3 ms·

How is Boxopus better than just tellign your torrent client to download into your dropbox folder?

by vampirechicken 14y ago

jonknee 14y ago
It would be handy if you wanted to download on a mobile device. Or if torrent traffic is penalized/banned.
andreasvc 14y ago
It doesn't use your bandwidth, but that of Boxopus.
- fishbacon 14y ago
  It still uses bandwidth to download to your local Dropbox.
  - incongruity 14y ago
    Right, but it lets you/your personal connection avoid one leg: instead of torrent -> local dropbox -> cloud dropbox, you get only use your bandwidth for cloud dropbox -> local dropbox. Given that many residential ISPs that meter data service don't differentiate between uploaded vs. downloaded data, that's a potentially valuable way to externalize the bandwidth requirements for your torrent (of undoubtedly legal/paid or public domain content, I'm sure)...
  - Dylan16807 14y ago
    But not upload, which is usually far more restricted.
  - Danieru 14y ago
    Which is one third of what it would take to download, maintain seed ratio of 1, and then push a copy to dropbox.
joeblau 14y ago
I was actually going to work on a project that did something similar. Doing anything with large files while you're on a mobile device is difficult because of bandwidth, processing, and screen real estate. If you could move or process large files though a third party without having to physically download the file to a temporary location, it would be awesome... but apparently Dropbox doesn't think so. I deemed my project DOA because I had a feeling that what happend to Boxopus would happen to me across multiple platforms that I wanted to integrate.
- jmanamj 14y ago
  I believe utorrent has a remote feature that can be accessed from mobile. Point your torrents to dropbox on your desk/laptop and access on the go. Unless your only computer is your phone this would work just as well...
shalmanese 14y ago
A lot of even fairly tech savvy people I know don't want to have to deal with torrent software and files and all that nonsense. This would have been perfect for them.
chrischen 14y ago
Like VPN services, their remote computer is downloading for you but instead of forwarding the traffic to your computer directly it forwards it to Dropbox, and then Dropbox puts it in your computer.
inoop 14y ago
I'm living in a service hotel in China. This means no torrents. I can VPN into my University back in Yerp, but they block torrent traffic as well (duh). Luckily there's still zbigz.com which offers pretty much the same service.
vampirechicken 14y ago
Thank you folks.

How is Boxopus better than just tellign your torrent client to download into your dropbox folder?

jonknee 14y ago

It would be handy if you wanted to download on a mobile device. Or if torrent traffic is penalized/banned.

andreasvc 14y ago

It doesn't use your bandwidth, but that of Boxopus.

fishbacon 14y ago
It still uses bandwidth to download to your local Dropbox.
- incongruity 14y ago
  Right, but it lets you/your personal connection avoid one leg: instead of torrent -> local dropbox -> cloud dropbox, you get only use your bandwidth for cloud dropbox -> local dropbox. Given that many residential ISPs that meter data service don't differentiate between uploaded vs. downloaded data, that's a potentially valuable way to externalize the bandwidth requirements for your torrent (of undoubtedly legal/paid or public domain content, I'm sure)...
- Dylan16807 14y ago
  But not upload, which is usually far more restricted.
- Danieru 14y ago
  Which is one third of what it would take to download, maintain seed ratio of 1, and then push a copy to dropbox.

joeblau 14y ago

I was actually going to work on a project that did something similar. Doing anything with large files while you're on a mobile device is difficult because of bandwidth, processing, and screen real estate. If you could move or process large files though a third party without having to physically download the file to a temporary location, it would be awesome... but apparently Dropbox doesn't think so. I deemed my project DOA because I had a feeling that what happend to Boxopus would happen to me across multiple platforms that I wanted to integrate.

jmanamj 14y ago
I believe utorrent has a remote feature that can be accessed from mobile. Point your torrents to dropbox on your desk/laptop and access on the go. Unless your only computer is your phone this would work just as well...

shalmanese 14y ago

A lot of even fairly tech savvy people I know don't want to have to deal with torrent software and files and all that nonsense. This would have been perfect for them.

chrischen 14y ago

Like VPN services, their remote computer is downloading for you but instead of forwarding the traffic to your computer directly it forwards it to Dropbox, and then Dropbox puts it in your computer.

inoop 14y ago

I'm living in a service hotel in China. This means no torrents. I can VPN into my University back in Yerp, but they block torrent traffic as well (duh). Luckily there's still zbigz.com which offers pretty much the same service.

vampirechicken 14y ago

Thank you folks.