Looking for a new cloud provider + calendar/contact synchronizer

Privacy Questions
1

Hello everyone,

I have currently a self-hosted Nextcloud instance and want to switch away from it. Reason: The instance has currently limited availability (only reachable via IPv6 addresses) since my ISP puts me behind a CGNAT - preventing me to reach my instance via a normal IPv4-address. And as it looks right now, it seems like the instance destroyed itself after installing a major update (note: the instance runs on a pre-configured NextBox from Nitrokey). Luckily, I made a backup before I started it. Since buying an public IPv4 address is way overpriced from my ISP, I won’t take it as an option.

What I want:

I want a (if possible) encrypted cloud where I can easily save, sync, and edit my files/documents on the go if needed. It should be available on all major platforms (Linux, Android, Mac and iOS/iPadOS - Windows not entirely required). The same counts also for a (also encrypted) sync provider for calendar and contacts.

Here are options which I saw already with my opinion:

  • rented Nextcloud instance (VPS or a direct Nextcloud provider):
    Nextcloud has “E2E-Encryption” maybe. The only problem is that the module for that it’s still broken as of today. So it’s not really usuable like that. Regarding Cryptomator as an alternative: Could be an option if it wouldn’t have reguarly the moment where it can’t close the container (while no other program had access to it) - making me anxious about corrupting files. It happened already that I had “empty” files which I could only save by having a backup of this files. So I see this option “difficult”.

  • encrypted commercial cloud provider:
    Since there are many providers out there I’ll focus for this one Proton now. I have had my eye on Proton for some time now. But it isn’t cheap definitely and they had some stories (the climate activist one) in the past. While it’s nice that they have a way more private eco system, I definitely won’t everything of them (e.g. Proton Pass). So I’m wondering if it’s really worth all of that, how the current general reception is and how the situation is regarding potental alternatives?

  • mix of Syncthing and EteSync:
    Not really because 1. I have too many files which’s unfeasible for me to sync that via Syncthing, 2. Syncthing almost managed to overwrite my up-to-date version with an older one because of unknown sync conflicts. A big no for me. And 3. the development behind EteSync got stall lately.

I’m open for any recommendation/idea!

Thanks in advance.

2

What was the exact issue with syncthing? You have changed files on multiple devices while they were offline? I have one device (miniPC) which is always-on and online (24/7), and serves as a bridge. I have this set-up for about 2 years and no conflicts, lost or overwritten files so far.

For contacts and calendar, I use Nextcloud provider, so no E2EE. But I can live with that. And it’s easy to sync it to all devices I was thinking to switch to Tutanota for that, but I really don’t need it, and I prefer to have it in standard format (caldav / carddav)

For unencrypted cloud storage, Mountainduck is a great option (integrated Cryptomator), but unfortunately, there is no linux version. And on Linux, I find KDE Vaults more user-friendly than Cryptomator

3

An example: I had two active devices. I edit my KeePass file on one of this devices. Syncthing notices the change and tries to distribute to the other device. But the second device - an Android device reports some sort of sync conflict which shouldn’t be there since the Android device has nothing open. It was to “solve” this issue by overwriting the file with the previous version again. This leads to the situation where the file keeps it’s old version while the newest version is gone.

I have no idea why that happened.

If it comes from that Cryptomator doesn’t support Wayland where it has flicker issues, I can tell that this issues have been solved after Nvidia updated their drivers with Explicit Sync.

4

I am thinking of making a calendly but e2ee with team ops.

I think the caldav/calender space has no privacy respecting awesome software yet.

For contacts, tuta is nice.

Cloud provider, filen?

5

I also use KeePassXC on PC and KeePassDX on Android phone, synced via Syncthing and haven’t had such issue

Regarding Cryptomator, there’s nothing to complain about, it’s only that KDE Vaults looks better to me :smiley: But yes, Cryptomator is a more feature rich, multiplatform tool

6

I recently stood up a Nethserver 8 node on the cheapest Contabo VPS and have had zero issues so far. Using it for email, calendar, and contacts.

I haven’t looked into the file syncing options yet but I’m pretty sure it has a few.

7

Filen doesn’t look bad, although an audit would be nice to see (I know it’s planned). Also nice to see that they’re working on WebDAV support. I’ll keep an eye on it.

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