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Congratulations to them. I don't really understand why anyone would use dropbox given the multitude of different offerings out there. I'm curious if anyone who

Congratulations to them. I don't really understand why anyone would use dropbox given the multitude of different offerings out there. I'm curious if anyone who uses them can give me a take on why I should use them. I currently use Google Drive + Google Docs and am very satisfied. I pay for 1 TB of storage for personal work / storage.

devmunchies 9y ago
They are used by lots of businesses. It’s just for personal use.
- tardo99 9y ago
  Wait I think you're missing a word there...
blakesterz 9y ago
I guess it still works, and it's just what we've always been using. It's probably the first thing that most people used like this, and it still gets the job done for most people, I'd guess.
tsm 9y ago
My two reasons: 1) More people use Dropbox, which makes sharing easier. 2) First-class support for Linux
- braderhart 9y ago
  Dropbox never worked on Linux for me. It was buggy and maxed out my CPU. They didn't even provide proper changelogs at the time.. not sure if they do now? Is their application open source? Rclone works with Google Drive just fine, and it is unlimited storage.
  - pbhjpbhj 9y ago
    I had a major data-loss (recommended third-party element for KDE may have been responsible; was using free version), haven't used it since. It's very similar to IMAP in the way a major data loss can be sync-ed. Would love to have "only mark remote deletions" (in both! with option to perform deletion locally on request), perhaps it's in there now, or part of the paid version.
  - cpburns2009 9y ago
    I've been using the free tier of Dropbox on Linux (Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu) for years and I've never had an issue.
Cknight70 9y ago
For me its because I can directly link to images and text files as opposed to One drive or Google drive.
readittwice 9y ago
For me the reason is that Google Drive doesn't work on Linux.
- braderhart 9y ago
  rclone works really well, and even supports Team Drives.
news_to_me 9y ago
I know this isn't a very good answer for most people, but for me at least, I trust Dropbox way more than Google. I really dislike the direction and influence Google has on the Web right now, and I'm more or less ideologically opposed to them as a company (and in general, any giant monopolistic company). I hate the fact that I have to "vote with my dollar," but in the end I just feel better giving my money to an "independent" company like Dropbox or Snapchat than to Google or Facebook.
- braderhart 9y ago
  I don't. Google provides way more for a lot less money. You can encrypt your own content on either providers. For GSuite you get literally almost every service you can imagine, include a phone number that you can make unlimited calls to/from landlines with using your computer.
  - news_to_me 9y ago
    It's not just about cost-effectiveness, it's about which company is making the Web a better place — and I see a lot of Google's activities actively moving in the wrong direction. For me, it's more about the companies than the product (which, like I said, is probably an unsatisfactory criteria for most people). Glad you're enjoying Google's services though :)
    - braderhart 9y ago
      In a lot of ways making the world a better place is about cost-effectiveness, and honestly what is Dropbox doing? Are they the main contributor to Nextcloud? Yeah, Google isn't much better in that regard, but I can buy a descent $199 unlocked Android phone now at Costco, and have all of Google services integrated. They also provide a lot of descent open source tools. Have you tried Kubernetes? :)
      - news_to_me 9y ago
        > In a lot of ways making the world a better place is about cost-effectiveness I think we just have different worldviews. Certainly economics are important, but I try not to boil everything down to dollars and cents. And for sure, Google has done a ton of useful and interesting things that I'm grateful for. But they also contribute to undermining online privacy, and use their size to wield disproportionate power in politics, etc. etc.
BinaryIdiot 9y ago
I do. I used to use Google Drive but then Google renamed the PC app and discontinued it and rather trying to figure out what I have to use instead I just said screw it and grabbed Dropbox. Plus many apps I want to use are integrated into Dropbox far better than anything else so it makes using it as a storage area for multiple apps and devices super easy. I just wish it had a good encryption option like SpiderOak.
- dexterdog 9y ago
  If keybase can do half of what it looks like they're going to do they will scratch that itch for you. I use kbfs as my dropbox now and have for a while.
  - braderhart 9y ago
    Agreed, Keybase is kicking it up a notch and gotta love me some GnuPG!
braderhart 9y ago
Agreed. Thought they would be great at first, but their client uses way too much memory, especially in Linux. Their support was lacking. They don't (or didn't) provide changelogs. I finally switched to rclone and am using Google Drive due to price. Thinking that I'd need automatic syncing, I'm actually happy with manual syncing, so that I can track my changes as well. Crashplan does the automated syncing portion, and then daily or weekly, I will sync to/from Google Drive. I have my Photos sync from Google Photos as well using rclone.
untog 9y ago
1TB of storage: - Google Drive: $9.99 (https://www.google.com/drive/pricing/ https://www.google.com/drive/pricing/ - Dropbox: $8.25 (https://www.dropbox.com/individual/plans-comparison https://www.dropbox.com/individual/plans-comparison) There's one answer for you.
- braderhart 9y ago
  Look into GSuite and see what else you get, in addition to archiving support for Google Drive... and actually, GSuite is unlimited storage... sorry Dropbox, but you lose in terms of price and features.
  - danieldk 9y ago
