9 ms·

Dropbox Drops Photo Galleries

87 points by intherdfield 9y ago

SimonDorio 9y ago
This seems to be 'why': Will I still be able to share photos directly from my Dropbox account to Facebook or Twitter? After July 17, you’ll no longer be able to share photos directly from your Dropbox account to social media. You can use shared links to share files or folders on social media.
livejamie 9y ago
Well that makes choosing Google Drive a lot easier
- eberkund 9y ago
  Last time I checked Google Drive's client was a few steps behind Dropbox's. Is this still the case? I think at some point Google did not have a Linux client and I know the UI for OSX didn't look or feel as native as Dropbox did. However it has been a long time since I tried it out.
  - nnutter 9y ago
    Still no Linux client but Gnome can mount your Google Drive much like an NFS or SMB mount.
chad_c 9y ago
Dropbox lost me when they closed Carousel. I don't understand why this space is so hard.
- the_common_man 9y ago
  Nobody wants to pay.
  - prawn 9y ago
    I think you have to prove yourself indispensable and really charm people with functionality that is surprisingly effective. I pay for iCloud (former) and Spotify (latter - their discovery constantly astounds me). I need something like Dropbox and begrudgingly use the free tier interacting with my clients who use it, but I find myself trying to avoid paying for it or locking in on it. Something about it is just off-putting.
  - Spooky23 9y ago
    Sure they do, they just need more. Plenty of people are paying for iCloud and Google. Dropbox' strength is sync and sharing, but they kneecap that by double-counting sharing capacity. I can't share a video with my wife (a non-subscriber) without paying again)
glennericksen 9y ago
It looks like they are moving towards folders as an organizing principle instead of an album abstraction. More information here: https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos
- jonchang 9y ago
  This is probably a better link than the original.
  - Diti 9y ago
    Can confirm. The original link doesn't tell anything about discontinuation of the service—at least not the French localization of that page. But that other link does.
girosss 9y ago
yet another evil corp
- giross 9y ago
  bad duplicate.. sorry fat fingers :(
smrtinsert 9y ago
Trust the cloud they said, it's always there they said. In all seriousness, the need for local, speedy, transparent and ubiquitous data redundancy is still there and if anything growing. Consumers want a 'refrigerator' of data - be it documents, photos, etc. Buy, set and forget. Huge opportunity there.
- avh02 9y ago
  I've started using backblaze's b2 for this sort of stuff
- Karunamon 9y ago
  Basically, AWS S3 without transfer fees. It's near perfect, but has the slight negative that your image may get linked on a popular site (or maliciously downloaded) and suddenly you owe thousands through no fault of your own.
- ChuckMcM 9y ago
  I tend to agree with this. Local broadband access is good enough, and IPV6 spread widely enough, that you could make a network accessible data fridge that lived in your house work. Using the cloud for offline encrypted backups only. To work though it will require some exceptional simplification and product engineering.
  - ghaff 9y ago
    I'm very cautious about exposing my home network to the Internet. I can't really see putting my primary data storage on a system that's fully exposed if some critical vulnerability is discovered. I need everywhere access to a pretty small portion of my data. Even given properly managed encryption one has to assume the system could get wiped which makes other backup regimes necessary. As you say, hard to get bulletproof. Not that most people are bulletproof today.
    - ChuckMcM 9y ago
      I think you are right to be cautious. It would be an interesting paper to read on the attack surface of a 'cloud storage provider' versus the attack surface of a single appliance. In an earlier life I managed the implementation of system software on an Internet appliance. Later I worked in a team that implemented the system software in a storage appliance. It is a challenging thing to get right for sure. As with most things you can't really get to perfect. But I do believe you can get to "good enough" which is to say that for a large swath of the population I believe it is possible to build a dedicated storage appliance that you could leave connected to the Internet 24/7 and its systems would not be compromised. And if you worked with applications that currently use 'cloud storage' so that your data is always available to you anywhere you have net access, I expect you could limit cross application vulnerabilities. You would do that by brutally simplifying what could be done on the appliance to the bare minimum, not even an OS as many would define it. The advantages over the current notion of 'cloud' would be three fold, one your appliance would never withdraw its API and make your application unusable, two it would never be possible for a third party to be served an NSL which would give access to your data without you knowing about it, and third there would be no "giant bucket of user credentials and information" honeypot that once compromised at the cloud server would force a massive re-validation exercise on you and possible other issues with a re-used password. I know from experience that attacks directed at an appliance stand out. That helps in making defense easier.
girosss 9y ago
yet another evil corp.. don't want to be troll here but nothing that db does excites me gor quite a long time
mandazi 9y ago
Google's version (photos.google.com) is great. I love the auto-generated albums, animated gifs and movies. It's also very easy to share and create group albums.
- OtherCoder 9y ago
  I couldn't stand how it used to recommend uploading after taking some snaps. For galleries, I've found https://github.com/wavexx/fgallery https://github.com/wavexx/fgallery works well.
- jrnichols 9y ago
  but a lot of us were using Dropbox because we really don't want to use anything Google. That's the thing.
- j2bax 9y ago
