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Dropbox on Mac now updates itself with a process in background

83 points by evanslify 10y ago

konceptz 10y ago
I wonder why the option to disable automatic updates was omitted?
- gkoberger 10y ago
  (Assuming this is true....) Because if they're stuck supporting old versions of Dropbox, they're miserable (having to support dozens of versions) and you're miserable (things start to break). I understand why people would be worried about Dropbox auto-downloading software, but honestly... if you're the kind of person worried about the security around Dropbox auto-updating the same way every app on your phone does, you probably aren't using Dropbox to begin with.
  - konceptz 10y ago
    Good points. Though this is not a phone app and Dropbox does have a history of mistakes causing data loss. I assume it's true because: "If you don’t want Dropbox Update to run on your computer, you can uninstall the Dropbox application. You can still access your files on dropbox.com and using the Dropbox mobile apps."
    - acdha 10y ago
      > Though this is not a phone app and Dropbox does have a history of mistakes causing data loss. A history of random forum posters making huge assertions which inevitably turn out to be significantly overstated. It's trendy in certain circles to complain about Dropbox and the hype factor makes it easy to forget that for every person repeating anecdotes on HN there are a million normal people who use the service without issues.
      - angry_octet 10y ago
        As one of those 'random forum posters' aka Dropbox Customers who has lost data, I don't think it would be over stating it that I was fucking pissed off that my data was gone. I didn't really give a shit that other people were using the service without issues. Its not rocket science to understand that a cloud data storage company is (a) going to have bugs, hence (b) data will be lost, and (c) customers will be dissatisfied. The only saving grace for Dropbox is that the Google Drive windows client is a totally catastrophic data destroying pile of rubbish, and the Azure/Onedrive system is so microsofty and has no linux client either.
        acdha 10y ago
        Again, there are people who've lost data and in some of those cases it was even caused by Dropbox — as opposed to the hardware failures or human errors which are often attributed to a service like Dropbox because that's what first made the problem visible — but that's still anecdotal rather than proof of widespread problem and, going back to the topic at hand, it doesn't tell us that the answer is to avoid installing updates. For a widely deployed consumer app, a significant fraction of the work will be defensive coding to reduce the impact of problems on the client and holding back updates will actually increase someone's exposure interval.
  - greenhatman 10y ago
    I'd still prefer to be prompted to update. I know my phone is a security mess. But I want my desktop not to be.
    - nkristoffersen 10y ago
      That is funny to me because I assume my phone is much more secure (with strict sandboxing) compared to my desktop.
      - izacus 10y ago
        Except that each of those sandboxed apps keeps uploading your behavioural and private data pretty much constantly with no ability for you to limit or stop it like you can on the deskop :)
        angry_octet 10y ago
        And you can never downgrade to an old version. Or add a firewall that will block ads. Or disable javascript selectively. Or control when programs can run. Or know whether they use crypto safely. Or have any control over when your phone will get patched for the 200-day level 10 RCE bug. Now I just want to smash my phone with a hammer. Smash it into tiny tiny pieces.
      - derefr 10y ago
        And, moreover, forcing automatic updates means my phone has far less vulnerable code sitting around on it than my desktop currently does.
  - FabHK 10y ago
    > auto-updating the same way every app on your phone does I'm on the latest iOS (10.2.1), and it's optional - I have 23 apps ready for updates, but I can scan through the release notes before initiating the update.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
radley 10y ago
When did they post this? Is it old? It mentions OS 10.7, so I'd guess it's been in place for a few years now.
- citruspi 10y ago
  The minimum required operating system version isn't necessarily indicative of the age of the feature. I can develop an application on macOS 10.12 now and have it support all previous versions up to OS X 10.7.
- f_allwein 10y ago
  I had a popup telling me about this yesterday, so I assume it is new.
- SyneRyder 10y ago
  Seems to be new, Dropbox on my Mac displayed an alert notification about it in the app today.
cdransf 10y ago
This doesn't seem any worse than Chrome continually updating itself.
- threeseed 10y ago
  Or Office, Creative Suite or dozens of other major applications.
  - samastur 10y ago
    Microsoft Office does not autoupdate. It notifies you of an update, but you have to confirm the transfer and installation. At least that's how it works on my Mac.
    - cprecioso 10y ago
      On Windows, it updates through Windows Update (which you can moderately control) or through their own App-V/Click-To-Run thing, that updates transparently
    - acdha 10y ago
      That's because they don't have a robust self-update feature for the Microsoft Updater app. They added an automatic update mode and it appears to be on by default now, which is probably good given the number of exploits Office has had over the years.
  - Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
    Adobe software is a notorious offender for intrusive background updater processes. It's not exactly something to aspire to.
- eps 10y ago