    Depends on what features you need. I don’t need unlimited storage. Dropbox’ sync is far more reliable (see my other comment). Dropbox has Paper, which supports LaTeX equations and can be exported as Markdown. Dropbox has great integration with Microsoft Office and Office Online. Dropbox supports file requests. The only relevant feature for me that Google Apps offers over Dropbox is email. But I highly prefer FastMail, which respects standards (IMAP, CaldDAV, CardDAV) and not Googles broken implementations.
  - untog 9y ago
    Sure, but if you literally just want somewhere to store files, then Dropbox is cheaper. That's one reason why someone might prefer it.
- 8ytecoder 9y ago
  You are comparing a monthly plan against an annual plan. Google's annual plan costs $100. Only very slightly more expensive. In addition they have a 200gb plan which is enough for people like me
  - untog 9y ago
    Fair point, though I'm surprised Google doesn't promote that more, on the pricing page I can't see yearly pricing mentioned anywhere.
varenc 9y ago
I find Dropbox’s sync client to be way more stable and has better operating system integration. Also better API documentation =)
danieldk 9y ago
I use Dropbox. There are various reasons. First, Dropbox does block-level sync. If you change a large file, only changed blocks are synced. Secondly, LAN sync, which does peer to peer sync over a local network. Another nice feature is that you can set up file requests, where people can upload files without sharing a folder (which I often use for classes). Besides lacking these features, Google Drive had some serious deficiencies the last time I tried it. E.g., it was not possible to get a list of shared folders (besides running a Google apps script, which takes a long time to run). The Google Drive client would regularly bail out when syncing a large number of files. And they were permitted to mine user files for ads when you don’t have Google Apps for Work (and it is not clear if your files are indexed for ads if you share a folder with a non-Apps for Work user).
danso 9y ago
At this point for me, it's lock-in. Even if Box, Google Drive, and OneDrive offered me all the main functionality I use with Dropbox, I still couldn't muster the time/energy it takes to investigate even though I'm a paying ($99 for 100GB or whatever) user. It's not just apathy, though, in the ~10 years I've used Dropbox, I have yet to ever have an issue, while at the same time, it's been such an integral part of my computer usage and workflow.
Cyph0n 9y ago
I use GDrive too, primarily because Dropbox does not have a "middle" storage tier. I do not want 1 TB of storage right now. Google offers 100 GB for $2/month which works much better for me.
tardo99 9y ago
Thanks for the responses! I'm always confused by which products people prefer to purchase à la carte and which they prefer to buy in bundles.
stanfordkid 9y ago
When a market is big enough, many people can win!
enitihas 9y ago
The major reason for me is their Linux support. I don't think any mainstream provider offers linux support. I also feel their sync is better than both One drive and GDrive. They probably sync the deltas most affectively. Given that this is their only important product, it s bound to have the attention of their best engineers. You can't say the same about Google or MSFT.
rainbowmverse 9y ago
I'd rather buy my storage from a storage company than an ad company.
djhworld 9y ago
I use Google Drive, but I'd switch to Dropbox in a flash if they offered 100GB pricing package. Mainly because I find the Dropbox app more reliable and syncs quicker than GD. I've had Google Drive or "Backup and Sync" or whatever they call it now crash a few times as well. But I'm sticking with Google Drive for the time being, I really cannot justify paying £6.59 a month for 1TB of storage, when I'm prettty certain I'd use less than 10% of that.
dumbfounder 9y ago
I tried Google drive for about a year several years ago. It never actually backed up all my files, it would always crash before it finished syncing. I tried for quite a while (many dozens of times over months) and finally gave up and bought Dropbox. Dropbox just worked a heck of a lot better. Maybe this has changed, but why change back if it just works and it isn't expensive?
amedvednikov 9y ago
Dropbox is the most efficient one. They only upload what's been changed. Skydrive/Google Drive upload the entire file. (At least they did 4 years ago when I tried them out.)
jdeibele 9y ago
For me, there's three reasons: 1) they seem much more accessible to people with @outlook.com, @comcast.net, @yahoo.com, etc. email addresses 2) On a Mac, I've found their syncing to be quicker, more reliable and more efficient than Google Drive. Google Drive does not like network glitches at all, often having to be killed and restarted. I've tried changing ownership of things in Google Drive. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. This is a problem when working with things I want to hand over to someone else (for me that's the soccer club, PTA, etc.) 3) I had separate apps for Google Drive and Google Photo backup. Which I liked. Now I have Backup and Sync or whatever they're calling it. Dropbox has been easy to set up and forget. I have more stored in Google Drive because I buy Chromebooks for me or the kids every couple of years.
woolvalley 9y ago
Dropbox has better quality software, and I would use them if they had individual plans that just scaled linearly like google drive and amazon drive do. Because they don't I use amazon drive, which is 2TB @ $10/month. I mostly use it for client side encrypted backups and use about 1.3TB currently. Also I've noticed many apps if they do integrate with a drive provider, they integrate with dropbox almost all the time, and the others not so much.
Aunche 9y ago
Companies like Facebook would prefer Dropbox to store their data over a competitor like Microsoft or Google.
snake117 9y ago
Personally, I have never had an issue with Dropbox on any device that I am running. The very first app I'll install on any new device is Dropbox without even thinking about it. At this point, cloud storage has become an independent category so I don't mind using an additional service that is not part of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, or Apple. Normally I try to consolidate the number of apps/services I use, but Dropbox performs exceptionally well and I trust them. Congrats to Dropbox on achieving this milestone!