  I was using Google Photos until really recently when I decided I'm just not comfortable giving them that much un-gated insight into my life... Switched over to iCloud and I have no regrets. Google did some fun/novel things with my photos and their ability to render hundreds of photo thumbnails quickly on my mobile was impressive but I can live without it for privacies sake.
jmathai 9y ago
I don't think the consumer space is something Dropbox is really interested in. I don't blame them and they probably have the numbers to back up their decision to drop photo galleries. I thought Carousel was going to be a big success[1] but it didn't hit the mark like I suspected. Even if it did I doubt it would generate any meaningful revenue for them. Google has figured out the consumer photo space with Google Photos. Their general approach was simply better than Carousel which was too focused on socializing. Even there they would have been outdone by Google Photos; not to mention the crazy AI which comes along with Google Photos. Shameless plug for an open source EXIF-based photo workflow automation tool[2][3] I wrote and used with Dropbox but now use with Google Drive / Google Photos / Synology. [3] http://github.com/jmathai/elodie http://github.com/jmathai/elodie [2] https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal-exif-based-photo-and-video-assistant-d92868f302ec https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal... [1] https://medium.com/@jmathai/thoughts-on-dropbox-carousel-e5aad177400a https://medium.com/@jmathai/thoughts-on-dropbox-carousel-e5a...
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Google is pushing out new features for Google Photos at an impressive rate through now as well. Hope that doesn't. If they didn't shut Carousel down before, they would probably be shutting it down by now with Google Photos, Apple Photos, Amazon, taking so much of the space up.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    What happens when Google Photos shuts down?
    - jmathai 9y ago
      I'm glad you asked :). Here's how I get all the benefits of Google Photos without relying on the service to be around in order to have my photos. https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal-exif-based-photo-and-video-assistant-d92868f302ec https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal...
leipert 9y ago
Funny, it seems that it has been a feature since the first day. Just yesterday I watched this [1] first demo of dropbox which notably mentioned the feature [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE
revmoo 9y ago
Drobox should focus on not dropping their user's files. I've witnessed it twice. Rip my honeymoon pics.
post_break 9y ago
What will be the next thing removed? Linux? Syncing? I mean I almost cancelled when the public folders were shut down. We tried Dropbox for business but after it not working out we had 50,000 files deleted at random and I had to restore them, one at a time...
Spooky23 9y ago
Dropbox is a strange company. They must be doing backend maintenance or something, but they seem to take away more features and function than they add. I honestly don't get what they do as a company, and I love the product and have paid for years. They hold back basic features like search and now take away stuff like albums that freeware packages can do?
Brendinooo 9y ago
Plug for SmugMug here: $40/year for, as far as I understand it, unlimited photo and video storage. Great controls over sharing, easy to order prints, and the iOS app is getting better all the time. Plus, you are not the product. They just want to do photo storage well, and that's it. Back when I was deciding on a service, I was down to Carousel and SmugMug. I liked the idea of paying Dropbox for space that would go beyond photos and I think Carousel was good at syncing photos from the iPhone, but I went with SmugMug for the reasons above and have not regretted it one bit.
- ghaff 9y ago
  SmugMug went back and forth a bit. At one point, as I recall, they changed pricing plans so it was really only applicable to pros or at least semi-pros. But they seem to be attractive for broader usage again. I've been on Flickr forever. It still does the job for me but I'm not really dependent on them. Everything I have is in Lightroom locally and backed up in multiple ways.
  - skinnymuch 9y ago
    Doesn't Lightroom sync to the web now? How much of your photo/video collection is for non-work? I am not any kind of photographer, I just take a lot of photos/videos, and compile a lot of the videos/photos family and friends send through different messaging apps, etc. I'm the one people come to a lot when they want to see stuff from some hangout years ago. Lightroom has always seemed daunting so I never took much of a look at it even though I pay for the Photoshop subscription that includes Lightroom.
- skeletonjelly 9y ago
  I use these guys but the lack of raw files is annoying that it's (from memory) the highest tier. Also the iPhone app might be good but the Android is some kind of PhoneGap like second rate. Reminds me of the Android environment 5 years ago being left with crappy clones of the iPhone versions.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  I like the idea of SmugMug but I have a few quibbles with it: - As far as I can tell, there's no RAW support (http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93278 http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93278), admittedly this is the biggest problem for me, as all my photos are RAW. - Video is extremely limited (20 min/3GB) and I expect to be able to store that too, as I treat it basically the same way I treat photos. - Their privacy policy is that of a content publishing platform, not a place to store personal photos: They will access your information without your consent and without mandatory notification if "we believe your actions are inconsistent with the spirit or language of our user agreements or policies". That last one is the killer. - Their ToS is that of a content publishing platform, not a place to store photos: They prohibit "User Content that, in the sole judgment of SmugMug, is objectionable, harmful or which restricts or inhibits any other person from using or enjoying the Services, or which may expose SmugMug or its users to any harm or liability of any nature." i.e. they can object to literally anything I put there. I don't want to have to think about whether my backup provider will deign to approve the photos I take. I honestly prefer Google Photos to SmugMug. It has decent RAW support and with a $10/month Google Apps account you can get an unenforced 1TB quota (i.e. unlimited). And they don't police the stuff you backup, only what you share.
