As you probably know EteSync is now supported natively by both KDE and GNOME. This means that you can now add EteSync accounts directly to GNOME, KDE and apps in their ecosystem such as Evolution, GNOME Calendar, Kontact and the likes.

This has been possible for a very long time using the DAV bridge, though with these integrations, the bridge is no longer needed.

As we said in the original announcement, the integrations will be released and packaged in distributions following the next GNOME and KDE releases. However, a lot of you have been asking about starting to use it now, and we can't blame you, as we wouldn't want to wait either! :)

Thanks to some hard work by daftaupe, sjolly, and others, there are now easy to use packages available for multiple distributions!

For the most up to date packaging information, please refer to the GNOME user guide and the KDE user guide. We are working on packages for more distributions every day. However at the time of this writing there are already packages for Arch (AUR), Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, CentOS, OpenSuse and Mageia depending on whether you use Evolution or KDE. In addition, if your distribution isn't listed above, you can always just build the plugins from source.

Do you know how to create packages for your favourite distro and are willing to help? Need any help with setting up the modules? Please join us at the chat (IRC/Matrix/Web) and let us know!

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or  are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Come chat with us on IRC/Matrix, or follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!

We are very excited to announce the official release of EteSync 2.0!

This would not have been possible without the hundreds of testers that helped us make sure everything is solid! So thank you all!

If you already know what EteSync 2.0 is and just want to upgrade your account, please refer the EteSync 2.0 migration guide.

As we said in the post announcing EteSync 2.0, time flies. We still can't believe it has already been three and a half years since EteSync was first released. It started out as a simple end-to-end encrypted sync solution for Android. We have since added support for sharing data with other users, and we now have clients for the desktop (DAV bridge), the web, and iOS, built-in support in and Tasks.org, and there are add-ons being built for GNOME, KDE and Thunderbird.

What is EteSync 2.0?

EteSync uses the EteSync protocol (now Etebase protocol) behind the scenes to power all of the apps. While the existing protocol has served us well, it limited our progress and prevented us from achieving some of the things we would like to achieve for EteSync, so after three and a half years, it's finally time for a major protocol upgrade.

EteSync 2.0 is a great improvement over the 1.0 version, while still maintainig everyone's favourite features and capabilities, including, end-to-end encryption, sharing and a full version history. However, since so much has changed under the hood, EteSync 2.0 and 1.0 are incompatible, and you need to migrate your account to 2.0 in order to start using it.

What does it mean for you?

It means we are finally be able to offer some long awaited and often requested features such as notes synchronization and secure location sharing. It means that your sync is faster. It means the EteSync applications are simpler to develop, which means they are easier to improve. We are already seeing these benefits in all of the apps, which already work much better, and helped us reduce large amounts of code.

In addition, there are a lot of user-facing improvements and changes, including:

1. EteSync 2.0 uses usernames for identification (rather than emails previously), so you will need to choose a new username. Usernames should be at least 6 characters long. Shorter usernames will probably be allowed in the future. Changing your email and username will both be possible later on.
2. EteSync 2.0 has just one password that's used for both the encryption, and the login. It uses a zero-knowledge proof to authenticate to the server making sure your password never leaves your device. This makes it more secure than before but much easier to use. Please make sure to keep it safe and don't lose it, as without it you won't be able to access your data!
3. The change log (previously change journal) used to show all of the changes in one long list. Changes are now grouped per item with only the latest changed shown. To show previous changes you need to click on an item and check the past revisions.
4. Invitations UI is a bit different, and there's now a special page for accepting or rejecting invitations, and it's now also easier to leave collections you've been invited to.
5. "Journal" has now been renamed to "Collection", which is a more accurate term and people find it less confusing.
6. You can now easily change your account's email address directly from the dashboard.

What's next

The above is just the tip of the iceberg. The biggest benefit of changing to EteSync 2.0 is not how it improves things, but rather what it enables us to do next!

Thanks to EteSync 2.0 we were already able to release EteSync Notes. Additionally, as we said in the previous post, we aren't ready to get into details just yet, but we plan on bringing in some long-awaited features such as secure location sharing. Expect a few more announcements in the coming month or two which will make EteSync a more complete solution for your data syncing needs!

We also plan on formally verifying the protocol using Verifpal and releasing a formal spec to make it easier for other developers to examine, use and improve it, and potentially making it into a standard.

