12 ms·

Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

135 points by cpg 10y ago

Giorgi 10y ago
Pretty sure this happened because of warez. Lately lots of warez sites where uploading in there.
- the_af 10y ago
  How would this help? They still allow sharing links even for free accounts. It's just that it's not direct linking and instead you're forced to go to a Dropbox page. No, it probably has to do with making downloaders go to Dropbox and tempt them to subscribe.
swiley 10y ago
I was under the impression those where disabled long ago. Tor is always good if you need a quick easy way to publish something without a public IP address
- dublinben 10y ago
  How exactly does Tor replace the ease of publishing something with Dropbox?
  - LeoPanthera 10y ago
    I guess he's referring to the fact that you can run a server behind Tor at an onion address without needing to forward any ports. But that's not really the same problem.
  - swiley 10y ago
    You just run a web server in a hidden service, it takes less than five minutes to set up. People without for can still see it with onion.to.
    - frakkingcylons 10y ago
      What's a hidden service?
    - daenney 10y ago
      That's not answer to the parent's question. Tor has very little to do with the ability to host your website by just plopping HTML into the Shared folder you used to have on Dropbox.
    - EE84M3i 10y ago
      Please don't recommend that random non-tech folks do this. It is VERY VERY difficult to set up a hidden service correctly. A better comparison here would be neocities
- jug 10y ago
  AFAIK creating new accounts didn't give you a folder "Public" anymore since a long time ago, but they still existed with preserved functionality for old users.
  - baby 10y ago
    I'm an old user and mine disapeared a huge amount of years ago. I'm quite surprised by this announcement.
dorianm 10y ago
Seeing the /help/16, I'm guessing this is one of the oldest help page of Dropbox. /help/1 and /help/2 don't exist, so the still published oldest one must be https://www.dropbox.com/help/3 https://www.dropbox.com/help/3 "System requirements to run Dropbox", makes sense
- dublinben 10y ago
  You're probably right. This page has existed since at least 2009, in various forms[0]. For many years, it helpfully instructed users how to share the files in their public folder, one of their most useful features from day 1. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20091114094103/http://www.dropbox.com/help/16 http://web.archive.org/web/20091114094103/http://www.dropbox...
bane 10y ago
This feels like a step backwards. DB has struggled to figure out something beyond being a really great cloud-share drive thing, and sorta kinda messed around with using your DB to host media like photos (which would then make users desire to upgrade their space) and automagically supply some interface sugar around a pile of photos. But they could have kept going in that direction and competed with all of the photosharing sites, soundcloud, heck even youtube if they had wanted. Say I like to vlog, what would be easier? After filming raw footage, edit it, make my final cut, upload to youtube and wait for transcoding and availability? Or just put my final cut into a "droptube" folder and it automagically appears at www.droptube.com (not a real thing, but could be in some alternate dimension) Or what if I want to host a simple site? Fiddle with a hosting provider, screw around trying to figure out the 37 different metrics I'll be charged for, or just put some html, css and js file into a dropbox "webhost" folder? I dunno, I think they're closing off lots of opportunity and have had trouble executing on this kind of cloud application for the masses, or they're really not going after it.
- mjevans 10y ago
  I'm guessing they can't go that route because youtube (google), and twitch (amazon) are the only 600lbs gorillas that can do /something/ to stave off the insane 100lbs gorilla that goes for the jugular (MPAA/RIAA and the like). Photo-gallery, as you've noted opens them to competing with other such providers... who all seem to eventually race towards throwing ads on everything to try and make some profit. Freely accessible areas also equate to more consumers (not users), and I don't know if DB's business model charges any kind of fee for access to that data. This mostly sounds like DB is out of areas they want to / feel they can succeed in tapping for new customers and thus they attempt to cut back on costs with the hope of inertia retaining the existing users.
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > This mostly sounds like DB is out of areas they want to / feel they can succeed in tapping for new customers and thus they attempt to cut back on costs with the hope of inertia retaining the existing users. I'm okay with how Dropbox as-is as a Pro user, and have no problem giving them $100/year in perpetuity. A product must not constantly evolve/improve for it to succeed (I'm looking at you Github with your damn dark bar at the top nav now!). "Good enough" can carry the day. Sync always works. My files are always there. That's what I'm paying for.