727374 9y ago
Annoying. I was happy paying $100/yr for Dropbox to store my photos along with a few extra files. The photo features weren't great, but good enough for basic browsing through galleries. I bought into the idea that if I was paying for the storage it would be more durable and permanent than some fly-by-night photo startup or google/amazon feature. I realize the photos aren't going anywhere, but my use case is. Canceling my subscription to Dropbox... now.
- nnutter 9y ago
  Dropbox only dabbled in photos. Despite my desire to support Dropbox both because they pioneered the online synced folder and because they supported Linux I ended up paying Google because Google Photos came out of the gate way ahead of Dropbox’s languishing attempts at photo management/sharing and Google Photos has kept a strong pace.
  - Paul-ish 9y ago
    How do you sync from Linux?
    - tomrod 9y ago
      They provide an installation method. For servers, you can just run the daemon. For desktop, Nautilus is supported (or you can just run the daemon!). https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux
    - nnutter 9y ago
      For Dropbox? You install the official Linux client. For Google? There are third-party sync products and Gnome can mount it as a network drive but I didn’t mean to imply that I did; I don’t sync Google Drive with Linux.
      - SkyLinx 9y ago
        I use InSync for Google Drive on Linux, works great
8ytecoder 9y ago
For those looking into alternatives but do not like the auto-downsizing or quality reduction: Google Photos has an option to include (and upload too) your pictures stored with Google Drive. https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6156103?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6156103?co=GENIE.Pl...
vaishaksuresh 9y ago
Maybe I'm too old for this, but I read the title as "Dropbox discontinues photo galleries" I still can't get used to the fact that drop means release.
- kazinator 9y ago
  It doesn't. "Dropbox drops photo galleries" means discontinues. If that isn't the intended meaning of the statement, then language is being misused, plain and simple. Or it's some kind of Dropbox jargon not widely understood outside of Dropbox.
  - zimpenfish 9y ago
    If you're claiming that "drop means release" is "language being misused", the dictionary would like a word. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/drop https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/drop (verb) 5.4 (informal) Release (a musical recording). (noun) 3. (informal) A delivery.
- traek 9y ago
  Dropbox is discontinuing photo galleries. > The Photos page is changing on July 17, 2017, but your pictures will stay safe in your Dropbox account. After July 17, you’ll no longer be able to create or share albums on the web, or browse photos in the current timeline view.
  - vaishaksuresh 9y ago
    You're right! i just skimmed over the article and missed the important thing in the box on top :)
- mikestew 9y ago
  You're thinking "drop" like a "drop point" where the binaries go after the build server is done with them. "Drop" in this case is like bike racing: "I dropped him on the last hill", i. e., I got rid of him by speeding up. "I dropped that like a hot potato" (picture holding a potato just out of the 200C oven with bare hands), a common U. S. phrase to indicate getting rid of something or having nothing to do with it. So, Dropbox is dropping photos in the hot potato sense, not the build server artifact sense.
i1856511 9y ago
This sucks. I used this all the time. Does anyone know a similar, anonymous service? I want private sharing links and I don't want a username displayed on the gallery page like Google Photos.
i1856511 9y ago
This sucks. I used this all the time. Does anyone know a similar, anonymous service? I want private sharing links and I don't want a username displayed on the gallery page like Google Photos.
whyenot 9y ago
Their monthly price for 1TB of storage is still less than Google Drive, but I've become increasingly frustrated with Dropbox. If I want 2TB instead of 1TB, I have to pay 4.5 times more. I can understand that they may want to go after business users and that I am not a core customer, but the pricing seems out of whack and then they keep on cutting features. For me, it's time to get off the train.
alphabettsy 9y ago
They still haven't even gotten desktop sync right. I removed it and downgraded my account after months and months of CPU usage issues on macOS.
Axsuul 9y ago
This title is misleading. Dropbox is "dropping" photo galleries in favor of something more integrated[1]: "The Photos page will be replaced with a new, streamlined photos experience that looks more like our redesigned Dropbox website. You’ll be able to access it by navigating to dropbox.com/photos or clicking on Photos in the left-hand menu of dropbox.com." [1] https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos
odisbey 9y ago
Well this explains the shift to Cyberduck my company made.
Camillo 9y ago
When you scroll down on the page, the logo at the top suddenly animates and contracts horizontally. The "Dropbox" word disappears and only the box logo remains. This serves no visible purpose and merely serves to distract the reader. Logo animations when scrolling were introduced in order to be able to shrink the size of the header, to give more room for the content. But the header on this page does not shrink at all. The funny thing is that this page, while following the norms of flat design, has managed to adopt skeuomorphism in the worst way. The shrinking logo had a use on pages that shrink the header, but here is remains as a pure decoration, with no functional purpose.