Upgrade to EteSync 2.0

Upgrading to EteSync 2.0 is very easy. First thing to do is to make sure you've update all of your apps to their latest versions.

As we said above, EteSync 2.0 accounts are incompatible with EteSync 1.0 accounts, so a new account needs to be created. However, the billing for both is linked. The migration tool automatically takes care of linking the billing, so you don't need to worry about that.

For step-by-step instructions please refer to the EteSync 2.0 migration guide.

Developers: easily build end-to-end encrypted applications

Over the years many developers have reached out to us about adding end-to-end encryption to their applications. Building end-to-end encrypted applications is both hard to get right, and very time consuming, so using an existing solution makes a lot of sense, especially since EteSync is versatile and isn't limited to contacts, calendars, tasks and notes.

We are now also ready for developers. For more information, please take a look at the developer homepage (Etebase).

Thank you NLnet and NGI0

The work on EteSync 2.0 is made possible with financial support from NLnet Foundation, courtesy of NGI0 Discovery and the European Commission DG CNECT's Next Generation Internet programme.

The NLnet foundation in general and the NGI0-PET in particular is funding projects to protect everyone's digital privacy, especially in the context of the "next generation" of the internet. It's an extremely important cause which we at EteSync are very much aligned with. Please help by spreading the word about them.

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or  are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Come chat with us on IRC/Matrix, or follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!

We are happy to announce that EteSync 2.0 is now ready for testers! Are you interested in helping us with testing? Please read on! Not sure what is EteSync 2.0? Please read our previous post on the topic.

Introduction

We have been working on EteSync 2.0 for the last six months, though in a sense for a lot longer. It incorporates a lot of the feedback we got from you over the years, and the things we have learned in the three and a half years of running this service. As mentioned in our previous post, a lot of the changes are behind the scenes and will enable us to build on top of, though there are a few changes that are worth mentioning here again as they are important for testers.

1. EteSync 2.0 uses usernames for identification (rather than emails previously), so you will need to choose a new username. Usernames should be at least 6 characters long. Shorter usernames will probably be allowed in the future. Changing your email and username will both be possible later on.
2. EteSync 2.0 has just one password that's used for both the encryption, and the login. It uses a zero-knowledge proof to authenticate to the server making sure your password never leaves your device. Please make sure to keep it safe and don't lose it, as without it you won't be able to access your data!
3. The change log (previously change journal) used to show all of the changes in one long list. Changes are now grouped per item with only the latest changed shown. To show previous changes you need to click on an item and check the past revisions.
4. Invitations UI is a bit different, and there's now a special page for accepting or rejecting invitations, and it's now also easier to leave collections you've been invited for.
5. "Journal" has now been renamed to "Collection", which is a more accurate term and people find it less confusing.

In addition to the above, we also improved the clients while working on them. Especially the web UI which should now be faster and easier to use than ever. There may also be some other changes we forgot to mention.

How to start testing

As mentioned above, EteSync 2.0 uses usernames instead of emails and has a different authentication mechanism. This means that EteSync 2.0 accounts are internally new accounts that need to be created.

If you are new to EteSync and would like to give it a go, you can signup directly from the new web and Android clients (links below).

If you already use EteSync 1.0, there is a migration tool that automatically handles both the account creation and migrating your data over (including the full change history). It's currently only available for the web client, but will soon also be available for the Android and iOS clients.

There are migration tools available for migrating your account. The easiest is probably the web based migration tool which is available here: EteSync 2.0 migration tool. The Android app comes with its own migration tool. You can access it by clicking on the account you would like to migrate, then the top-right menu, and then "EteSync 2.0 Migration".

The migration tool only copies your data over, so if you change your mind, you can always go back to version 1.0. Just be aware that new changes made to 2.0 won't sync back to 1.0 and vice-versa, so you will have to copy them over manually if you change back to 1.0.

To make testing easier, billing is currently disabled for EteSync 2.0 accounts, they are all on infinite trials. We will however turn billing on for all EteSync 2.0 accounts in the next few weeks, and will automatically link your existing EteSync accounts to the EteSync 2.0 accounts using your email address so billing information will be transferred over automatically. Edit: billing is now turned on for EteSync 2.0.

