

Show HN: One Adaptive API for Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive - cloudrail
http://cloud-rail.com

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liadmat
A little less "we are changing the world", a little more "we offer a
JavaScript SDK for file storage accross many services".

That's the short version. I initially wrote a long comment with a list of
things I don't like, but I decided I was being too harsh so I removed it. If
you're still interested, I can mail it to you.

~~~
cloudrail
Yes, we have a vision. What you see today is the first little step into this
direction. The goal is to release more SDKs and gateways besides cloud
storage. Of course, we are very interested in your feedback. Please mail it to
info@cloudrail.com. Thanks

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aytekin
Great idea.

We (JotForm) spend so much time implementing and maintaining integration with
these services.

You definitely need pricing information. If you want to keep it free at the
beginning you can say something like "we are free until 2016", but many people
might avoid using you because there is no information on how much it will cost
when you go out of beta.

~~~
cloudrail
Thanks for the feedback. I already added some basic pricing information on the
product page. We'll update it after the end of beta.

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aytekin
Please also consider adding cloudrail integration to JotForm. We do have a
self implementation API:
[http://developers.jotform.com/integrations/](http://developers.jotform.com/integrations/)

Then we can tell people to use you when they request say "OneDrive" or any
other cloud storage service you will add in the future.

~~~
cloudrail
Sure. Can you please send me a quick note to info@cloudrail.com? One of our
developers will then get in touch with you asap. Thanks

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diafygi
Looks neat! This sounds very similar to the concept of unhosted.org[1], where
the user provides their own data storage location. Being based in Europe, have
you had any interaction with the unhosted team or their remoteStorage.js[2]
library? It seems like they are trying to integrate in Dropbox/GoogleDrive
into that library, too.

Also, you mention encryption in the Example Applications section. I've been
working on a similar concept of having a client-side javascript library that
creates an encrypted filesystem on Dropbox/Google Drive, called Bring Your Own
Filesystem[3]. The most interesting thing with the system is that these
storage locations allow for public files, which means you can set up end-to-
end encrypted communication between two Dropbox accounts[4]. I'd love to learn
more about your implementation of the encryption layer and how you plan to
develop that further. What plans do you have for privacy/encryption?

[1] - [https://unhosted.org/](https://unhosted.org/)

[2] -
[https://github.com/remotestorage/remotestorage.js](https://github.com/remotestorage/remotestorage.js)

[3] - [https://github.com/diafygi/byoFS](https://github.com/diafygi/byoFS)

[4] -
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTPimUSIWbI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTPimUSIWbI)

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gizmo686
I've been using a similar system on my own machines, by combining Dropbox with
a userspace encrypted filesystem (encfs).

~~~
mrpdaemon
In case you use an Android device, I wrote an app to use encfs on
Dropbox/GoogleDrive:

[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mrpdaemon....](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mrpdaemon.android.encdroid)

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narsil
Very cool. There's definitely demand for a unified cloud storage API.
Kloudless ([https://kloudless.com](https://kloudless.com)) provides one as
well, with some open-source UI tools. Disclaimer: co-founder here.

I'd suggest making the docs more easily accessible for developers looking to
get a better understanding of CloudRail. In addition, the link/magnify icons
on the cloud storage logos on the product page seem unnecessary, since the
logos could just link to their individual pages.

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whizzkid
Good idea!

And a small feedback;

\- Please fix your scrolling on the page. It is not a pleasing scrolling
experience.

\- Slider interval is quick, kind of disturbs while reading, do not auto-slide
at all maybe.

Edit: Sorry for not going into detail about scrolling.

I am using Chrome on Mac OS, and when i try to scroll on the main page,
whoops!, I am at the end of the page, it feels like scrolling sensitivity is
too high and i need to tap it once more to stop scrolling. It may give
different experience with a mouse maybe but using touchpad gave me this
experience.

~~~
nmjohn
For the sake of the OP can you go into more detail about the bad scrolling
experience? The scrolling is fine for me - so I'm guessing it is fine for
him/her as well.

In general I hate when sites modify default scrolling behavior - and that
absolutely is not pleasant, but I didn't notice that here.

~~~
cr3ative
Not thread-parent, but it has somehow drastically modified my scrolling speed.
I immediately and jarringly ended up at the bottom of the page. Two-finger
scrolling on a Macbook Pro, this is.

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jeremydw
A friend of mine is on the team for Kloudless
([https://developers.kloudless.com/](https://developers.kloudless.com/)). I
haven't actually used it, but the marketing material tells of the same value
prop as your project. Have any quick summary of the differences?

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cloudrail
As I understand it, Kloudless uses a middleware to convert the data. So data
flows from your app trough the Kloudless cloud to e.g. Dropbox. Means that you
really have to trust them. We are doing all the conversion in the client. No
data ever flows via our servers and no third party can read your transferred
files ;)

~~~
narsil
(Kloudless Co-founder here)

Congrats on the beta release! I'd suggest making the docs available without
having to sign up.

I noticed the docs indicate unsupported features for each service, such as
creating Dropbox links and downloading OneDrive files. A benefit to managing
the integration is that you would be able to provide full functionality for
all the APIs you support. This is one of the primary reasons we chose to adopt
the architecture we currently have in place.

This would also let you fill in missing features such as Event Notifications
and Search even if the underlying storage service doesn't provide it. For
example, we support event notifications for SharePoint.

A side-effect of this is that developers would not have to worry about OAuth
tokens expiring or having to be refreshed, since token management is handled
for them. UI tools such as authenticator widgets and file explorers (
[https://github.com/kloudless/file-
explorer](https://github.com/kloudless/file-explorer) ) can also be integrated
pretty easily since authentication is managed.

As you pointed out, client-side solutions provide additional security
guarantees. This is one of the reasons our enterprise plan features an on-
premise version of Kloudless.

I'm excited to see more development in this space, and looking forward to your
launch!

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cloudrail
Open for any feedback you might have ;)

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lorddoig
I'm a little confused - it's an auto-updating JS library with a price tag? Is
the end-to-end encryption done in JS? Is it OSS, or is the source minified and
obfuscated?

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cloudrail
It's a JS SDK which can be included in your software. This SDK can download
special definitions to adapt to e.g. the Dropbox API. E2E encryption depends
on the provider. It should just express, that we have no middleware in
between. So data flows P2P between you and the e.g. Dropbox and can be easily
encrypted.

~~~
borplk
P2P is a very bad choice of words for what you want to communicate.

You have to say something like "Your data will not pass through CloudRail".

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ricket
Not sure if he meant P2P as peer-to-peer or point-to-point. The latter seems
to make more sense. But P2P is most commonly used to mean "peer to peer".
(also pay-to-play in the games space)

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cilantro1994
Good idea. Where is the pricing information? For some reason if you cannot
create a sustainable business will you open source it? Good luck with your
endeavor.

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slantyyz
This is pretty great. It would be nice to see support for OneDrive for
Business (Office 365) as well.

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jeromedoyle
Your fontawesome icons are displaying as boxes. Looks like a CORS issue.

