If I were to ask you what exactly “The Cloud” was, what would you say? Most people would sit and stare blankly, but most dotTechies wouldn’t. Would you expound upon the benefits of a thousand identical computers all containing redundant copies of your data scattered safely throughout the globe, or would you go on a rant about how it’s all a government plan to get us to relinquish our personal information? Either way, you’re probably going to be happy to learn about Syncbox: no longer is your computer’s data forced to stay offline and communicate through the small viewfinder of your web browser. Syncbox lets you make your computer the cloud.

Syncbox is especially great for anyone who has a large hard drive or loves to share data. To start the cloud, just put files into the folder selected during setup. It can be any file you want, of any size, and from any folder on your computer. Unlike competitors Google Drive and Dropbox, there’s no need for a special webapp and a special folder to synchronize data.

A cloud is useless without its clients. That’s why the developers of the Syncbox server created clients for Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, and iOS without batting an eye. As soon as you make a change in one, it’ll be instantly reflected on your other devices.

If you’re looking for a way to turn the cloud into fog, Syncbox is a great program. It lets you host your cloud, on your desktop, but instead of simply being a file uploader, it’s a fully-featured cloud synchronization app. It’s free, and the server just on Windows. There are clients for Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, and more available.

Price: Free!

Version discovered: v0.3.1.804

Server OS: Windows

Clients OS: Windows/OS X/Linux/Android/iOS

Download size: 34.2MB

VirusTotal malware scan results: Too large!

Portability: Requires installation

Syncbox homepage [Download Server version on primary computer]

[via AddictiveTips]