  Both of them doing that in mandatory fashion is unacceptable. I might be OK with running this bit of their code on my computer, but it's not an open bar for dropping anything executable onto my machine at will.
agermanov 10y ago
Did Dropbox fix malware way to get privileges? https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fhabrahabr.ru%2Fpost%2F310074%2F&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev...
beedogs 10y ago
This seems like a terrible idea. Glad I don't use Dropbox.
Gaelan 10y ago
Ugh. I'm all for calling out Dropbox (or anyone else) when they actually do something wrong, but this is getting ridiculous.
- tajen 10y ago
  I think the concern might be that we are more and more granting ownership of our machines: If NSA wants to install a spyware on targetted systems, they have a dozen autoupdate channels to do it through now. Which is good because we do nothing wrong. Apart from Youporn, where only one underage model that you didn't know about could lead you to jail. You know, accusations do wonders for your career. Apart from this catastrophic scenario, I don't either see what's wrong. How many people per year are accused of pedophilia, that could be due to conflicting work/nation interests?
  - thanksgiving 10y ago
    > I think the concern might be that we are more and more granting ownership of our machines: If NSA wants to install a spyware on targetted systems, they have a dozen autoupdate channels to do it through now. > Which is good because we do nothing wrong. Apart from Youporn, where only one underage model that you didn't know about could lead you to jail. You know, accusations do wonders for your career. > Apart from this catastrophic scenario, I don't either see what's wrong. How many people per year are accused of pedophilia, that could be due to conflicting work/nation interests? Thank you. And to people who think this won't affect them, it doesn't even have to be cp charges. NSA has lost the fight to keep its uncensored dragnet data to itself. Today, it is FBI who has access to it. Tomorrow, it will be the IRS which is fine. However, the real kicker will come when state departments of revenue and city police get their hands on it. Remember, we as a people, legitimately break the law millions of times every day. It doesn't have to be cooked up evidence. If someone wants to hang any of us "upstanding" citizens, they just have to look hard enough.
    - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
      How long until we are issued tickets for speeding when we say simple things like, "I was hauling butt to get to work today!" on FB? Or have our insurance premiums jump because of it. Certainly the former wouldn't hold up with current laws, but how long until the laws are changed? The more we allow our privacy to be eroded, the closer we are to having this come true.
eps 10y ago
This is NOT about keeping everyone updated and reducing the pool of older clients. This can be done by simply denying service to outdated versions. It worked very well for AOL Messenger 20 years ago, no reason why it won't work just as well today. This is strictly about being able to install anything on users' machines at will and having a formal consent to do that. The fact that Chrome and others do that doesn't make it any less _unacceptable_. You are losing control over what exactly and when you allow to run on your machine.
- victorhooi 10y ago
  You do realise that would probably increase the amount of customer support cases raised, from confused/angry users - which is the exactly the opposite effect that Dropbox wants. For the majority of typical users of Dropbox (and HN certainly doesn't count as typical), this is a net win in every way. They get the latest bugfixes, and they don't need to worry about all this downloading installers rubbish that seems so last decade. Also - if you were deathly worried about Dropbox and what they could do - firstly, why would you install their client to begin with, considering it's entirely closed-source? Secondly, why would you use a cloud storage provider like them to begin with? You talk about "losing control" - why not spin your own Dropbox? (I suspect many people, nerds included, underestimate the sheer amount of engineering and technical man years that go into something like this). However, for the Stallman's among it, it may make sense.
  - danieldk 10y ago
    They get the latest bugfixes, and they don't need to worry about all this downloading installers rubbish that seems so last decade. They could also distribute Dropbox through the Mac App Store, then they wouldn't have to sneak in SUID binaries and run background processes with launchd. As an added bonus, Dropbox would be sandboxed. Before someone says it can't be done: the OneDrive app is installed via the Mac App Store, is sandboxed and provides Finder integration. (Yes, the Office badge would probably be a problem, but that is a hack now anyway.) Edit: that sounded too negative. I agree that this benefits a lot of users, I just wanted to point out that an App Store version would be even better.
  - 10y ago
dexcs 10y ago
I wonder how they did the auto-update that brought that feature to me... I have a pretty shitty internet connection here and i recognized the dropbox updater sucking up my bandwidth yesterday... I've not triggered any manual update...
- phobius 10y ago
  Thought this too as soon as the notification popped up. To the best of my knowledge I haven't updated recently, so they've basically had an auto-update feature sitting dormant for a while. Nothing fishy here.
- brians 10y ago
  They've had an auto-updater for many years. They've now separated it into a separate process, so the Dropbox sync daemon doesn't have to have privileges to self-modify.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
larsnystrom 10y ago
