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Genuine question, why do people here use Dropbox or box when Google drive is far superior?

dot1x 7y ago
Because, to this day, Dropbox is the only cloud storage service that is capable of syncing only the part of a file that was modified. If you have ISOs, zips etc, GDrive will re-upload the entire file while Dropbox will only upload the changed parts. This alone is why I keep using Dropbox.
gtirloni 7y ago
In my case because Dropbox support for Linux is far superior.
- treebornfrog 7y ago
  Fair enough, I guess I should have asked why Mac users prefer dropbox or box.
  - bluebasket 7y ago
    always between mac and windows. i have had better experience with dropbox than drive. in fact, i have all three: onedrive, dropbox, and drive. drive is my least favorite...
Angostura 7y ago
Because it is a much more seamless experience, at least on Mac, where it is properly integrated with Finder?
- treebornfrog 7y ago
  Take a look at Alfred (1). (1)https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/
rrreese 7y ago
I have to use Google Drive at work and it's a complete dumpster fire.
s9w 7y ago
Bigger install base and it's not Google (which has become quite a huge argument for technical as well as non-technical users)
Ensorceled 7y ago
Genuine answer: because it is not superior, certainly not “far superior” and it’s a Google “I’ll probably kill you tomorrow.” product made by a company whose ethics I no longer trust (Google).
- andai 7y ago
  I first thought you meant Google "I'll probably kill your account tomorrow." I constantly hear about people breaking ToS on one of many Google services and having them all instantly disabled, no warning (usually losing mail email account).
  - Ensorceled 7y ago
    There is that problem too! Using Google as a backup solution, even in a "belt and suspenders" scenario, is too dangerous.
diegoperini 7y ago
Because I'd like to support competition. I also prefer buying services from companies whose only purpose is solving the problem I'm having. The bigger a company gets, I feel like, the more their "we do everything" becomes untrustworthy. I'd bet it is more unlikely that Dropbox will pivot from their main file sync product than Drive's breaking a functionality I depend on.
hs86 7y ago
The Dropbox client is just vastly more reliable. I never had any sync issues with it and it is still the only one which supports both Delta sync and LAN sync and their automatic "Smart Sync" still works better than what Google offers without the need to awkwardly mount it as external/network storage. The Backup and Sync client from Google is unreliable and imo just broken: It moves old versions of edited files into the local recycle bin and once it never recognized a file deletion I made on an other computer. Only some days later after manually restarting the client, it noticed that file deletion. Google Drive File Stream has severe performance issues: I have an unlimited G Suite account and use it mainly for Arq Backup. While ~5 TiB data is not THAT much, Arq does create thousands of small files in its destination folder. For the initial sync the GDFS client took over a week while using more than 60 GiB RAM! Afterwards its memory usage settles down but this was just for enumerating the remote files without any anything marked as 'available offline'. On my MacBook Air with less RAM this initial sync never finishes without GDFS crashing first. While I still use the official Dropbox client, I replaced all other sync clients with Mountain Duck. It doesn't show any deal-breaker bugs and its resource usage is also manageable.
gitgud 7y ago
What's so superior about Google Drive? I've used both and it feels like Dropbox is more polished and user friendly in every way...
MikusR 7y ago
Out of Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive. Google Drive is by far the worst and most unreliable one.
hobo_mark 7y ago
The Google Drive app is terrible, eats your battery, is limited to three accounts per device and does not work on Linux. HOWEVER, there is Insync, which is cheap, works on all OS I care about and supports pattern-based sync exclusions, anyone here has experience with it?
nicky0 7y ago
In what ways is Google Drive superior would you say?
krzyk 7y ago
Google drive doesn't have an official Linux client.

Because, to this day, Dropbox is the only cloud storage service that is capable of syncing only the part of a file that was modified. If you have ISOs, zips etc, GDrive will re-upload the entire file while Dropbox will only upload the changed parts. This alone is why I keep using Dropbox.

gtirloni 7y ago

In my case because Dropbox support for Linux is far superior.

treebornfrog 7y ago
Fair enough, I guess I should have asked why Mac users prefer dropbox or box.
- bluebasket 7y ago
  always between mac and windows. i have had better experience with dropbox than drive. in fact, i have all three: onedrive, dropbox, and drive. drive is my least favorite...

Angostura 7y ago

Because it is a much more seamless experience, at least on Mac, where it is properly integrated with Finder?

treebornfrog 7y ago
Take a look at Alfred (1). (1)https://www.alfredapp.com/ https://www.alfredapp.com/

rrreese 7y ago

I have to use Google Drive at work and it's a complete dumpster fire.

s9w 7y ago

Bigger install base and it's not Google (which has become quite a huge argument for technical as well as non-technical users)

Ensorceled 7y ago

Genuine answer: because it is not superior, certainly not “far superior” and it’s a Google “I’ll probably kill you tomorrow.” product made by a company whose ethics I no longer trust (Google).

andai 7y ago
I first thought you meant Google "I'll probably kill your account tomorrow." I constantly hear about people breaking ToS on one of many Google services and having them all instantly disabled, no warning (usually losing mail email account).
- Ensorceled 7y ago
  There is that problem too! Using Google as a backup solution, even in a "belt and suspenders" scenario, is too dangerous.

diegoperini 7y ago

Because I'd like to support competition. I also prefer buying services from companies whose only purpose is solving the problem I'm having. The bigger a company gets, I feel like, the more their "we do everything" becomes untrustworthy. I'd bet it is more unlikely that Dropbox will pivot from their main file sync product than Drive's breaking a functionality I depend on.

hs86 7y ago

The Dropbox client is just vastly more reliable. I never had any sync issues with it and it is still the only one which supports both Delta sync and LAN sync and their automatic "Smart Sync" still works better than what Google offers without the need to awkwardly mount it as external/network storage. The Backup and Sync client from Google is unreliable and imo just broken: It moves old versions of edited files into the local recycle bin and once it never recognized a file deletion I made on an other computer. Only some days later after manually restarting the client, it noticed that file deletion. Google Drive File Stream has severe performance issues: I have an unlimited G Suite account and use it mainly for Arq Backup. While ~5 TiB data is not THAT much, Arq does create thousands of small files in its destination folder. For the initial sync the GDFS client took over a week while using more than 60 GiB RAM! Afterwards its memory usage settles down but this was just for enumerating the remote files without any anything marked as 'available offline'. On my MacBook Air with less RAM this initial sync never finishes without GDFS crashing first. While I still use the official Dropbox client, I replaced all other sync clients with Mountain Duck. It doesn't show any deal-breaker bugs and its resource usage is also manageable.

gitgud 7y ago

What's so superior about Google Drive? I've used both and it feels like Dropbox is more polished and user friendly in every way...

MikusR 7y ago

Out of Dropbox, OneDrive and Google Drive. Google Drive is by far the worst and most unreliable one.

hobo_mark 7y ago

The Google Drive app is terrible, eats your battery, is limited to three accounts per device and does not work on Linux. HOWEVER, there is Insync, which is cheap, works on all OS I care about and supports pattern-based sync exclusions, anyone here has experience with it?

nicky0 7y ago

In what ways is Google Drive superior would you say?

krzyk 7y ago

Google drive doesn't have an official Linux client.