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<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011>Hi,</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>Tonido has been
around a few years and have similar ambitions to FreedomBox. I hope my
observations as a Tonido user will help FreedomBox avoid Tonido's mistakes.
Basically my setup is that I have 3 PC's behind a router with built-in
firewall/SPI features. Each PC has Tonido installed, each with their own
account. The router port-forwards to one PC.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>The installation
process simply creates a Tonido profile using a Tonido-owned domain e.g.
user1.tonidoid.com, which has you up and running straight away - simply
beautiful. Each Tonido profile is a node in a P2P network. Tonido have their own
propriety File Manager, PIM, Messaging, Photo Viewer/Share, MediaPlayer,
Back-up, Blog and a P2P client applications. Tonido advises you of available
updates; first click updates the server, second click updates all apps -
very elegant solution. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>In Tonido, you
create a Group to form a social P2P network. You invite via email or
directly if you know the tonido id (user2.tonidoid.com), a member to a
Group. Then you drop your data into the Group and each member in the Group
will receive the encrypted data. Unfortunately, the Group UI is frustrating
because each nodes Group names are replicated to each node. This means a node
will have their own Groups and the Groups of the other nodes to which they are
also a member in their Group application, which becomes cumbersome quite
quickly. If nodes create the same group names such as "Family" then it becomes
confusing too. Tonido could override P2P node access through blocking/allowing
of IP Ranges - I liked this feature. I don't understand the technical
reasons for the Group concept, but from a users POV it doesn't work. <FONT
face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>I mentioned earlier that
Tonido had it's own messaging system to tonido ID's but unfortunately there is
no attachment option, which could have been used to avoid using groups.
</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>A complimentary
solution to Groups was Guests which was for people outside the Tonido network,
i.e. people who did not install Tonido. Basically you created a guest account
with an guest account name and password which linked to shared folders on your
PC. You would email the account name and password to friends, who would login to
see your data. Both Guests and Group solutions were cumbersome because I would
have to pull data from various places into these "Tonido folders" and at
the same time be mindful of who was a member of each Group/Guest Account -
Nightmare!! Please don't do this to me in Freedombox!!</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT><FONT
face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>Still, the main
reason I didn't tell my social network to sign-up to Tonido was because I could
not get Tonido's UPnP port-forwarding to work for me even when I shut-down the
router's firewall. I had to search through the logs of my router to find that I
needed to open additional ports not documented by Tonido - I got it to work but
there was no way I would subject my Mum to this hassle. This was a problem for
most Tonido users. </SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>Tonido's eventual
port-forward solution was to send everything encrypted through a "Tonido
Relay" before forwarding to other nodes. Initially, this meant each PC/node
within my home network would send the encrypted data out into the internet,
using my bandwidth allowance, before it would come back into my network.
Tonido recently fixed this issue so that if you are sending data to a home
network node it will send it across the local network making things so much
faster!!</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>Another major
problem for me that Tonido have not been able to solve is that each node
represents a single user. This means Guests can only see the data on the port
forward PC/node, which hides data from the other nodes within the home
network.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>I believe the
initial business model for Tonido was to have a pure P2P network locking people
and their PIM data into Tonido with the reassurance that all their data is local
if Tonido went bust tomorrow. In addition to that Tonido were trying to
encourage developers to create applications who would access users data like
Facebook. The developers never materialised. Tonido offered SSL access for an
additional charge but have since dropped it. Tonido initially charged for the
Relay Service but I suspect the service is now free to avoid the
port-forwarding issues. Tonido's current business model is to allow you to
download Tonido, buy a Tonidoplug or sign-up for a Tonido Cloud
service.</SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN class=437521207-26062011>My hope is that the
FreedomBox designers take the time to get right port-forwarding of a
multi-user (for home users) "safe social networking .... <FONT
face="Times New Roman" size=3><FONT face=Arial size=2>with privacy-respecting
federated services".because their are plenty of plugcomputers out there with
ugly interfaces. I will stick with Tonido's ugly consumer solution until
FreedomBox gets it right - please take the time to get it
right.</FONT></FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><SPAN
class=437521207-26062011></SPAN></FONT> </DIV>
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