Of course I see the possibility of harm here, but really, isn't automatic updates pretty standard by now? I mean, it's got to be better than letting a large swath of users run old versions of the software because they don't know how/don't care to update it. I mean, isn't that the more severe security issue at hand? And if you're conscious enough about your digital security that you really do mind Dropbox updating itself automatically, why did you install their app in the first place? The only OS I actually expect to protect me from the apps I install is iOS, and only in combination with the AppStore review process. From what I hear, Apple's attempts at creating similar safeguards in macOS with the Mac AppStore has not been received that well with developers because of the restrictions sandboxing place on the apps.
- ddebernardy 10y ago
  > because they don't know how/don't care to update it In this case the reality probably is closer to: because they don't know they should be worrying about it. (Sample of one, obviously, but I certainly didn't know I should, and yet never got any kind of notification to that effect until I sought to delete the app a few weeks ago.) It's so matter of factly on consumer devices that things just update themselves or nag you to do it from time to time, that it somewhat boggles the mind that it wasn't automated.
  - disiplus 10y ago
    i disabled the automatic update on my android device. i had a lot of apps installed and had the feeling something is updating all the time and trashing my battery life. and then there is problem that alot of times the new wersions are worse then older ones. i had the instance where newer versions of apps, had features removed because they now offer "pro" version, and also change the layout to cram more ads. so now im updating the app only if i notice that something is not working right.
- revmoo 10y ago
  > I mean, it's got to be better than letting a large swath of users run old versions of the software because they don't know how/don't care to update it. Dead wrong. A monoculture is much, much worse for global infosec.
brador 10y ago
What are some good alternatives to Dropbox that don"t do this?
- jhasse 10y ago
  I can recommend Seafile (I think you need a server though): https://www.seafile.com https://www.seafile.com
- MrQuincle 10y ago
  You can remove the executable bit from the update process probably. Disclaimer: I run Ubuntu.
  - rainforest 10y ago
    I could be mistaken but on install the Dropbox app adds a few SetUID binaries that probably allow them to put the bit back.
- staticelf 10y ago
  I believe SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/ https://spideroak.com/) does not auto-update!
natch 10y ago
This makes the client a tempting target for court-ordered and government-ordered surreptitious and potentially individually tailored updates (i.e. a malware delivery service for any government). It's a very bad idea.
r618 10y ago
stopped using dropbox on mac after the last snafu with forced accessibility features access, unability to uninstall itself properly and it monitoring the whole filesystem file i/o ( wtf ? ) i've been using icloud drive only on mac ever since - unfortunately it does not have public links ( or any public access for that matter ) - which is the only feature which is good on dropbox and i'm using it on windows machines with the recent collaboration additions and its web UI/UX, dropbox is somehow becoming strange sharing frankenstein
protomyth 10y ago
If anyone from DropBox is in this thread. Did a DropBox update put itself on the toolbar of the Finder, and if so, did you test that functionality with a machine that already had a custom toolbar setup?
revmoo 10y ago
Twice I've seen Dropbox delete data. It actually nuked our honeymoon photos. The logs showed my wife logging in during a holiday while she was with me and deleting everything. Then months later I found a note from Dropbox in my spam folder that they were deleting MY account and it was months old. DO NOT trust Dropbox with your data. The company is run by absolute clowns. I'd especially not hand over the keys to my computer to them.
hemancuso 10y ago
When exactly did HN transition from from fawning over one of the best YC success stories to being upset with nearly everything Dropbox does? The number of extremely negative comments here here about using a second process [just like Chrome, Creative Cloud and countless others] to auto-update is really surprising. I can understand people not being thrilled with a kernel extension being installed, but most of those comments there seem misguided or uninformed. The obvious transition point [to me, it seems] was when they put Condi on the board. HN opinion on nearly everything Dropbox does has really soured since then.
- mulletbum 10y ago
  I started looking at HN right when Dropbox announced on it. Funny enough, I came to HN looking for something like Dropbox. I even remember when Dropbox was doing odd things that Apple had to ask them about because they didn't know how they put the check marks in. Yet here we are, angry at Dropbox for continuing down that path of making things more and more user friendly.
redxblood 10y ago
This is not okay.
reiichiroh 10y ago
Is this done without the admin prompt?
gumby 10y ago
I don't understand the implementation. They already have a background process running (on my Mac it shows an icon in the menu bar) and that application talks to the network. Why use a second process? I can understand spawning a process to actually do an update once one has been downloaded. So what am I missing? (and since this is HN: as for the updating, fine. It's no different from visiting a web site and having the pages served by different revisions of the back end, and it's not like it has a complex UI that could cause user confusion. I assume DB doesn't update all that often anyway).

