Hey folks! I know a while back there was a kerfuffle because syncthing-fork for Android went dark, and then a new person showed up and claimed everything was cool and they’d been privately given the keys or something, and people were concerned. I pinned my fdroid version to the at-that-time-current release until we got clarity.
Well, it’s been a while and I just noticed I’m still on that old release. So… how’d it turn out? Do we like the new person yet? Is there a promising fork y’all are using? Or is the project dead? I’m sure I could just go look at the repo, but I’m also sure the repo would tell me “yeah, we’re all cool” no matter what, so I’m curious what the community feelings are. Have there even been any useful new releases since then?
Thanks!
F-droid themselves gave an update in April:
https://f-droid.org/en/2026/04/03/twif.html
So it seems since the handover things have settled but there is also a new fork which takes a more bare-bones approach.
This is amazing. So what you’re saying is that the answer is that there are now three separate syncthing apps, which are all similarly functional and in collaboration with each other?
Two built for Android, Syncthing-fork and BasicSync, and the latter is meant to be less featured and simpler (or basic! Wow, it’s in the name!)
And the third is the desktop service for Linux, Windows, etc. Technically, you can install the Linux one with Termux or similar on Android, but it’s a little jankey. It is possible though, as somebody else has already mentioned!
3?
I was thinking there was a syncthing in addition to syncthing-fork
I see. Yeah, that was discontinued. The maintainers didn’t have time for it.
Man, the BasicSync app has a long list of permissions…
https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.chiller3.basicsync/
Why does it need to know my Location?
I’m using BasicSync since a few weeks, the location permission is completely optional. This is what the app says:
What a bs permission to have been invented.
It should be it’s own special network permission or something but what the hell does that have to do with the general meaning of “location”?.
Just allow the app to see what SSID I am connected to if I want to allow that
Sry for having to endure my rant
It’s actually a bit informative. I believe Android approximates location using the SSID/WiFi information, so it’s not just network that it’s used for.
Hm…Still so.
It should be its fully own permission to allow even if it belongs both to location and networking.
I think the idea is that it is not something separately securable? I don’t disagree, I’d like to be able to disallow any app not explicitly granted permission to use any method to determine my location. Unfortunately if Google can scan WiFi and figure out your location, anything with access to WiFi can too maybe?
I don’t know. I love technology but this fucking surveillance state situation is really getting to me. Routers using WiFi signal passing through your body to identify and locate you regardless of whether or not you are carrying any tech and all the other shit I don’t know about… ugh.
Location is such a weird permission…
For example the permission is also needed to find local devices via bluetooth (eyeroll)…
And even then, local device finding is a sub-permission of location…
I think that’s more about telling users though that if they let an apl find local devices, that can be used to deduce your location.
https://github.com/chenxiaolong/BasicSync#permissions
And location isn’t a permission granted by default on install (unlike Internet access), the user has to approve of it explicitly.
To know if you are on your home network and use direct lan etc, rather than finding a sync relay in the cloud…something like that.
At least it’s open source so anyone can look at the code and figure out why it asks for the permissions.
This should be top comment
Looks like I’ll have to setup BasicSync. I still don’t trust Syncthing-Fork. The way things went down don’t give me any confidence it could happen again but worse e.g the dev introduces something like a “fuck zionists” patch that wipes everything if you’re on an isralean IP. Then I’d be putting myself in danger for using a VPN or TOR exit node in Israel. Not taking that risk.
Thanks for the writeup.
Source for that?
I don’t like that a software with access to my files has logic for this behavior.
I use syncthing as a backup-tool so it would be, let’s say bad if it should happen.
That commenter was using an example of something very bad that could happen if the fork got handed off to someone else again but worse, not something that actually happened
Whoops. Thanks for pointing it out. Read it as a fact not as an example.