baby 10y ago
This was amazingly awesome because: I could teach people how to make a website, and how to have on the internet, in minutes. Having said that, I haven't had that public folder in many many many many many years. So I'm surprised about this announce. If anyone knows a quick way to let anyone do what I described above, please do tell.
- 013a 10y ago
  surge.sh is a great solution.
  - corny 10y ago
    Along the same lines: https://www.netlify.com https://www.netlify.com
- LeoPanthera 10y ago
  Well this isn't suitable for "normal" users but I use SyncThing to sync a folder on my computer to a server running Apache.
  - baby 10y ago
    What is the server running Apache? :)
    - LeoPanthera 10y ago
      It's a Digital Ocean droplet.
      - baby 10y ago
        Yep, not really the easy or free thing to setup when learning how to make a simple webpage.
- wging 10y ago
  S3 buckets with the website feature enabled, but you have to pay for usage and I don't know of a way to emulate Dropbox's local filesystem integration with S3... at least not one that's accessible for nontechnical users.
cpg 10y ago
I relied on this "light" publishing for a few things and I'm quite pissed off. I did not notice any notification on this. To me, this should be done very very visibly and with tons of warnings. I used it to communicate screenshots with details, etc. Now all links are broken and I'm SOL with no viable solution to changing those links from documents, bugs, etc., etc. Very very very bad!
- zitterbewegung 10y ago
  I have an email notification from Dropbox in December of last year saying this will be disabled.
  - cpg 10y ago
    Yes, I probably missed the notifications somehow. They probably should have had some warning on the app itself when putting or sharing files from that folder. It's a free service, so my bad for using it without a good backup, but I had used programs for a long long time that produce screenshots with one keystroke and copy the URL to the clipboard, saving time. I figured this was relatively low overhead for them and a popular feature, so they would keep it. Lesson learned ..
    - ajmurmann 10y ago
      I got the same email as the GP, but also saw a message on the web page. However, how frequently does anyone log in to the web page? Disclaimer: I've been fed delicious lamb chops and duck at the DB office, so my view might be tainted. Edit: I also received another email about it on March 1st
      - khedoros1 10y ago
        I got a notification about ToS change on Dec 21st, but it doesn't mention any features going away, mostly changes to which profile information will be displayed in various situations. Looking over the past 6 months, I don't have anything else but "Hey, you added a new device to Dropbox!"
icehawk 10y ago
This was the main reason I unsubscribed from Dropbox this month.
dctoedt 10y ago
Unless I'm mistaken, this won't affect services such as Site44.com [0], which lets you create up to 10 Web sites by syncing with specified Dropbox folders for $4.95 per month. I use the service for a side project and to publish a site for my students with the materials for the law-school course I teach; it works quite well. (EDIT: And that's my only connection with the company.) [0] http://www.Site44.com http://www.Site44.com
msie 10y ago
What's wrong with the "shared link" functionality they are offering?
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  It's not a direct link to file, but a link to their UI which only then offers a "download" option. Besides being incredibly annoying (over a megabyte of useless JS and tracking crap), it kills off many functionalities that were enabled by public links being direct-to-file URLs.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
alainv 10y ago
Title is evidently incorrect: the link itself clearly states they just disabled this functionality for Free accounts. I can verify it still works for Pro/Plus accounts with existing Public folders.
- leereeves 10y ago
  Only until September 1, according to the page. > Effective September 1, 2017, Dropbox Pro, Plus, and Business users will no longer be able to render HTML content, and the Public folder and its sharing functionality will be disabled.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- i336_ 10y ago
  I agree. I would recommend "(2012, 2017)" to succinctly clarify that this is somehow relevant to right now and that further investigation is needed. Note: I have flagged the parent comment so that it shows up for the moderators (and also upvoted it to counteract the impact of flagging). So, nobody else needs to flag it - if too many people do so it might go [dead].