83 points by evanslify 10y ago

konceptz 10y ago

I wonder why the option to disable automatic updates was omitted?

gkoberger 10y ago
(Assuming this is true....) Because if they're stuck supporting old versions of Dropbox, they're miserable (having to support dozens of versions) and you're miserable (things start to break). I understand why people would be worried about Dropbox auto-downloading software, but honestly... if you're the kind of person worried about the security around Dropbox auto-updating the same way every app on your phone does, you probably aren't using Dropbox to begin with.
- konceptz 10y ago
  Good points. Though this is not a phone app and Dropbox does have a history of mistakes causing data loss. I assume it's true because: "If you don’t want Dropbox Update to run on your computer, you can uninstall the Dropbox application. You can still access your files on dropbox.com and using the Dropbox mobile apps."
  - acdha 10y ago
    > Though this is not a phone app and Dropbox does have a history of mistakes causing data loss. A history of random forum posters making huge assertions which inevitably turn out to be significantly overstated. It's trendy in certain circles to complain about Dropbox and the hype factor makes it easy to forget that for every person repeating anecdotes on HN there are a million normal people who use the service without issues.
    - angry_octet 10y ago
      As one of those 'random forum posters' aka Dropbox Customers who has lost data, I don't think it would be over stating it that I was fucking pissed off that my data was gone. I didn't really give a shit that other people were using the service without issues. Its not rocket science to understand that a cloud data storage company is (a) going to have bugs, hence (b) data will be lost, and (c) customers will be dissatisfied. The only saving grace for Dropbox is that the Google Drive windows client is a totally catastrophic data destroying pile of rubbish, and the Azure/Onedrive system is so microsofty and has no linux client either.
      - acdha 10y ago
        Again, there are people who've lost data and in some of those cases it was even caused by Dropbox — as opposed to the hardware failures or human errors which are often attributed to a service like Dropbox because that's what first made the problem visible — but that's still anecdotal rather than proof of widespread problem and, going back to the topic at hand, it doesn't tell us that the answer is to avoid installing updates. For a widely deployed consumer app, a significant fraction of the work will be defensive coding to reduce the impact of problems on the client and holding back updates will actually increase someone's exposure interval.
- greenhatman 10y ago
  I'd still prefer to be prompted to update. I know my phone is a security mess. But I want my desktop not to be.
  - nkristoffersen 10y ago
    That is funny to me because I assume my phone is much more secure (with strict sandboxing) compared to my desktop.
    - izacus 10y ago
      Except that each of those sandboxed apps keeps uploading your behavioural and private data pretty much constantly with no ability for you to limit or stop it like you can on the deskop :)
      - angry_octet 10y ago
        And you can never downgrade to an old version. Or add a firewall that will block ads. Or disable javascript selectively. Or control when programs can run. Or know whether they use crypto safely. Or have any control over when your phone will get patched for the 200-day level 10 RCE bug. Now I just want to smash my phone with a hammer. Smash it into tiny tiny pieces.
    - derefr 10y ago
      And, moreover, forcing automatic updates means my phone has far less vulnerable code sitting around on it than my desktop currently does.
- FabHK 10y ago
  > auto-updating the same way every app on your phone does I'm on the latest iOS (10.2.1), and it's optional - I have 23 apps ready for updates, but I can scan through the release notes before initiating the update.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