Here are links for the EteSync 2.0 compatible apps:

• Android: available on the Play Store and F-Droid.
• Web
• EteSync-DAV (DAV Bridge) - Version 0.30.0 or newer
• iOS: available on the App Store
• GNOME (Evolution): ready
• KDE (Kontact and etc): ready
• External apps:
  • OpenTasks: works.
  • Tasks.org: works with the new OpenTasks-like integration.

What is there to test? Everything. A few of us already use EteSync 2.0 instead of EteSync 1.0 and it works very well, however we realise that there may be some bugs lying around. So please, report every issue you see. You can do it either in the respective bug trackers, by mail, or our chat (see links at the bottom of the post).

We are aware that not all of the strings have been updated (e.g. some dialogs still refer to 1.0 journals), and on Android we still haven't implemented restoring an item to a specific state or sending email invitations, and the signup flow needs some more work, but other than that, everything should work. So please, report every issue you encounter.

If you are self-hosting, the server is available here, though it doesn't yet have all of the easy-config stuff that EteSync 1.0 had that made self-hosting easier. We will port them over in the coming weeks.

What's coming soon

As said in the original post, EteSync 2.0 brings with it a lot of improvements, but in addition to the improvements to the existing EteSync apps, where it really shines is what it enables us to do next.

We aren't ready to get into details just yet, but we plan on bringing in some long-awaited features such as notes synchronization and secure location sharing. These, however, are just the tip of the iceberg. We have a lot more coming, so expect a few more announcements in the coming month or two which will make EteSync a more complete solution for your data syncing needs!

As for the EteSync 2.0 release itself, we don't have an exact date yet, but it's imminent. There are no major bugs that we are aware of, and everything seems to be working well. We would just like to have more people test it, so we can be extra sure that everything works as smoothly as it should.

Developers: using the EteSync protocol in your app

Over the years many developers have reached out to us about adding end-to-end encryption to their applications. Building end-to-end encrypted applications is both hard to get right, and very time consuming, so using an existing solution makes a lot of sense, especially since EteSync is versatile and isn't limited to contacts, calendars and tasks.

We are now also ready for developers. For more information, please take a look at the developer homepage (Etebase).

Thank you NLnet and NGI0

The work on EteSync 2.0 is made possible with financial support from NLnet Foundation, courtesy of NGI0 Discovery and the European Commission DG CNECT's Next Generation Internet programme.

The NLnet foundation in general and the NGI0-PET in particular is funding projects to protect everyone's digital privacy, especially in the context of the "next generation" of the internet. It's an extremely important cause which we at EteSync are very much aligned with. Please help by spreading the word about them.

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or  are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Come chat with us on IRC/Matrix, or follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!

Google Summer of Code 2020 has now ended and the results are amazing! We can't believe it has already been four months since the projects were accepted into GSoC, but here we are. There are now native EteSync integrations for both GNOME (e.g. Evolution) and KDE (e.g. Kontact).

What is EteSync?

EteSync is a secure, end-to-end encrypted, and privacy respecting sync for your contacts, calendars and tasks. Easy to use and open source - it seamlessly integrates with your existing apps so you won't even notice you are using it! Think CalDAV but encrypted in a way that no one but you can access it. Not hackers getting access to your servers or you server admins!

For an introduction to end-to-end encryption please take a look at our related blog post. For more information about EteSync, please head to our website.

Using the new integrations

Thanks to these new integrations, you can now use EteSync accounts directly with any apps that use the GNOME or KDE personal information management systems (Evolution, Kontact and many more), without the need for the DAV bridge.

In addition to it being much easier to setup, it's also a lot faster, more efficient, and in general just works better.

The integrations will be released and packaged in distributions following the next GNOME and KDE releases, though until then you can either build them yourself from source, or use one of our pre-built packages if you distribution has them.

To get started, please check out the respective user guides:

• The GNOME user guide.
• The KDE user guide

Thank you

Huge thanks to both Shashwat Jolly (sjolly on IRC) and Nour E-Din El-Nhass (nourmat on IRC), the two GSoC participants who did all of the work and made it happen. To the mentors from GNOME (Milan Crha), and KDE (Daniel Vrátil, Volker Krause and Adriaan de Groot). To the GNOME and KDE GSoC admins who made GSoC sucha breeze. To the GSoC team for running this great program. And last, but definitely not least: to all of the testers from the community who helped make sure everything works as smoothly as it should, and is ready to be merged and used.