  - the_af 10y ago
    Further investigation? They clearly state the public folder will stop working even for paid accounts on September 1st.
    - i336_ 10y ago
      I'm talking about the article title as shown here. If it said "Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder (2012; 2017)" or perhaps "... (2017)" then readers would be able to go "okay, what's this, it has this year in it, what gives" and click it. You're only able to know about Sep 1st once you actually open the article, which in its current form seems to talk about an event from 5 years ago.
- onli 10y ago
make3 10y ago
I really have the feeling that DropBox will die. They don't do anything Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Apple iCloud doesn't do, and these companies all have much more money / talent / infrastructure / synergy with other products.
- brandon272 10y ago
  For some reason I still only instinctively trust Dropbox to reliably sync my files. I'm always worried I'm going to lose something if I put it into my Google Drive or iCloud folder, though I'm sure by this point it is probably just as good/reliable. My concerns have less to do with individual files being manually added to a Google Drive or iCloud folder and more to do with how well it handles starting entire new project folders w/ hundreds (or thousands) of files that are constantly being updated.
  - daenney 10y ago
    > For some reason I still only instinctively trust Dropbox to reliably sync my files. Used to be that way for me too until all the nasty tricks they employed in the OS X app installation process to elevate their privileges came to light. Though the syncing still works as reliably I no longer trust them with the content or to behave responsibly. I haven't had any issue syncing with OneDrive or Google Drive for larger projects. I don't doubt you might've run into that issue in the past but I'd recommend giving it a go if that's what's holding you back. If anything knowing that you can reliably switch storage providers in the future should you need to is a good card to hold.
  - anexprogrammer 10y ago
    In the case of Google, and to a lesser extent Microsoft, I don't have enough trust they'll keep their offering around to ever start using and relying on it. Google and to a slightly lesser degree Microsoft have horrible histories of simply turning off successful services. Or "improving" them by replacing with something objectively worse.
- ksk 10y ago
  If they're making money, they won't have any interest in mining your data though.
discreditable 10y ago
This is pretty lame, now when I share files I have to direct them to Dropbox's dumb interstitial page which pushes them to sign up.
- bigiain 10y ago
  Well, $600mil in VC cash, it's not like nobody saw this coming... I can almost see in my head the guy from JPMorgan saying "So geeks, time to stop screwing around - how're you going to increase the pressure to monetise all those users and get me my 100x return on that half a billion dollars? Quickly!"
saycheese 10y ago
>> "Dropbox accounts created after October 4, 2012 won't have a Public folder." Given the initial release was in June 2007, does anyone know why this only applies to accounts created after October 4, 2012?
- filleokus 10y ago
  Just guessing, but might they have had something in their EULA / TOS up until October 4:th 2012 that somehow forces them to keep the Public folder available? Maybe some language about how features are removed /deprecated, or about how changes in the EULA / TOS are allowed to be done, that makes it infeasible to do without breaking the contract?
  - saycheese 10y ago
    Maybe here are the policies from 2009: https://web.archive.org/web/20091228083110/http://www.dropbox.com/terms https://web.archive.org/web/20091228083110/http://www.dropbo... And the policies from end of 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20121216094126/https://www.dropbox.com/privacy https://web.archive.org/web/20121216094126/https://www.dropb... That said, given the Terms of Use say they were last modified on March 26, 2012 — it appears possible that is not the reason.
  - bigiain 10y ago
    Maybe just coincidental, but while I was searching thru Dropbox mail looking for details for another reply here, I noticed this message from Aug 26th 2016: "We’re reaching out to let you know that if you haven’t updated your Dropbox password since mid-2012, you’ll be prompted to update it the next time you sign in. This is purely a preventative measure, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience."
    - slg 10y ago
      2012 was apparently when Dropbox had 68 million email addresses and hashed passwords compromised. It just took 4 years for anyone to find out about it.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