devmunchies 9y ago

They are used by lots of businesses. It’s just for personal use.

tardo99 9y ago
Wait I think you're missing a word there...

blakesterz 9y ago

I guess it still works, and it's just what we've always been using. It's probably the first thing that most people used like this, and it still gets the job done for most people, I'd guess.

tsm 9y ago

My two reasons: 1) More people use Dropbox, which makes sharing easier. 2) First-class support for Linux

braderhart 9y ago
Dropbox never worked on Linux for me. It was buggy and maxed out my CPU. They didn't even provide proper changelogs at the time.. not sure if they do now? Is their application open source? Rclone works with Google Drive just fine, and it is unlimited storage.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I had a major data-loss (recommended third-party element for KDE may have been responsible; was using free version), haven't used it since. It's very similar to IMAP in the way a major data loss can be sync-ed. Would love to have "only mark remote deletions" (in both! with option to perform deletion locally on request), perhaps it's in there now, or part of the paid version.
- cpburns2009 9y ago
  I've been using the free tier of Dropbox on Linux (Arch Linux, Debian, Ubuntu) for years and I've never had an issue.

Cknight70 9y ago

For me its because I can directly link to images and text files as opposed to One drive or Google drive.

readittwice 9y ago

For me the reason is that Google Drive doesn't work on Linux.

braderhart 9y ago
rclone works really well, and even supports Team Drives.

news_to_me 9y ago

I know this isn't a very good answer for most people, but for me at least, I trust Dropbox way more than Google. I really dislike the direction and influence Google has on the Web right now, and I'm more or less ideologically opposed to them as a company (and in general, any giant monopolistic company). I hate the fact that I have to "vote with my dollar," but in the end I just feel better giving my money to an "independent" company like Dropbox or Snapchat than to Google or Facebook.

