Not everyone likes the idea of storing their data in the cloud, but at the same time the benefits of being able to sync your files across multiple devices are just too good to ignore. It’s a difficult conundrum to be sure, but if this sounds like you, we might finally have the answer you’ve been looking for.

Just launched this week following its pre-Alpha release earlier this year, BitTorrent Sync is sort of kind of like a cloud but it isn’t really. What it is, is an app that lets you create your own personal little cloud, one that links up all of your little (or not so little) devices, providing much the same functionality as you’d get from Dropbox, Mega or Google Drive. Most specifically of course, you get full access to your shared folders, meaning you can access them on the go, without ever having to worry about what might happen when you trust a third-party with your most precious data.

BitTorrent Sync does this thanks to the famous old BitTorrent protocol that’s so loved by multimedia pirates and those who decide its okay not to pay for the movies and songs they download off the web. In a nutshell, what BitTorrent does is to make it easier and faster to share large files over the internet. It does so by co-ordinating the upload/download process in such a way that devices sharing the material also share small pieces of previously accessed data with others, effectively sharing the workload and speeding things up for everyone. The technology became popular mostly for the way its been abused by freeloaders on download sites like The Pirate Bay, but aside from this it’s also proved a big hit with business customers.

Now, BitTorrent has decided that its time to muscle in on the cloud sharing space, in the hope that it can steal some of the more paranoid users away from companies like Dropbox and Google, and once they see how it works, there’s every chance it will do just that.

For now, the app is only available for Windows, OS X and Linux – there’s no mobile app, though that will come later. Simply install the app, designate the folders to be synced, then create a secure encryption key to keep them safe. Next, grab your second device, type the secret key into it, and BitTorrent’s protocol will start working its magic – all files within the designated folders will be copied into the new device, and in double-quick time too.

Whose Gonna Use BitTorren Sync?

One thing users need to understand is that BitTorrent Sync doesn’t actually give users any more storage space. What it does do is share your data between your own devices, but at the very least this helps to serve as a backup in case your hard drive gets damaged.

It might not give users any more ‘space’, but nevertheless BitTorrent is a clear winner in several areas, notably privacy, reliability and speed. For one thing, there’s no unplanned downtime with Sync, so users won’t need to worry about Google’s little blips when it becomes inaccessible ever again. Morever, the fact that your data is only stored on your devices means its inherently safer than anything that ‘true’ cloud services have to offer. Then there’s the fact its 100% free to use, quite unlike Dropbox for example, which only gives its users a measly 2GB of storage before it demands they start coughing up the readies. What’s more, you don’t even need an internet connection to Sync files – it works just as well on a LAN if that’s all you happen to have. Moreover, there’s some useful functionality too, such as sharing one-way only, the ability to exclude certain docs in a shared folder, and limited time keys. All in all, BitTorrent is a pretty robust little setup.

Whether BitTorrent Sync will be able to disrupt the cloud storage industry and tempt users from Dropbox, Google, Microsoft et al remains to be seen. It’ll almost certainly win over those who are not beholden to the idea of storing their data with third-parties, but for businesses in particular, these third party services are sometimes seen as an advantage. Despite what scaremongers say, the chances of Dropbox or Google going bust or locking down an enterprise’s vital data are remote to say the least, meaning they are much more secure from the perspective of data integrity. Sync might ‘backup’ your files, but if you only sync two devices and they both break (unlikely, but possible), that data would be lost. Another advantage that cloud services have is that the software they use contains a built-in safety net that ensures the most recent files are never overwritten. With Sync and its peer-to-peer technology, that safety net is no longer there, so we have the (admittedly small) danger that recent changes could be overwritten.

It’ll be some time before we see any business users considering BitTorrent for their cloud storage needs, but nevertheless it’s going to be an interesting space to watch. Last week we saw the emergence of another threat to traditional cloud vendors in the form of Space Monkey, which works similarly to Sync in that no ‘cloud’ is used. With Space Monkey, users are given storage devices that are shared among other users, creating a kind of virtual network within the Space Monkey eco-system that is nigh-on invulnerable to unexpected downtimes and problems with servers. But just as with Sync, Space Monkey will need to work hard to ease user’s concerns, with its security protocol being the biggest question mark so far.