that LiveMesh is being retired by Microsoft as it actually did exactly what I want - just P2P sync. I'm looking into OwnCloud at the moment.
So basically this is good if you need the flexibility of Cloud based apps like Dropbox or Box with the convenience of data ownership and storage.<p>It is interesting to see that folks can "replace" dropbox with ftp/ssh/rsync/webdav etc. But the strength of dropbox or similar solution (self-hosted or otherwise) is the consumability model (music transcoded and streamed, Photos resized and presented as slideshows, controlled share support). With more and more access to the data coming from mobile clients, the differentiation of these services from those "traditional access services" are their support for new mobile clients/OSes.
I use duplicity <a href="http://duplicity.nongnu.org/" rel="nofollow">http://duplicity.nongnu.org/</a> in conjunction with S3 (and possibly Glacier soon) to store encrypted backups. the data's in "the cloud" but is encrypted.
<a href="http://www.zdnet.com/no-personal-data-on-google-apps-norway-tells-its-councils-as-it-clears-cloud-use-7000004904/" rel="nofollow">http://www.zdnet.com/no-personal-data-on-google-apps-norway-...</a><p>If trends like this continue there is good potential for selfhosted personal clouds.