braderhart 9y ago
I don't. Google provides way more for a lot less money. You can encrypt your own content on either providers. For GSuite you get literally almost every service you can imagine, include a phone number that you can make unlimited calls to/from landlines with using your computer.
- news_to_me 9y ago
  It's not just about cost-effectiveness, it's about which company is making the Web a better place — and I see a lot of Google's activities actively moving in the wrong direction. For me, it's more about the companies than the product (which, like I said, is probably an unsatisfactory criteria for most people). Glad you're enjoying Google's services though :)
  - braderhart 9y ago
    In a lot of ways making the world a better place is about cost-effectiveness, and honestly what is Dropbox doing? Are they the main contributor to Nextcloud? Yeah, Google isn't much better in that regard, but I can buy a descent $199 unlocked Android phone now at Costco, and have all of Google services integrated. They also provide a lot of descent open source tools. Have you tried Kubernetes? :)
    - news_to_me 9y ago
      > In a lot of ways making the world a better place is about cost-effectiveness I think we just have different worldviews. Certainly economics are important, but I try not to boil everything down to dollars and cents. And for sure, Google has done a ton of useful and interesting things that I'm grateful for. But they also contribute to undermining online privacy, and use their size to wield disproportionate power in politics, etc. etc.

BinaryIdiot 9y ago

I do. I used to use Google Drive but then Google renamed the PC app and discontinued it and rather trying to figure out what I have to use instead I just said screw it and grabbed Dropbox. Plus many apps I want to use are integrated into Dropbox far better than anything else so it makes using it as a storage area for multiple apps and devices super easy. I just wish it had a good encryption option like SpiderOak.

dexterdog 9y ago
If keybase can do half of what it looks like they're going to do they will scratch that itch for you. I use kbfs as my dropbox now and have for a while.
- braderhart 9y ago
  Agreed, Keybase is kicking it up a notch and gotta love me some GnuPG!

braderhart 9y ago

Agreed. Thought they would be great at first, but their client uses way too much memory, especially in Linux. Their support was lacking. They don't (or didn't) provide changelogs. I finally switched to rclone and am using Google Drive due to price. Thinking that I'd need automatic syncing, I'm actually happy with manual syncing, so that I can track my changes as well. Crashplan does the automated syncing portion, and then daily or weekly, I will sync to/from Google Drive. I have my Photos sync from Google Photos as well using rclone.

untog 9y ago

1TB of storage: - Google Drive: $9.99 (https://www.google.com/drive/pricing/ https://www.google.com/drive/pricing/ - Dropbox: $8.25 (https://www.dropbox.com/individual/plans-comparison https://www.dropbox.com/individual/plans-comparison) There's one answer for you.

braderhart 9y ago
Look into GSuite and see what else you get, in addition to archiving support for Google Drive... and actually, GSuite is unlimited storage... sorry Dropbox, but you lose in terms of price and features.
- danieldk 9y ago
  Depends on what features you need. I don’t need unlimited storage. Dropbox’ sync is far more reliable (see my other comment). Dropbox has Paper, which supports LaTeX equations and can be exported as Markdown. Dropbox has great integration with Microsoft Office and Office Online. Dropbox supports file requests. The only relevant feature for me that Google Apps offers over Dropbox is email. But I highly prefer FastMail, which respects standards (IMAP, CaldDAV, CardDAV) and not Googles broken implementations.
- untog 9y ago
  Sure, but if you literally just want somewhere to store files, then Dropbox is cheaper. That's one reason why someone might prefer it.
8ytecoder 9y ago
You are comparing a monthly plan against an annual plan. Google's annual plan costs $100. Only very slightly more expensive. In addition they have a 200gb plan which is enough for people like me
- untog 9y ago
  Fair point, though I'm surprised Google doesn't promote that more, on the pricing page I can't see yearly pricing mentioned anywhere.

varenc 9y ago

I find Dropbox’s sync client to be way more stable and has better operating system integration. Also better API documentation =)

danieldk 9y ago

I use Dropbox. There are various reasons. First, Dropbox does block-level sync. If you change a large file, only changed blocks are synced. Secondly, LAN sync, which does peer to peer sync over a local network. Another nice feature is that you can set up file requests, where people can upload files without sharing a folder (which I often use for classes). Besides lacking these features, Google Drive had some serious deficiencies the last time I tried it. E.g., it was not possible to get a list of shared folders (besides running a Google apps script, which takes a long time to run). The Google Drive client would regularly bail out when syncing a large number of files. And they were permitted to mine user files for ads when you don’t have Google Apps for Work (and it is not clear if your files are indexed for ads if you share a folder with a non-Apps for Work user).