The second most useful feature of Dropbox (beyond being "a folder that syncs"), gone. I'm very sad about this, even though I knew it was coming. This is literally the case of "we can't have nice things because $reasons".
- bigiain 10y ago
  For me, this was the most-used feature. "a folder that syncs" was a nice side effect. (I know - I'm clearly not "their most valuable customer segment" - if I was them I'd probably be breaking my irrelevant-to-them shit too...)
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    The Public folder is what dragged me in fully and made me stay with Dropbox. I am their paying customer now, and this very moment, I'm considering whether I'm pissed off about the thing enough to move those few gigs of data I have with Dropbox to some self-hosted solution.
    - bigiain 10y ago
      Yeah - I've got an AWS account which in months where I don't use anything except my S3 storage costs me around 90c/month - and I have a licence for Transmit which gives me almost identical folder-sync like behaviour from Mac OS. There's some useful-to-me stuff the iOS Dropbox app does, but for 90-100/year I suspect I can solve or ignore that problem...
alexnewman 10y ago
It's cool I already switched too google cloud
tomc1985 10y ago
This is bullshit. DB's public folder was a HUGE win. I don't even know if Nextcloud has this feature but I'm switching to it.
- bigiain 10y ago
  _That's_ the kind of definitive action we need more of! Me, I'ma gonna switch to Photoshop - it doesn't have this feature either, but screw those Dropbox clowns, amirite?
Zhenya 10y ago
Where can I find my account creation date other than a welcome email? If I missed the instructions in the announcement, I apologise.
jen729w 10y ago
I'm amazed that there wasn't an outcry the other month when they - just one day, with zero notice - renamed my shared folder and made it a Team folder. Big deal? Well, they actually changed the name of the folder. And now I can't modify it. So yeah, big deal. I have Logic Pro templates that look there. They all broke. It wasn't too bad for me, but imagine if you had scripts or tools or whatever pointing to a file on your FS that happened to be in one of the affected folders. You woke up one morning and they were all broken. You can't just rename people's files. That's not part of the social contract I have with you, Dropbox.
- NegativeLatency 10y ago
  Simlink to it?
  - jen729w 10y ago
    I use http://johnnydecimal.com http://johnnydecimal.com (disclosure: mine!) to organise my files. Symlinking is possible, but dirty. Messes other things up. I can't remove the folder that Dropbox put there. It's just not right. It's my file system. Get your hands off it.
robinhowlett 10y ago
I used to use UpShot, a OS X plugin that saved by screenshots to my Public Dropbox folder and copied the public link to the clipboard. It was super useful for referencing images in code reviews, wikis etc. Anyone recommend a better alternative?
cpg 10y ago
Title is incorrect. My account was created before 2012 and they just disabled all public links.
DHowett 10y ago
Dropbox has been becoming increasingly user-hostile for a great while now, and it all centers around the deprecation of the Public folder. I think this change primarily serves to funnel downstream content viewers to the shared file "landing page". That landing page is filled with valuable screen real-estate that Dropbox can use to promote itself. That page is a usability nightmare, too. Photos can't be zoomed to full size on certain screen configurations, videos are served transcoded, and many other file types that the browser can render natively are flagged as "undisplayable". File content will often become unavailable or hidden behind a full-splash "create a Dropbox account!" affordance that pays no heed to whether you're logged in, a customer, or just a casual observer.
- lathiat 10y ago
  This drives me bananas every time someone links me through DropBox. I actively dislike people sharing stuff to me with DropBox. Would make sense to make for a free product but if people are paying and this is still broken, seems a bit stupid. Actually... now that I think about it; what annoys me most is the fact that it pops up a login box. If it was just on the side not covering the content I probably wouldn't dislike it so much.
mdekkers 10y ago
Tell me more about how great these kind of companies are, where they can terminate aspects (or all) of a service you have come to rely on. These kind of shenanigans are exactly why I don't trust Google with anything other than core services, and why I do my best to not rely on anything "cloud" (as in, consumer-facing stuff)Too much control in the hands of those who are not accountable to anyone, especially not to me. I have been told many times (here, as well as elsewhere) how I don't "understand" cloud and related drivel. I understand cloud very well. That's why I don't depend on it.