87 points by intherdfield 9y ago

This seems to be 'why': Will I still be able to share photos directly from my Dropbox account to Facebook or Twitter? After July 17, you’ll no longer be able to share photos directly from your Dropbox account to social media. You can use shared links to share files or folders on social media.

livejamie 9y ago

Well that makes choosing Google Drive a lot easier

eberkund 9y ago
Last time I checked Google Drive's client was a few steps behind Dropbox's. Is this still the case? I think at some point Google did not have a Linux client and I know the UI for OSX didn't look or feel as native as Dropbox did. However it has been a long time since I tried it out.
- nnutter 9y ago
  Still no Linux client but Gnome can mount your Google Drive much like an NFS or SMB mount.

chad_c 9y ago

Dropbox lost me when they closed Carousel. I don't understand why this space is so hard.

the_common_man 9y ago
Nobody wants to pay.
- prawn 9y ago
  I think you have to prove yourself indispensable and really charm people with functionality that is surprisingly effective. I pay for iCloud (former) and Spotify (latter - their discovery constantly astounds me). I need something like Dropbox and begrudgingly use the free tier interacting with my clients who use it, but I find myself trying to avoid paying for it or locking in on it. Something about it is just off-putting.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  Sure they do, they just need more. Plenty of people are paying for iCloud and Google. Dropbox' strength is sync and sharing, but they kneecap that by double-counting sharing capacity. I can't share a video with my wife (a non-subscriber) without paying again)

glennericksen 9y ago

It looks like they are moving towards folders as an organizing principle instead of an album abstraction. More information here: https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos

jonchang 9y ago
This is probably a better link than the original.
- Diti 9y ago
  Can confirm. The original link doesn't tell anything about discontinuation of the service—at least not the French localization of that page. But that other link does.

girosss 9y ago

yet another evil corp

giross 9y ago
bad duplicate.. sorry fat fingers :(

smrtinsert 9y ago

Trust the cloud they said, it's always there they said. In all seriousness, the need for local, speedy, transparent and ubiquitous data redundancy is still there and if anything growing. Consumers want a 'refrigerator' of data - be it documents, photos, etc. Buy, set and forget. Huge opportunity there.