radley 10y ago

When did they post this? Is it old? It mentions OS 10.7, so I'd guess it's been in place for a few years now.

citruspi 10y ago
The minimum required operating system version isn't necessarily indicative of the age of the feature. I can develop an application on macOS 10.12 now and have it support all previous versions up to OS X 10.7.
f_allwein 10y ago
I had a popup telling me about this yesterday, so I assume it is new.
SyneRyder 10y ago
Seems to be new, Dropbox on my Mac displayed an alert notification about it in the app today.

cdransf 10y ago

This doesn't seem any worse than Chrome continually updating itself.

threeseed 10y ago
Or Office, Creative Suite or dozens of other major applications.
- samastur 10y ago
  Microsoft Office does not autoupdate. It notifies you of an update, but you have to confirm the transfer and installation. At least that's how it works on my Mac.
  - cprecioso 10y ago
    On Windows, it updates through Windows Update (which you can moderately control) or through their own App-V/Click-To-Run thing, that updates transparently
  - acdha 10y ago
    That's because they don't have a robust self-update feature for the Microsoft Updater app. They added an automatic update mode and it appears to be on by default now, which is probably good given the number of exploits Office has had over the years.
- Doctor_Fegg 10y ago
  Adobe software is a notorious offender for intrusive background updater processes. It's not exactly something to aspire to.
eps 10y ago
Both of them doing that in mandatory fashion is unacceptable. I might be OK with running this bit of their code on my computer, but it's not an open bar for dropping anything executable onto my machine at will.

agermanov 10y ago

Did Dropbox fix malware way to get privileges? https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=https%3A%2F%2Fhabrahabr.ru%2Fpost%2F310074%2F&edit-text=&act=url https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&prev...

beedogs 10y ago

This seems like a terrible idea. Glad I don't use Dropbox.

Gaelan 10y ago

Ugh. I'm all for calling out Dropbox (or anyone else) when they actually do something wrong, but this is getting ridiculous.

