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Apple can’t (yet) stop you syncing a folder somewhere on the disk. Other services offer this feature - sync.com for example, which I switched to after Dropbox a

by t8sr 4y ago

Apple can’t (yet) stop you syncing a folder somewhere on the disk. Other services offer this feature - sync.com for example, which I switched to after Dropbox announced this change. Dropbox wants to offer some features that are only available through Apple’s API. They want to be on the App Store. But they need to weigh that against what still is their primary feature, and literally how the product was described when sold. “A folder synchronized across all your devices.” I am not a product manager, but I simply would not throw out my main feature and the thing that differentiates me in the market, in order to provide some features Apple wants, where the only difference between me and OneDrive is the icon.

klabb3 4y ago
I agree, but I think it’s important to point out: I believe the main feature they need is to sync the full file tree without having to download the actual files until needed. I don’t know how others do it, but I assume that you’d have to manually maintain mappings between a subtree in the cloud to one on disk, or alternatively run out of disk space if you want to have everything synced. Non-techies will find it incredibly annoying to map individual subtrees leading to missing files, upfront sync costs when you need those, and running out of disk space. Dropbox cannot afford to simply throw their hands up and blame the users for not being technical enough. That said, this hack (pretending your files are on disk) is arguably a fragile one, and perhaps shouldn’t exist in the first place (assuming it’s not a networked file system, which I believe it’s not). Or at the very least, they could have attempted to publish a standard. But if dropbox is just another proprietary piece of software running hacks, I can’t really blame Apple.
- t8sr 4y ago
  What I find surprising is that Dropbox is apparently willing to just fit in the narrow space Apple has carved out for them. Especially now, when companies are cutting their spend, this is an extraordinary misstep. If I am already paying for iCloud, Google Apps, or Office 365, I can get exactly what Dropbox offers for free, and better integrated with the other productivity apps. So why exactly would anyone use Dropbox now? There is nothing to differentiate them. It’s hard to see this as anything other than the beginning of the end for Dropbox.
  - microtonal 4y ago
    So why exactly would anyone use Dropbox now? There is nothing to differentiate them. Their sync is just must faster and they actually do block-level sync, which the other major providers still haven't implemented yet after over ten years. I understand why people go to the competition, but I think it's a mistake. The FAANG offerings just provide enough (especially disk space) to lure people into their ecosystems, but they don't really care much about file sync, and therefore they are all quite miserable. It is a bit like Microsoft Teams. Companies choose Teams because they have an Office365 subscription for Microsoft Office anyway and it is cheaper than Slack. On the surface, Slack does not seem to have much of a competitive advantage anymore. So, if you are simply bean counting, it's clear that you should switch to Teams. But in the meanwhile, everyone using Teams feels miserable to be trapped in it.
    - MikusR 4y ago
      OneDrive does block level sync
      - microtonal 4y ago
        Ah, cool, I missed that they added it in 2020. Google Drive still doesn't seem to support it.
        MikusR 4y ago
        Google Drive also used to (maybe still does) change names of your files if they contained parenthesis.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      I think most people are using block-level sync. Hell, even Syncthing has block-level synchronization now.
- microtonal 4y ago
  perhaps shouldn’t exist in the first place Why not? It's a very handy feature for a lot of users who don't have the disk space available to store their complete Dropbox folder. And it's much easier to understand and work with than manually managing selective sync. Or at the very least, they could have attempted to publish a standard. But if dropbox is just another proprietary piece of software running hacks, I can’t really blame Apple. Right. The issue is that you need to intercept file I/O to make transparent sync work. Dropbox did this before using a kernel extension, so that it can hook into the kernel kauth framework [1]. However, having third-party code running in kernel space is a huge liability, besides opening a huge possibility for state-sanctioned backdoors, it opens another venue for security vulnerabilities that give kernel-level access. So Apple decided that the kauth API should go (probably for other reasons), but more importantly that thirt-party kexts should go. In general, I am very happy that Apple is on a mission to ban kexts, I don't want closed source third-party code to run in the kernel. However, it seems that Apple provides replacement userspace APIs, but is not really receptive to issues that developers have with them. [1] https://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/going-deeper-with-project-infinite https://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/going-deeper-with-projec...
  - msm_ 4y ago
    > In general, I am very happy that Apple is on a mission to ban kexts, I don't want closed source third-party code to run in the kernel Will you still be able to run open-source or first party (for example, written by yourself) kernel extensions? Or will future macos versions require jailbreaks to get a real root permissions? Genuine question, I'm not too familiar with Apple products and I'm trying to understand why is this a good change. It looks like a limitation imposed on users.
    - smoldesu 4y ago
      FWIW, running code in the kernel is not "real root permissions", it's kernel-mode privledges, which are much different and arguably much more dangerous. For my money, running custom kernel-mode code is not a concern. Apple is infatuated with remote device attestation for some reason though, so preventing OS modification is paramount for them right now. It's a limitation, but one that's hard to get mad about when Macbooks have a mostly-open bootloader.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago
  > I believe the main feature they need is to sync the full file tree without having to download the actual files until needed. I don’t know how others do it, but I assume that you’d have to manually maintain mappings between a subtree in the cloud to one on disk, or alternatively run out of disk space if you want to have everything synced I thought the whole point of file syncing software was to sync all files. If I do not have internet access, then would I not be guaranteed to use all the files in my Dropbox folder? I only use iCloud Drive, does it do the same?
  - kccqzy 4y ago
    iCloud Drive does not guarantee all your files are available offline.
    - lotsofpulp 4y ago
      Interesting, I assumed anything I put in iCloud Drive was downloaded to my laptop.
innocentoldguy 4y ago
I too switched to Sync.com. I've been quite happy with it so far.