135 points by cpg 10y ago

Giorgi 10y ago

Pretty sure this happened because of warez. Lately lots of warez sites where uploading in there.

the_af 10y ago
How would this help? They still allow sharing links even for free accounts. It's just that it's not direct linking and instead you're forced to go to a Dropbox page. No, it probably has to do with making downloaders go to Dropbox and tempt them to subscribe.

swiley 10y ago

I was under the impression those where disabled long ago. Tor is always good if you need a quick easy way to publish something without a public IP address

dublinben 10y ago
How exactly does Tor replace the ease of publishing something with Dropbox?
- LeoPanthera 10y ago
  I guess he's referring to the fact that you can run a server behind Tor at an onion address without needing to forward any ports. But that's not really the same problem.
- swiley 10y ago
  You just run a web server in a hidden service, it takes less than five minutes to set up. People without for can still see it with onion.to.
  - frakkingcylons 10y ago
    What's a hidden service?
  - daenney 10y ago
    That's not answer to the parent's question. Tor has very little to do with the ability to host your website by just plopping HTML into the Shared folder you used to have on Dropbox.
  - EE84M3i 10y ago
    Please don't recommend that random non-tech folks do this. It is VERY VERY difficult to set up a hidden service correctly. A better comparison here would be neocities
jug 10y ago
AFAIK creating new accounts didn't give you a folder "Public" anymore since a long time ago, but they still existed with preserved functionality for old users.
- baby 10y ago
  I'm an old user and mine disapeared a huge amount of years ago. I'm quite surprised by this announcement.

dorianm 10y ago

Seeing the /help/16, I'm guessing this is one of the oldest help page of Dropbox. /help/1 and /help/2 don't exist, so the still published oldest one must be https://www.dropbox.com/help/3 https://www.dropbox.com/help/3 "System requirements to run Dropbox", makes sense

dublinben 10y ago
You're probably right. This page has existed since at least 2009, in various forms[0]. For many years, it helpfully instructed users how to share the files in their public folder, one of their most useful features from day 1. [0] http://web.archive.org/web/20091114094103/http://www.dropbox.com/help/16 http://web.archive.org/web/20091114094103/http://www.dropbox...

bane 10y ago

This feels like a step backwards. DB has struggled to figure out something beyond being a really great cloud-share drive thing, and sorta kinda messed around with using your DB to host media like photos (which would then make users desire to upgrade their space) and automagically supply some interface sugar around a pile of photos. But they could have kept going in that direction and competed with all of the photosharing sites, soundcloud, heck even youtube if they had wanted. Say I like to vlog, what would be easier? After filming raw footage, edit it, make my final cut, upload to youtube and wait for transcoding and availability? Or just put my final cut into a "droptube" folder and it automagically appears at www.droptube.com (not a real thing, but could be in some alternate dimension) Or what if I want to host a simple site? Fiddle with a hosting provider, screw around trying to figure out the 37 different metrics I'll be charged for, or just put some html, css and js file into a dropbox "webhost" folder? I dunno, I think they're closing off lots of opportunity and have had trouble executing on this kind of cloud application for the masses, or they're really not going after it.

mjevans 10y ago
I'm guessing they can't go that route because youtube (google), and twitch (amazon) are the only 600lbs gorillas that can do /something/ to stave off the insane 100lbs gorilla that goes for the jugular (MPAA/RIAA and the like). Photo-gallery, as you've noted opens them to competing with other such providers... who all seem to eventually race towards throwing ads on everything to try and make some profit. Freely accessible areas also equate to more consumers (not users), and I don't know if DB's business model charges any kind of fee for access to that data. This mostly sounds like DB is out of areas they want to / feel they can succeed in tapping for new customers and thus they attempt to cut back on costs with the hope of inertia retaining the existing users.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > This mostly sounds like DB is out of areas they want to / feel they can succeed in tapping for new customers and thus they attempt to cut back on costs with the hope of inertia retaining the existing users. I'm okay with how Dropbox as-is as a Pro user, and have no problem giving them $100/year in perpetuity. A product must not constantly evolve/improve for it to succeed (I'm looking at you Github with your damn dark bar at the top nav now!). "Good enough" can carry the day. Sync always works. My files are always there. That's what I'm paying for.

baby 10y ago

This was amazingly awesome because: I could teach people how to make a website, and how to have on the internet, in minutes. Having said that, I haven't had that public folder in many many many many many years. So I'm surprised about this announce. If anyone knows a quick way to let anyone do what I described above, please do tell.