avh02 9y ago
I've started using backblaze's b2 for this sort of stuff
Karunamon 9y ago
Basically, AWS S3 without transfer fees. It's near perfect, but has the slight negative that your image may get linked on a popular site (or maliciously downloaded) and suddenly you owe thousands through no fault of your own.
ChuckMcM 9y ago
I tend to agree with this. Local broadband access is good enough, and IPV6 spread widely enough, that you could make a network accessible data fridge that lived in your house work. Using the cloud for offline encrypted backups only. To work though it will require some exceptional simplification and product engineering.
- ghaff 9y ago
  I'm very cautious about exposing my home network to the Internet. I can't really see putting my primary data storage on a system that's fully exposed if some critical vulnerability is discovered. I need everywhere access to a pretty small portion of my data. Even given properly managed encryption one has to assume the system could get wiped which makes other backup regimes necessary. As you say, hard to get bulletproof. Not that most people are bulletproof today.
  - ChuckMcM 9y ago
    I think you are right to be cautious. It would be an interesting paper to read on the attack surface of a 'cloud storage provider' versus the attack surface of a single appliance. In an earlier life I managed the implementation of system software on an Internet appliance. Later I worked in a team that implemented the system software in a storage appliance. It is a challenging thing to get right for sure. As with most things you can't really get to perfect. But I do believe you can get to "good enough" which is to say that for a large swath of the population I believe it is possible to build a dedicated storage appliance that you could leave connected to the Internet 24/7 and its systems would not be compromised. And if you worked with applications that currently use 'cloud storage' so that your data is always available to you anywhere you have net access, I expect you could limit cross application vulnerabilities. You would do that by brutally simplifying what could be done on the appliance to the bare minimum, not even an OS as many would define it. The advantages over the current notion of 'cloud' would be three fold, one your appliance would never withdraw its API and make your application unusable, two it would never be possible for a third party to be served an NSL which would give access to your data without you knowing about it, and third there would be no "giant bucket of user credentials and information" honeypot that once compromised at the cloud server would force a massive re-validation exercise on you and possible other issues with a re-used password. I know from experience that attacks directed at an appliance stand out. That helps in making defense easier.

girosss 9y ago

yet another evil corp.. don't want to be troll here but nothing that db does excites me gor quite a long time

mandazi 9y ago

Google's version (photos.google.com) is great. I love the auto-generated albums, animated gifs and movies. It's also very easy to share and create group albums.

OtherCoder 9y ago
I couldn't stand how it used to recommend uploading after taking some snaps. For galleries, I've found https://github.com/wavexx/fgallery https://github.com/wavexx/fgallery works well.
jrnichols 9y ago
but a lot of us were using Dropbox because we really don't want to use anything Google. That's the thing.
j2bax 9y ago
I was using Google Photos until really recently when I decided I'm just not comfortable giving them that much un-gated insight into my life... Switched over to iCloud and I have no regrets. Google did some fun/novel things with my photos and their ability to render hundreds of photo thumbnails quickly on my mobile was impressive but I can live without it for privacies sake.

jmathai 9y ago

I don't think the consumer space is something Dropbox is really interested in. I don't blame them and they probably have the numbers to back up their decision to drop photo galleries. I thought Carousel was going to be a big success[1] but it didn't hit the mark like I suspected. Even if it did I doubt it would generate any meaningful revenue for them. Google has figured out the consumer photo space with Google Photos. Their general approach was simply better than Carousel which was too focused on socializing. Even there they would have been outdone by Google Photos; not to mention the crazy AI which comes along with Google Photos. Shameless plug for an open source EXIF-based photo workflow automation tool[2][3] I wrote and used with Dropbox but now use with Google Drive / Google Photos / Synology. [3] http://github.com/jmathai/elodie http://github.com/jmathai/elodie [2] https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal-exif-based-photo-and-video-assistant-d92868f302ec https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal... [1] https://medium.com/@jmathai/thoughts-on-dropbox-carousel-e5aad177400a https://medium.com/@jmathai/thoughts-on-dropbox-carousel-e5a...

skinnymuch 9y ago
Google is pushing out new features for Google Photos at an impressive rate through now as well. Hope that doesn't. If they didn't shut Carousel down before, they would probably be shutting it down by now with Google Photos, Apple Photos, Amazon, taking so much of the space up.
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  What happens when Google Photos shuts down?
  - jmathai 9y ago
    I'm glad you asked :). Here's how I get all the benefits of Google Photos without relying on the service to be around in order to have my photos. https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal-exif-based-photo-and-video-assistant-d92868f302ec https://medium.com/@jmathai/introducing-elodie-your-personal...