by t8sr 4y ago

klabb3 4y ago

I agree, but I think it’s important to point out: I believe the main feature they need is to sync the full file tree without having to download the actual files until needed. I don’t know how others do it, but I assume that you’d have to manually maintain mappings between a subtree in the cloud to one on disk, or alternatively run out of disk space if you want to have everything synced. Non-techies will find it incredibly annoying to map individual subtrees leading to missing files, upfront sync costs when you need those, and running out of disk space. Dropbox cannot afford to simply throw their hands up and blame the users for not being technical enough. That said, this hack (pretending your files are on disk) is arguably a fragile one, and perhaps shouldn’t exist in the first place (assuming it’s not a networked file system, which I believe it’s not). Or at the very least, they could have attempted to publish a standard. But if dropbox is just another proprietary piece of software running hacks, I can’t really blame Apple.

t8sr 4y ago
What I find surprising is that Dropbox is apparently willing to just fit in the narrow space Apple has carved out for them. Especially now, when companies are cutting their spend, this is an extraordinary misstep. If I am already paying for iCloud, Google Apps, or Office 365, I can get exactly what Dropbox offers for free, and better integrated with the other productivity apps. So why exactly would anyone use Dropbox now? There is nothing to differentiate them. It’s hard to see this as anything other than the beginning of the end for Dropbox.
- microtonal 4y ago
  So why exactly would anyone use Dropbox now? There is nothing to differentiate them. Their sync is just must faster and they actually do block-level sync, which the other major providers still haven't implemented yet after over ten years. I understand why people go to the competition, but I think it's a mistake. The FAANG offerings just provide enough (especially disk space) to lure people into their ecosystems, but they don't really care much about file sync, and therefore they are all quite miserable. It is a bit like Microsoft Teams. Companies choose Teams because they have an Office365 subscription for Microsoft Office anyway and it is cheaper than Slack. On the surface, Slack does not seem to have much of a competitive advantage anymore. So, if you are simply bean counting, it's clear that you should switch to Teams. But in the meanwhile, everyone using Teams feels miserable to be trapped in it.
  - MikusR 4y ago
    OneDrive does block level sync
    - microtonal 4y ago
      Ah, cool, I missed that they added it in 2020. Google Drive still doesn't seem to support it.
      - MikusR 4y ago
        Google Drive also used to (maybe still does) change names of your files if they contained parenthesis.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    I think most people are using block-level sync. Hell, even Syncthing has block-level synchronization now.
microtonal 4y ago
perhaps shouldn’t exist in the first place Why not? It's a very handy feature for a lot of users who don't have the disk space available to store their complete Dropbox folder. And it's much easier to understand and work with than manually managing selective sync. Or at the very least, they could have attempted to publish a standard. But if dropbox is just another proprietary piece of software running hacks, I can’t really blame Apple. Right. The issue is that you need to intercept file I/O to make transparent sync work. Dropbox did this before using a kernel extension, so that it can hook into the kernel kauth framework [1]. However, having third-party code running in kernel space is a huge liability, besides opening a huge possibility for state-sanctioned backdoors, it opens another venue for security vulnerabilities that give kernel-level access. So Apple decided that the kauth API should go (probably for other reasons), but more importantly that thirt-party kexts should go. In general, I am very happy that Apple is on a mission to ban kexts, I don't want closed source third-party code to run in the kernel. However, it seems that Apple provides replacement userspace APIs, but is not really receptive to issues that developers have with them. [1] https://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/going-deeper-with-project-infinite https://dropbox.tech/infrastructure/going-deeper-with-projec...
- msm_ 4y ago
  > In general, I am very happy that Apple is on a mission to ban kexts, I don't want closed source third-party code to run in the kernel Will you still be able to run open-source or first party (for example, written by yourself) kernel extensions? Or will future macos versions require jailbreaks to get a real root permissions? Genuine question, I'm not too familiar with Apple products and I'm trying to understand why is this a good change. It looks like a limitation imposed on users.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    FWIW, running code in the kernel is not "real root permissions", it's kernel-mode privledges, which are much different and arguably much more dangerous. For my money, running custom kernel-mode code is not a concern. Apple is infatuated with remote device attestation for some reason though, so preventing OS modification is paramount for them right now. It's a limitation, but one that's hard to get mad about when Macbooks have a mostly-open bootloader.
lotsofpulp 4y ago
> I believe the main feature they need is to sync the full file tree without having to download the actual files until needed. I don’t know how others do it, but I assume that you’d have to manually maintain mappings between a subtree in the cloud to one on disk, or alternatively run out of disk space if you want to have everything synced I thought the whole point of file syncing software was to sync all files. If I do not have internet access, then would I not be guaranteed to use all the files in my Dropbox folder? I only use iCloud Drive, does it do the same?
- kccqzy 4y ago
  iCloud Drive does not guarantee all your files are available offline.
  - lotsofpulp 4y ago
    Interesting, I assumed anything I put in iCloud Drive was downloaded to my laptop.

innocentoldguy 4y ago

I too switched to Sync.com. I've been quite happy with it so far.