013a 10y ago
surge.sh is a great solution.
- corny 10y ago
  Along the same lines: https://www.netlify.com https://www.netlify.com
LeoPanthera 10y ago
Well this isn't suitable for "normal" users but I use SyncThing to sync a folder on my computer to a server running Apache.
- baby 10y ago
  What is the server running Apache? :)
  - LeoPanthera 10y ago
    It's a Digital Ocean droplet.
    - baby 10y ago
      Yep, not really the easy or free thing to setup when learning how to make a simple webpage.
wging 10y ago
S3 buckets with the website feature enabled, but you have to pay for usage and I don't know of a way to emulate Dropbox's local filesystem integration with S3... at least not one that's accessible for nontechnical users.

cpg 10y ago

I relied on this "light" publishing for a few things and I'm quite pissed off. I did not notice any notification on this. To me, this should be done very very visibly and with tons of warnings. I used it to communicate screenshots with details, etc. Now all links are broken and I'm SOL with no viable solution to changing those links from documents, bugs, etc., etc. Very very very bad!

zitterbewegung 10y ago
I have an email notification from Dropbox in December of last year saying this will be disabled.
- cpg 10y ago
  Yes, I probably missed the notifications somehow. They probably should have had some warning on the app itself when putting or sharing files from that folder. It's a free service, so my bad for using it without a good backup, but I had used programs for a long long time that produce screenshots with one keystroke and copy the URL to the clipboard, saving time. I figured this was relatively low overhead for them and a popular feature, so they would keep it. Lesson learned ..
  - ajmurmann 10y ago
    I got the same email as the GP, but also saw a message on the web page. However, how frequently does anyone log in to the web page? Disclaimer: I've been fed delicious lamb chops and duck at the DB office, so my view might be tainted. Edit: I also received another email about it on March 1st
    - khedoros1 10y ago
      I got a notification about ToS change on Dec 21st, but it doesn't mention any features going away, mostly changes to which profile information will be displayed in various situations. Looking over the past 6 months, I don't have anything else but "Hey, you added a new device to Dropbox!"

icehawk 10y ago

This was the main reason I unsubscribed from Dropbox this month.

dctoedt 10y ago

Unless I'm mistaken, this won't affect services such as Site44.com [0], which lets you create up to 10 Web sites by syncing with specified Dropbox folders for $4.95 per month. I use the service for a side project and to publish a site for my students with the materials for the law-school course I teach; it works quite well. (EDIT: And that's my only connection with the company.) [0] http://www.Site44.com http://www.Site44.com

msie 10y ago

What's wrong with the "shared link" functionality they are offering?

TeMPOraL 10y ago
It's not a direct link to file, but a link to their UI which only then offers a "download" option. Besides being incredibly annoying (over a megabyte of useless JS and tracking crap), it kills off many functionalities that were enabled by public links being direct-to-file URLs.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

alainv 10y ago

Title is evidently incorrect: the link itself clearly states they just disabled this functionality for Free accounts. I can verify it still works for Pro/Plus accounts with existing Public folders.

