Update February 2022: As of 31 January 2022, the Rethink (formerly Publist) service has shut down. We have moved majority of our cloud storage services to Koofr, Zoho Workdrive, or VPS Storage.
This blog post discusses the now discontinued Rethink Cloud Storage App. This post is retained here for archival purposes.All screenshots are from 2020-2021 era.
Introduction
File upload in Rethink Cloud Storage
In this post, I will write my experience using Rethink software (previously known as Publist) for cloud storage and file sharing. I came to know about Publist through one of the Facebook groups that focuses on deals for SAAS or Software As A Service subscriptions. Around October last year 2019: Publist was available as a lifetime deal on a site called Pitchground. Pitchground a deal aggregator similar to AppSumo or Dealify or Stacksocial or Saasmantra. Incidentally, Rethink is now available on Stack Social as a lifetime deal, but we will talk about that later.
Connecting pcloud with Rethink
Features of Rethink/Publist
- SFTP Access: Supports Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) for connecting to Linux machines, Virtual Private Servers, and web hosting.
- Password-Protected Links: Ability to create password-protected links for folders or files.
- Amazon S3 Backend: Uses Amazon S3 for storage, ensuring speeds comparable to major services.
Original Deal for Publist:
I purchased a 500 gigabyte subscription for US $69. My original plan was to get connect different cloud storage devices to Publist account. Rethink maintained an exhaustive list of current and planned apps that can connect to their service. Majority of them are also Cloud Storage and File Sharing services. While some of the major ones (such as Google Drive, Dropbox, PCloud) can already be connected, many are shown as work in progress. I will post screenshots below of the currently available connections and or integrations. The majority are Cloud Storage and File Sharing services.
- Already Connected: Google Drive, Dropbox, PCloud
- Work in Progress: Many other integrations are listed as upcoming.
Rethink worked as both a CDN (Content Delivery Network) and a file sharing service. You could:
- Embed and share links to files
- Create password-protected links for folders or files
- Leverage Amazon S3 storage for reliable performance
Integrations for Rethink
More Storage based on promising results
Random images served from Rethink Note that at present there is an option using SFTP or Secure File Transfer Protocol. This is helpful to connect to Linux machines or Virtual Private Servers, in addition to web hosting which allow SFTP access. Very few cloud storage and file sharing services allow such integrations. I had joined their Facebook Group. As of the time of writing this post, I am no longer a member of that group.
I left it because of my disappointment with interactions in the group. In the meantime, they were able to raise some funds. This means they would stick around for a while longer. I also received coupons for add on storage from them. After the Rethink deal on Pitchground ended, they offered a separate Lifetime deal on Stacksocial. This new deal a higher storage plan at a cheaper price, and caused some hue and cry. I believe the additional 500 odd GB storage I received was a result of this. Right now, I'm at 1.2 terabytes of storage for that the original price I had paid back in October.
Deleting files in Rethink
The Original deal from Rethink
I purchased the webhosting offer from Rethink (then known as Publist)
Locking Myself Out
Here comes the twist in the story: around December or January 2020, Publist re-branded themselves as Rethink.software. Ironically, around that time, I also changed the email address associated with this particular account. As a result of which, I was locked out of my Rethink account. I tried to access my account but could not. I tried to reset my password, but the reset link was being sent to my old email address, which I no longer had access to. I tried to contact Rethink support, but they were not responsive. I tried to contact them through their Facebook group, but I was not a member of that group anymore. I tried to contact them through Twitter, but they were not responsive there either. I attempted to contact Rethink support through:
- Their website’s Contact Form
- Customer chat option
- Facebook Messenger (a former associate responded but redirected me to customer service)
Finally, after six weeks and five emails, I finally regained access. The issue stemmed from their account management system not properly supporting email changes.
Putting Rethink to Use
In April 2020, I added a variety of images to it to use on a couple of blog posts. Thus, Rethink works as a CDN and file sharing service. I can embed, share links to files, can create password protected links for files or folders. They use Amazon s3 for their storage, and speeds are comparable to some of the major services.
Quick Summary: In the limited period where I used Publist, the following are my observations: the audio player is pretty decent. I have not tried embedding a video so far. Serving of images and files works well. But the creation of the shared/ embedded version of a file is slow. One has to manually create the embedding links for each file. Maybe I will create a PDF version of this post, which will be added on this post later. This will also show how files can be linked and downloaded.
Embedding video file from Rethink to a webpage or app
Update June 2021: Rethink is no longer working effectively. Rethink have released a beta version of their file hosting, which makes this post sort of redundant. It is one of the few SAAS subscriptions (Thunderdrive is another example) that has turned out to be a dud for me.
Pricing and Plans
Rethink’s pricing plans are no longer relevant as the service has been discontinued. For current alternatives, see Koofr, Zoho Workdrive
Video Embed
In prior posts on this blog, I have included links for files where I had used Rethink as a CDN.
Using Rethink as CDN for Audio, April 2020
Using Rethink to play and audio files
Streaming file for Rethink