tajen 10y ago
I think the concern might be that we are more and more granting ownership of our machines: If NSA wants to install a spyware on targetted systems, they have a dozen autoupdate channels to do it through now. Which is good because we do nothing wrong. Apart from Youporn, where only one underage model that you didn't know about could lead you to jail. You know, accusations do wonders for your career. Apart from this catastrophic scenario, I don't either see what's wrong. How many people per year are accused of pedophilia, that could be due to conflicting work/nation interests?
- thanksgiving 10y ago
  > I think the concern might be that we are more and more granting ownership of our machines: If NSA wants to install a spyware on targetted systems, they have a dozen autoupdate channels to do it through now. > Which is good because we do nothing wrong. Apart from Youporn, where only one underage model that you didn't know about could lead you to jail. You know, accusations do wonders for your career. > Apart from this catastrophic scenario, I don't either see what's wrong. How many people per year are accused of pedophilia, that could be due to conflicting work/nation interests? Thank you. And to people who think this won't affect them, it doesn't even have to be cp charges. NSA has lost the fight to keep its uncensored dragnet data to itself. Today, it is FBI who has access to it. Tomorrow, it will be the IRS which is fine. However, the real kicker will come when state departments of revenue and city police get their hands on it. Remember, we as a people, legitimately break the law millions of times every day. It doesn't have to be cooked up evidence. If someone wants to hang any of us "upstanding" citizens, they just have to look hard enough.
  - JustSomeNobody 10y ago
    How long until we are issued tickets for speeding when we say simple things like, "I was hauling butt to get to work today!" on FB? Or have our insurance premiums jump because of it. Certainly the former wouldn't hold up with current laws, but how long until the laws are changed? The more we allow our privacy to be eroded, the closer we are to having this come true.

eps 10y ago

This is NOT about keeping everyone updated and reducing the pool of older clients. This can be done by simply denying service to outdated versions. It worked very well for AOL Messenger 20 years ago, no reason why it won't work just as well today. This is strictly about being able to install anything on users' machines at will and having a formal consent to do that. The fact that Chrome and others do that doesn't make it any less _unacceptable_. You are losing control over what exactly and when you allow to run on your machine.

victorhooi 10y ago
You do realise that would probably increase the amount of customer support cases raised, from confused/angry users - which is the exactly the opposite effect that Dropbox wants. For the majority of typical users of Dropbox (and HN certainly doesn't count as typical), this is a net win in every way. They get the latest bugfixes, and they don't need to worry about all this downloading installers rubbish that seems so last decade. Also - if you were deathly worried about Dropbox and what they could do - firstly, why would you install their client to begin with, considering it's entirely closed-source? Secondly, why would you use a cloud storage provider like them to begin with? You talk about "losing control" - why not spin your own Dropbox? (I suspect many people, nerds included, underestimate the sheer amount of engineering and technical man years that go into something like this). However, for the Stallman's among it, it may make sense.
- danieldk 10y ago
  They get the latest bugfixes, and they don't need to worry about all this downloading installers rubbish that seems so last decade. They could also distribute Dropbox through the Mac App Store, then they wouldn't have to sneak in SUID binaries and run background processes with launchd. As an added bonus, Dropbox would be sandboxed. Before someone says it can't be done: the OneDrive app is installed via the Mac App Store, is sandboxed and provides Finder integration. (Yes, the Office badge would probably be a problem, but that is a hack now anyway.) Edit: that sounded too negative. I agree that this benefits a lot of users, I just wanted to point out that an App Store version would be even better.
- 10y ago

dexcs 10y ago

I wonder how they did the auto-update that brought that feature to me... I have a pretty shitty internet connection here and i recognized the dropbox updater sucking up my bandwidth yesterday... I've not triggered any manual update...

phobius 10y ago
Thought this too as soon as the notification popped up. To the best of my knowledge I haven't updated recently, so they've basically had an auto-update feature sitting dormant for a while. Nothing fishy here.
brians 10y ago
They've had an auto-updater for many years. They've now separated it into a separate process, so the Dropbox sync daemon doesn't have to have privileges to self-modify.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

larsnystrom 10y ago

Of course I see the possibility of harm here, but really, isn't automatic updates pretty standard by now? I mean, it's got to be better than letting a large swath of users run old versions of the software because they don't know how/don't care to update it. I mean, isn't that the more severe security issue at hand? And if you're conscious enough about your digital security that you really do mind Dropbox updating itself automatically, why did you install their app in the first place? The only OS I actually expect to protect me from the apps I install is iOS, and only in combination with the AppStore review process. From what I hear, Apple's attempts at creating similar safeguards in macOS with the Mac AppStore has not been received that well with developers because of the restrictions sandboxing place on the apps.

