Uh, hell no. Never ever I'd expose a SMB server to the Internet. SMB is really picky when the link has packet loss or latency issues, plus the countless SMB-based security issues.
> Even Apple has given up on their own file-sharing protocol (AFP) in favor of macOS machines just speaking SMB to one-another.
TimeMachine still depends on AFP.
No, it doesn't:
https://developer.apple.com/library/content/releasenotes/Net...
I wonder if GP is pulling our legs about WebDAV. Yuck.
Yeah, nope. Dead out of the gate. Thanks for playing.
The GP comment:
> FTP clients are native to every popular OS, from Android to Windows (only exceptions I know are Win Mobile and iOS)
To rephrase: only 1/3 of mobile OSes support FTP.
Not working on iOS is like saying "Oh, this road doesn't work with German made cars. That's not a big deal, is it?"
https://panic.com/transmit-ios/
Searching the App Store I also see some apps for SMB, but I don't know whether they have document provider extensions.
FWIW, I'm not convinced that "web-based" is a better alternative for read/write file access, assuming you mean file manager webapps. No OS can integrate those into the native file picker, so you can't avoid the inefficiency of manually uploading files after changing them. WebDAV works pretty well though, if that counts...
Windows has first-class support (obviously); but Samba gives Linux and BSD support that, in modern Desktop Environments, is exactly as good. Mobile devices don't tend to have OS-level support for it, but there are very good libraries to enable individual apps to speak the protocols (look at VLC's mobile apps.)
Even Apple has given up on their own file-sharing protocol (AFP) in favor of macOS machines just speaking SMB to one-another.
Yes, it's not workable over the public Internet. Neither is FTP, any more. If you've got a server somewhere far away, and want all your devices to put files on it, you're presumably versed with configuring servers, so go ahead and set up a WebDAV server on that box. Everything speaks that.