leereeves 10y ago
Only until September 1, according to the page. > Effective September 1, 2017, Dropbox Pro, Plus, and Business users will no longer be able to render HTML content, and the Public folder and its sharing functionality will be disabled.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
i336_ 10y ago
I agree. I would recommend "(2012, 2017)" to succinctly clarify that this is somehow relevant to right now and that further investigation is needed. Note: I have flagged the parent comment so that it shows up for the moderators (and also upvoted it to counteract the impact of flagging). So, nobody else needs to flag it - if too many people do so it might go [dead].
- the_af 10y ago
  Further investigation? They clearly state the public folder will stop working even for paid accounts on September 1st.
  - i336_ 10y ago
    I'm talking about the article title as shown here. If it said "Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder (2012; 2017)" or perhaps "... (2017)" then readers would be able to go "okay, what's this, it has this year in it, what gives" and click it. You're only able to know about Sep 1st once you actually open the article, which in its current form seems to talk about an event from 5 years ago.
onli 10y ago

make3 10y ago

I really have the feeling that DropBox will die. They don't do anything Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Apple iCloud doesn't do, and these companies all have much more money / talent / infrastructure / synergy with other products.

brandon272 10y ago
For some reason I still only instinctively trust Dropbox to reliably sync my files. I'm always worried I'm going to lose something if I put it into my Google Drive or iCloud folder, though I'm sure by this point it is probably just as good/reliable. My concerns have less to do with individual files being manually added to a Google Drive or iCloud folder and more to do with how well it handles starting entire new project folders w/ hundreds (or thousands) of files that are constantly being updated.
- daenney 10y ago
  > For some reason I still only instinctively trust Dropbox to reliably sync my files. Used to be that way for me too until all the nasty tricks they employed in the OS X app installation process to elevate their privileges came to light. Though the syncing still works as reliably I no longer trust them with the content or to behave responsibly. I haven't had any issue syncing with OneDrive or Google Drive for larger projects. I don't doubt you might've run into that issue in the past but I'd recommend giving it a go if that's what's holding you back. If anything knowing that you can reliably switch storage providers in the future should you need to is a good card to hold.
- anexprogrammer 10y ago
  In the case of Google, and to a lesser extent Microsoft, I don't have enough trust they'll keep their offering around to ever start using and relying on it. Google and to a slightly lesser degree Microsoft have horrible histories of simply turning off successful services. Or "improving" them by replacing with something objectively worse.
ksk 10y ago
If they're making money, they won't have any interest in mining your data though.

discreditable 10y ago

This is pretty lame, now when I share files I have to direct them to Dropbox's dumb interstitial page which pushes them to sign up.

bigiain 10y ago
Well, $600mil in VC cash, it's not like nobody saw this coming... I can almost see in my head the guy from JPMorgan saying "So geeks, time to stop screwing around - how're you going to increase the pressure to monetise all those users and get me my 100x return on that half a billion dollars? Quickly!"

saycheese 10y ago

>> "Dropbox accounts created after October 4, 2012 won't have a Public folder." Given the initial release was in June 2007, does anyone know why this only applies to accounts created after October 4, 2012?

filleokus 10y ago
Just guessing, but might they have had something in their EULA / TOS up until October 4:th 2012 that somehow forces them to keep the Public folder available? Maybe some language about how features are removed /deprecated, or about how changes in the EULA / TOS are allowed to be done, that makes it infeasible to do without breaking the contract?
- saycheese 10y ago
  Maybe here are the policies from 2009: https://web.archive.org/web/20091228083110/http://www.dropbox.com/terms https://web.archive.org/web/20091228083110/http://www.dropbo... And the policies from end of 2012: https://web.archive.org/web/20121216094126/https://www.dropbox.com/privacy https://web.archive.org/web/20121216094126/https://www.dropb... That said, given the Terms of Use say they were last modified on March 26, 2012 — it appears possible that is not the reason.
- bigiain 10y ago
  Maybe just coincidental, but while I was searching thru Dropbox mail looking for details for another reply here, I noticed this message from Aug 26th 2016: "We’re reaching out to let you know that if you haven’t updated your Dropbox password since mid-2012, you’ll be prompted to update it the next time you sign in. This is purely a preventative measure, and we’re sorry for the inconvenience."
  - slg 10y ago
    2012 was apparently when Dropbox had 68 million email addresses and hashed passwords compromised. It just took 4 years for anyone to find out about it.