leipert 9y ago

Funny, it seems that it has been a feature since the first day. Just yesterday I watched this [1] first demo of dropbox which notably mentioned the feature [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QmCUDHpNzE

revmoo 9y ago

Drobox should focus on not dropping their user's files. I've witnessed it twice. Rip my honeymoon pics.

post_break 9y ago

What will be the next thing removed? Linux? Syncing? I mean I almost cancelled when the public folders were shut down. We tried Dropbox for business but after it not working out we had 50,000 files deleted at random and I had to restore them, one at a time...

Spooky23 9y ago

Dropbox is a strange company. They must be doing backend maintenance or something, but they seem to take away more features and function than they add. I honestly don't get what they do as a company, and I love the product and have paid for years. They hold back basic features like search and now take away stuff like albums that freeware packages can do?

Brendinooo 9y ago

Plug for SmugMug here: $40/year for, as far as I understand it, unlimited photo and video storage. Great controls over sharing, easy to order prints, and the iOS app is getting better all the time. Plus, you are not the product. They just want to do photo storage well, and that's it. Back when I was deciding on a service, I was down to Carousel and SmugMug. I liked the idea of paying Dropbox for space that would go beyond photos and I think Carousel was good at syncing photos from the iPhone, but I went with SmugMug for the reasons above and have not regretted it one bit.

ghaff 9y ago
SmugMug went back and forth a bit. At one point, as I recall, they changed pricing plans so it was really only applicable to pros or at least semi-pros. But they seem to be attractive for broader usage again. I've been on Flickr forever. It still does the job for me but I'm not really dependent on them. Everything I have is in Lightroom locally and backed up in multiple ways.
- skinnymuch 9y ago
  Doesn't Lightroom sync to the web now? How much of your photo/video collection is for non-work? I am not any kind of photographer, I just take a lot of photos/videos, and compile a lot of the videos/photos family and friends send through different messaging apps, etc. I'm the one people come to a lot when they want to see stuff from some hangout years ago. Lightroom has always seemed daunting so I never took much of a look at it even though I pay for the Photoshop subscription that includes Lightroom.
skeletonjelly 9y ago
I use these guys but the lack of raw files is annoying that it's (from memory) the highest tier. Also the iPhone app might be good but the Android is some kind of PhoneGap like second rate. Reminds me of the Android environment 5 years ago being left with crappy clones of the iPhone versions.
Veratyr 9y ago
I like the idea of SmugMug but I have a few quibbles with it: - As far as I can tell, there's no RAW support (http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93278 http://help.smugmug.com/customer/portal/articles/93278), admittedly this is the biggest problem for me, as all my photos are RAW. - Video is extremely limited (20 min/3GB) and I expect to be able to store that too, as I treat it basically the same way I treat photos. - Their privacy policy is that of a content publishing platform, not a place to store personal photos: They will access your information without your consent and without mandatory notification if "we believe your actions are inconsistent with the spirit or language of our user agreements or policies". That last one is the killer. - Their ToS is that of a content publishing platform, not a place to store photos: They prohibit "User Content that, in the sole judgment of SmugMug, is objectionable, harmful or which restricts or inhibits any other person from using or enjoying the Services, or which may expose SmugMug or its users to any harm or liability of any nature." i.e. they can object to literally anything I put there. I don't want to have to think about whether my backup provider will deign to approve the photos I take. I honestly prefer Google Photos to SmugMug. It has decent RAW support and with a $10/month Google Apps account you can get an unenforced 1TB quota (i.e. unlimited). And they don't police the stuff you backup, only what you share.