ddebernardy 10y ago
> because they don't know how/don't care to update it In this case the reality probably is closer to: because they don't know they should be worrying about it. (Sample of one, obviously, but I certainly didn't know I should, and yet never got any kind of notification to that effect until I sought to delete the app a few weeks ago.) It's so matter of factly on consumer devices that things just update themselves or nag you to do it from time to time, that it somewhat boggles the mind that it wasn't automated.
- disiplus 10y ago
  i disabled the automatic update on my android device. i had a lot of apps installed and had the feeling something is updating all the time and trashing my battery life. and then there is problem that alot of times the new wersions are worse then older ones. i had the instance where newer versions of apps, had features removed because they now offer "pro" version, and also change the layout to cram more ads. so now im updating the app only if i notice that something is not working right.
revmoo 10y ago
> I mean, it's got to be better than letting a large swath of users run old versions of the software because they don't know how/don't care to update it. Dead wrong. A monoculture is much, much worse for global infosec.

brador 10y ago

What are some good alternatives to Dropbox that don"t do this?

jhasse 10y ago
I can recommend Seafile (I think you need a server though): https://www.seafile.com https://www.seafile.com
MrQuincle 10y ago
You can remove the executable bit from the update process probably. Disclaimer: I run Ubuntu.
- rainforest 10y ago
  I could be mistaken but on install the Dropbox app adds a few SetUID binaries that probably allow them to put the bit back.
staticelf 10y ago
I believe SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/ https://spideroak.com/) does not auto-update!

natch 10y ago

This makes the client a tempting target for court-ordered and government-ordered surreptitious and potentially individually tailored updates (i.e. a malware delivery service for any government). It's a very bad idea.

r618 10y ago

stopped using dropbox on mac after the last snafu with forced accessibility features access, unability to uninstall itself properly and it monitoring the whole filesystem file i/o ( wtf ? ) i've been using icloud drive only on mac ever since - unfortunately it does not have public links ( or any public access for that matter ) - which is the only feature which is good on dropbox and i'm using it on windows machines with the recent collaboration additions and its web UI/UX, dropbox is somehow becoming strange sharing frankenstein

protomyth 10y ago

If anyone from DropBox is in this thread. Did a DropBox update put itself on the toolbar of the Finder, and if so, did you test that functionality with a machine that already had a custom toolbar setup?

revmoo 10y ago

Twice I've seen Dropbox delete data. It actually nuked our honeymoon photos. The logs showed my wife logging in during a holiday while she was with me and deleting everything. Then months later I found a note from Dropbox in my spam folder that they were deleting MY account and it was months old. DO NOT trust Dropbox with your data. The company is run by absolute clowns. I'd especially not hand over the keys to my computer to them.

hemancuso 10y ago

When exactly did HN transition from from fawning over one of the best YC success stories to being upset with nearly everything Dropbox does? The number of extremely negative comments here here about using a second process [just like Chrome, Creative Cloud and countless others] to auto-update is really surprising. I can understand people not being thrilled with a kernel extension being installed, but most of those comments there seem misguided or uninformed. The obvious transition point [to me, it seems] was when they put Condi on the board. HN opinion on nearly everything Dropbox does has really soured since then.

mulletbum 10y ago
I started looking at HN right when Dropbox announced on it. Funny enough, I came to HN looking for something like Dropbox. I even remember when Dropbox was doing odd things that Apple had to ask them about because they didn't know how they put the check marks in. Yet here we are, angry at Dropbox for continuing down that path of making things more and more user friendly.

redxblood 10y ago

This is not okay.

reiichiroh 10y ago

Is this done without the admin prompt?

gumby 10y ago

I don't understand the implementation. They already have a background process running (on my Mac it shows an icon in the menu bar) and that application talks to the network. Why use a second process? I can understand spawning a process to actually do an update once one has been downloaded. So what am I missing? (and since this is HN: as for the updating, fine. It's no different from visiting a web site and having the pages served by different revisions of the back end, and it's not like it has a complex UI that could cause user confusion. I assume DB doesn't update all that often anyway).