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or  are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Come chat with us on IRC/Matrix, or follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!

Since we've had a lot of new visitors from the GNOME and KDE community getting to this blog post we've added a short introduction section.

What is EteSync?

EteSync is a secure, end-to-end encrypted, and privacy respecting sync for your contacts, calendars and tasks. Easy to use and open source - it seamlessly integrates with your existing apps so you won't even notice you are using it! Think CalDAV but encrypted in a way that no one but you can access it. Not hackers getting access to your servers or you server admins!

For an introduction to end-to-end encryption please take a look at our related blog post. For more information about EteSync, please head to our website.

The rest of the post

As readers of this blog you are probably aware that there are two EteSync related projects in this year's Google Summer of Code. The first project is an EteSync backend for Akonadi, the KDE personal information management server. The second project is an EteSync module for Evolution data server, the GNOME personal information management server.

We have previously written here about the great work both sjolly and nourmat have been doing, though this post is different. It is finally time for beta testing! Both of the modules have been thoroughly tested locally, and have been reviewed by the maintainers of GNOME, KDE and EteSync and are ready for some real-life testing by real users.

Are you a GNOME or KDE user and willing to give the modules a try? Please come join us at the community chat (IRC/Matrix/Web), or email us at gsoc-testing@etesync.com for instructions on how to get started with the testing.

Your help will be much appreciated and will help us catch bugs and fix them sooner rather than later!

Thank you for your help!

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or  are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Come chat with us on IRC/Matrix, or follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!

As discussed in a previous post, there are two EteSync related projects in this year's Google Summer of Code. The first project is an EteSync backend for Akonadi, the KDE personal information management server. The second project is an EteSync module for Evolution data server, the GNOME personal information management server.

The summer of code coding period has officially started only a week ago, but both the students have already made some really nice progress that we just had to share. Using the modules they wrote, you can now add EteSync accounts natively (no need for the DAV bridge) to both GNOME and KDE and have them fetch and display your EteSync address books and contacts!

Here is how it looks when adding an EteSync address book to KAddressBook (KDE):

And here is how the address books and contacts look:

Here is how the address books and contacts look in Evolution (GNOME):

This is just the first step towards seamlessly using EteSync in GNOME and KDE, and things are far from ready, but it's already a pleasure to see!

For more information on how their progress and how to try out the code, please check out Shashwat Jolly's blog post about his progress with the EteSync module for KDE (Akonadi), and Nour E-Din El-Nhass's blog post about his progress with the EteSync module for GNOME (Evolution).

We will continue to cover their progress as they go along and hit noteworthy milestones, but if you'd like to follow their progress as they go along, you should probably follow them on social media, and follow their respective blogs. In addition, they are both on the EteSync IRC/Matrix channel, so come and join us there to chat with the developers directly!

We are very happy to announce that two EteSync related projects have been accepted to this year's Google Summer of Code, one with GNOME and one with KDE!

In case you are unfamiliar, GSoC is a paid summer internships focused on introducing students to open source software development. The program just started and will end in August. During this period, each student will work on a programming project with a mentoring organization.

The first project is an EteSync backend for Akonadi, the KDE personal information management server, and will be worked on by Shashwat Jolly (sjolly on IRC). The second project is an EteSync module for Evolution data server, the GNOME personal information management server, and will be worked on by Nour E-Din El-Nhass (nourmat on IRC).

This means, that by the end of the summer, EteSync will be natively supported in both the GNOME and the KDE and applications using their personal information servers such as Evolution, KMail and many others. What does it actually mean? It means users of these applications will no longer need to use the EteSync DAV adapter for syncing their contacts, calendars and tasks, and can just add their EteSync accounts directly!

On related news: as you may remember, we have previously announced a similar effort being worked on for Thunderbird. Unfortunately, the effort is delayed due to COVID-19, though we hope John will be able to get back to working on it as soon as possible, and hopefully have it ready in the next few months.

As usual, we would like to remind you that we rely on your feedback and contributions to make EteSync better. Do you have any suggestions or are experiencing any issues? Please send patches, report issues or just contact us.

Follow us on Mastodon, Twitter, Facebook, reddit or RSS for the latest updates and privacy-related content!