danso 9y ago

At this point for me, it's lock-in. Even if Box, Google Drive, and OneDrive offered me all the main functionality I use with Dropbox, I still couldn't muster the time/energy it takes to investigate even though I'm a paying ($99 for 100GB or whatever) user. It's not just apathy, though, in the ~10 years I've used Dropbox, I have yet to ever have an issue, while at the same time, it's been such an integral part of my computer usage and workflow.

Cyph0n 9y ago

I use GDrive too, primarily because Dropbox does not have a "middle" storage tier. I do not want 1 TB of storage right now. Google offers 100 GB for $2/month which works much better for me.

tardo99 9y ago

Thanks for the responses! I'm always confused by which products people prefer to purchase à la carte and which they prefer to buy in bundles.

stanfordkid 9y ago

When a market is big enough, many people can win!

enitihas 9y ago

The major reason for me is their Linux support. I don't think any mainstream provider offers linux support. I also feel their sync is better than both One drive and GDrive. They probably sync the deltas most affectively. Given that this is their only important product, it s bound to have the attention of their best engineers. You can't say the same about Google or MSFT.

rainbowmverse 9y ago

I'd rather buy my storage from a storage company than an ad company.

djhworld 9y ago

I use Google Drive, but I'd switch to Dropbox in a flash if they offered 100GB pricing package. Mainly because I find the Dropbox app more reliable and syncs quicker than GD. I've had Google Drive or "Backup and Sync" or whatever they call it now crash a few times as well. But I'm sticking with Google Drive for the time being, I really cannot justify paying £6.59 a month for 1TB of storage, when I'm prettty certain I'd use less than 10% of that.

dumbfounder 9y ago

I tried Google drive for about a year several years ago. It never actually backed up all my files, it would always crash before it finished syncing. I tried for quite a while (many dozens of times over months) and finally gave up and bought Dropbox. Dropbox just worked a heck of a lot better. Maybe this has changed, but why change back if it just works and it isn't expensive?

amedvednikov 9y ago

Dropbox is the most efficient one. They only upload what's been changed. Skydrive/Google Drive upload the entire file. (At least they did 4 years ago when I tried them out.)

jdeibele 9y ago

For me, there's three reasons: 1) they seem much more accessible to people with @outlook.com, @comcast.net, @yahoo.com, etc. email addresses 2) On a Mac, I've found their syncing to be quicker, more reliable and more efficient than Google Drive. Google Drive does not like network glitches at all, often having to be killed and restarted. I've tried changing ownership of things in Google Drive. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. This is a problem when working with things I want to hand over to someone else (for me that's the soccer club, PTA, etc.) 3) I had separate apps for Google Drive and Google Photo backup. Which I liked. Now I have Backup and Sync or whatever they're calling it. Dropbox has been easy to set up and forget. I have more stored in Google Drive because I buy Chromebooks for me or the kids every couple of years.

woolvalley 9y ago

Dropbox has better quality software, and I would use them if they had individual plans that just scaled linearly like google drive and amazon drive do. Because they don't I use amazon drive, which is 2TB @ $10/month. I mostly use it for client side encrypted backups and use about 1.3TB currently. Also I've noticed many apps if they do integrate with a drive provider, they integrate with dropbox almost all the time, and the others not so much.

Aunche 9y ago

Companies like Facebook would prefer Dropbox to store their data over a competitor like Microsoft or Google.

snake117 9y ago

Personally, I have never had an issue with Dropbox on any device that I am running. The very first app I'll install on any new device is Dropbox without even thinking about it. At this point, cloud storage has become an independent category so I don't mind using an additional service that is not part of Google, Microsoft, Amazon, or Apple. Normally I try to consolidate the number of apps/services I use, but Dropbox performs exceptionally well and I trust them. Congrats to Dropbox on achieving this milestone!