Are “bring your own storage” apps a thing?

8 points by matjazdrolc 5 years ago | 7 comments

Are "bring your own storage" apps a thing?

I'm being inspired by draw.io, a web app for creating diagrams. Notably, it's not crammed with useless information and the user remains in charge of their data. A diagram can be stored as a file to your local device, Dropbox, Google Drive, OwnCloud or any other similar service.

In contrast, let's look at MyFitnesPal. Upon opening the app I'm faced with news, cookie confirmation dialog and sometimes promotional pop-ups. All this to simply input my body weight.

If MyFitnesPal followed a draw.io model, it would be a simple app with a couple of .csv files as a backend.

Is there a market opportunity for new breed of apps that are: - minimalistic in design and features - user remains in charge of the data by using text files as storage and by giving them a choice on where to store them

Where do I find people who think alike?

float4 5 years ago |

Most people don't care about their data. They don't even understand what companies do and do not collect. They want convenience.

Nonetheless, there are apps that don't collect data or allow you to sync to your own backend (usually to WebDAV).

Some links to get you started:

- https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted

- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26365835

austincheney 5 years ago |

I am working on securely opening personal storage across the internet with a point-to-point app that also lets you selectively open parts of your file system to other users.

I just proved out the application’s security model yesterday in my test automation. Once I finish the messaging subapp I will bump it to version 0.1 for public beta, but you can play with it now on your home network.

https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems

red0point 5 years ago | |

How did you prove your protocol is secure? I couldn't find any Tamarin, TLA+, ProVerif, ... in the Github.

austincheney 5 years ago | | |

Here is my write up of the security model: https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems/blob/master...

I need to update some of the language in that. Since the test automation now demonstrates both positive and negative tests against that model.

EDIT: Please note the application is currently using HTTP and not HTTPS. I am aware that is a large security gap. Please see the Missing Features section at the bottom of the readme.md: https://github.com/prettydiff/share-file-systems/blob/master...

mtmail 5 years ago |

> If MyFitnesPal followed a draw.io model,

I don't see why a commercial company striving for revenue and growth would follow the free/open source model.

draw.io app by https://www.diagrams.net/about.html is free and open source (https://github.com/jgraph). Either the authors are volunteers or I can't figure out what their business model is.

https://www.myfitnesspal.com/ received $18M in venture capital funding and has 18 open job position which I'd guess means over 100 employees. "UnderArmour sells MyFitnessPal for $345 million" https://www.zdnet.com/article/underarmour-sells-myfitnesspal...

citruspi 5 years ago |

A little surprised no one has mentioned OmniGroup's [0] applications.

Some of their applications (e.g. OmniFocus) support syncing online via an Omni account, but also offer support for syncing to a custom WebDAV server[1]. I run my own WebDAV server and point the macOS and iOS apps at it.

[0]: https://www.omnigroup.com

[1]: https://support.omnigroup.com/documentation/omnifocus/mac/3....

akadruid1 5 years ago |

https://meetmyna.com/ is a minimalistic app that requires you to bring your own storage. Dropbox and OneDrive are supported.