TeMPOraL 10y ago

The second most useful feature of Dropbox (beyond being "a folder that syncs"), gone. I'm very sad about this, even though I knew it was coming. This is literally the case of "we can't have nice things because $reasons".

bigiain 10y ago
For me, this was the most-used feature. "a folder that syncs" was a nice side effect. (I know - I'm clearly not "their most valuable customer segment" - if I was them I'd probably be breaking my irrelevant-to-them shit too...)
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  The Public folder is what dragged me in fully and made me stay with Dropbox. I am their paying customer now, and this very moment, I'm considering whether I'm pissed off about the thing enough to move those few gigs of data I have with Dropbox to some self-hosted solution.
  - bigiain 10y ago
    Yeah - I've got an AWS account which in months where I don't use anything except my S3 storage costs me around 90c/month - and I have a licence for Transmit which gives me almost identical folder-sync like behaviour from Mac OS. There's some useful-to-me stuff the iOS Dropbox app does, but for 90-100/year I suspect I can solve or ignore that problem...

alexnewman 10y ago

It's cool I already switched too google cloud

tomc1985 10y ago

This is bullshit. DB's public folder was a HUGE win. I don't even know if Nextcloud has this feature but I'm switching to it.

bigiain 10y ago
_That's_ the kind of definitive action we need more of! Me, I'ma gonna switch to Photoshop - it doesn't have this feature either, but screw those Dropbox clowns, amirite?

Zhenya 10y ago

Where can I find my account creation date other than a welcome email? If I missed the instructions in the announcement, I apologise.

jen729w 10y ago

I'm amazed that there wasn't an outcry the other month when they - just one day, with zero notice - renamed my shared folder and made it a Team folder. Big deal? Well, they actually changed the name of the folder. And now I can't modify it. So yeah, big deal. I have Logic Pro templates that look there. They all broke. It wasn't too bad for me, but imagine if you had scripts or tools or whatever pointing to a file on your FS that happened to be in one of the affected folders. You woke up one morning and they were all broken. You can't just rename people's files. That's not part of the social contract I have with you, Dropbox.

NegativeLatency 10y ago
Simlink to it?
- jen729w 10y ago
  I use http://johnnydecimal.com http://johnnydecimal.com (disclosure: mine!) to organise my files. Symlinking is possible, but dirty. Messes other things up. I can't remove the folder that Dropbox put there. It's just not right. It's my file system. Get your hands off it.

robinhowlett 10y ago

I used to use UpShot, a OS X plugin that saved by screenshots to my Public Dropbox folder and copied the public link to the clipboard. It was super useful for referencing images in code reviews, wikis etc. Anyone recommend a better alternative?

cpg 10y ago

Title is incorrect. My account was created before 2012 and they just disabled all public links.

DHowett 10y ago

Dropbox has been becoming increasingly user-hostile for a great while now, and it all centers around the deprecation of the Public folder. I think this change primarily serves to funnel downstream content viewers to the shared file "landing page". That landing page is filled with valuable screen real-estate that Dropbox can use to promote itself. That page is a usability nightmare, too. Photos can't be zoomed to full size on certain screen configurations, videos are served transcoded, and many other file types that the browser can render natively are flagged as "undisplayable". File content will often become unavailable or hidden behind a full-splash "create a Dropbox account!" affordance that pays no heed to whether you're logged in, a customer, or just a casual observer.

lathiat 10y ago
This drives me bananas every time someone links me through DropBox. I actively dislike people sharing stuff to me with DropBox. Would make sense to make for a free product but if people are paying and this is still broken, seems a bit stupid. Actually... now that I think about it; what annoys me most is the fact that it pops up a login box. If it was just on the side not covering the content I probably wouldn't dislike it so much.

mdekkers 10y ago

Tell me more about how great these kind of companies are, where they can terminate aspects (or all) of a service you have come to rely on. These kind of shenanigans are exactly why I don't trust Google with anything other than core services, and why I do my best to not rely on anything "cloud" (as in, consumer-facing stuff)Too much control in the hands of those who are not accountable to anyone, especially not to me. I have been told many times (here, as well as elsewhere) how I don't "understand" cloud and related drivel. I understand cloud very well. That's why I don't depend on it.