727374 9y ago

Annoying. I was happy paying $100/yr for Dropbox to store my photos along with a few extra files. The photo features weren't great, but good enough for basic browsing through galleries. I bought into the idea that if I was paying for the storage it would be more durable and permanent than some fly-by-night photo startup or google/amazon feature. I realize the photos aren't going anywhere, but my use case is. Canceling my subscription to Dropbox... now.

nnutter 9y ago
Dropbox only dabbled in photos. Despite my desire to support Dropbox both because they pioneered the online synced folder and because they supported Linux I ended up paying Google because Google Photos came out of the gate way ahead of Dropbox’s languishing attempts at photo management/sharing and Google Photos has kept a strong pace.
- Paul-ish 9y ago
  How do you sync from Linux?
  - tomrod 9y ago
    They provide an installation method. For servers, you can just run the daemon. For desktop, Nautilus is supported (or you can just run the daemon!). https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux https://www.dropbox.com/install-linux
  - nnutter 9y ago
    For Dropbox? You install the official Linux client. For Google? There are third-party sync products and Gnome can mount it as a network drive but I didn’t mean to imply that I did; I don’t sync Google Drive with Linux.
    - SkyLinx 9y ago
      I use InSync for Google Drive on Linux, works great

8ytecoder 9y ago

For those looking into alternatives but do not like the auto-downsizing or quality reduction: Google Photos has an option to include (and upload too) your pictures stored with Google Drive. https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6156103?co=GENIE.Platform%3DAndroid&hl=en https://support.google.com/photos/answer/6156103?co=GENIE.Pl...

vaishaksuresh 9y ago

Maybe I'm too old for this, but I read the title as "Dropbox discontinues photo galleries" I still can't get used to the fact that drop means release.

kazinator 9y ago
It doesn't. "Dropbox drops photo galleries" means discontinues. If that isn't the intended meaning of the statement, then language is being misused, plain and simple. Or it's some kind of Dropbox jargon not widely understood outside of Dropbox.
- zimpenfish 9y ago
  If you're claiming that "drop means release" is "language being misused", the dictionary would like a word. https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/drop https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/drop (verb) 5.4 (informal) Release (a musical recording). (noun) 3. (informal) A delivery.
traek 9y ago
Dropbox is discontinuing photo galleries. > The Photos page is changing on July 17, 2017, but your pictures will stay safe in your Dropbox account. After July 17, you’ll no longer be able to create or share albums on the web, or browse photos in the current timeline view.
- vaishaksuresh 9y ago
  You're right! i just skimmed over the article and missed the important thing in the box on top :)
mikestew 9y ago
You're thinking "drop" like a "drop point" where the binaries go after the build server is done with them. "Drop" in this case is like bike racing: "I dropped him on the last hill", i. e., I got rid of him by speeding up. "I dropped that like a hot potato" (picture holding a potato just out of the 200C oven with bare hands), a common U. S. phrase to indicate getting rid of something or having nothing to do with it. So, Dropbox is dropping photos in the hot potato sense, not the build server artifact sense.

i1856511 9y ago

This sucks. I used this all the time. Does anyone know a similar, anonymous service? I want private sharing links and I don't want a username displayed on the gallery page like Google Photos.

i1856511 9y ago

This sucks. I used this all the time. Does anyone know a similar, anonymous service? I want private sharing links and I don't want a username displayed on the gallery page like Google Photos.

whyenot 9y ago

Their monthly price for 1TB of storage is still less than Google Drive, but I've become increasingly frustrated with Dropbox. If I want 2TB instead of 1TB, I have to pay 4.5 times more. I can understand that they may want to go after business users and that I am not a core customer, but the pricing seems out of whack and then they keep on cutting features. For me, it's time to get off the train.

alphabettsy 9y ago

They still haven't even gotten desktop sync right. I removed it and downgraded my account after months and months of CPU usage issues on macOS.

Axsuul 9y ago

This title is misleading. Dropbox is "dropping" photo galleries in favor of something more integrated[1]: "The Photos page will be replaced with a new, streamlined photos experience that looks more like our redesigned Dropbox website. You’ll be able to access it by navigating to dropbox.com/photos or clicking on Photos in the left-hand menu of dropbox.com." [1] https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos https://www.dropbox.com/help/photos-videos/changes-photos

odisbey 9y ago

Well this explains the shift to Cyberduck my company made.

Camillo 9y ago

When you scroll down on the page, the logo at the top suddenly animates and contracts horizontally. The "Dropbox" word disappears and only the box logo remains. This serves no visible purpose and merely serves to distract the reader. Logo animations when scrolling were introduced in order to be able to shrink the size of the header, to give more room for the content. But the header on this page does not shrink at all. The funny thing is that this page, while following the norms of flat design, has managed to adopt skeuomorphism in the worst way. The shrinking logo had a use on pages that shrink the header, but here is remains as a pure decoration, with no functional purpose.