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One of the cool things I've seen people use Zapier for is to test out other collab tools (https://zapier.com/zapbook/asana/trello/ https://zapier.com/zapbook/as

One of the cool things I've seen people use Zapier for is to test out other collab tools (https://zapier.com/zapbook/asana/trello/ https://zapier.com/zapbook/asana/trello/). You can test out Trello for a week by piping in data from Asana without the fear of losing a weeks worth of data in Asana if you don't like Trello.

wamatt 14y ago
That's super handy. Zapier is shaping up to be my favorite out of IFTTT and Wappwolf. However, would decent if they allowed selective Dropbox permissions (eg limited to a single folder). It's disturbing when startups (even a single individual/founder) has access to all my private data. It's not necessary most of the time either. "Please trust us" seems suboptimal.
- true_religion 14y ago
  You trust Dropbox. You could presumably trust Zapier. That you don't isn't really an argument for them changing their practices. For example Mint.com keeps your banking passwords in order to do offline-logins, but people still trust Mint not to steal their money. If many people don't trust a startup, I think they likely need to change their presentation style and not their practices.
  - macca321 14y ago
    IIRC Mint uses a read-only API run by Yodlee
    - rogerbinns 14y ago
      To expand on that Mint never stores your account passwords. Yodlee does and provides the data back to Mint. Here are their security claims: http://www.yodlee.com/security.html http://www.yodlee.com/security.html As one data point, my credit union specifically recognizes accesses to my account from Yodlee, due to my Mint usage.
  - 1123581321 14y ago
    The difference is Dropbox specializes in files. They have years of practice designing their technology and organization to not spy on their users. Zapler does not have as much practice so screw-ups are more likely.
    - wamatt 14y ago
      Indeed. And it's not just about spying. The Zapier people are probably decent and honest etc, however that's not the point. It introduces a new security threat and attack vectors unnecessarily It violates the principle of needing just enough access, to perform a task.
- zubairov 14y ago
  Problem is not that Zapier or any other system want access to your whole Dropbox. Problem is that Dropbox API is constructed in such a way that no granular access is possible to request from a user. Google Drive in comparison is more fine-graned however more complicated to use (from API side) too.

wamatt 14y ago

That's super handy. Zapier is shaping up to be my favorite out of IFTTT and Wappwolf. However, would decent if they allowed selective Dropbox permissions (eg limited to a single folder). It's disturbing when startups (even a single individual/founder) has access to all my private data. It's not necessary most of the time either. "Please trust us" seems suboptimal.

true_religion 14y ago
You trust Dropbox. You could presumably trust Zapier. That you don't isn't really an argument for them changing their practices. For example Mint.com keeps your banking passwords in order to do offline-logins, but people still trust Mint not to steal their money. If many people don't trust a startup, I think they likely need to change their presentation style and not their practices.
- macca321 14y ago
  IIRC Mint uses a read-only API run by Yodlee
  - rogerbinns 14y ago
    To expand on that Mint never stores your account passwords. Yodlee does and provides the data back to Mint. Here are their security claims: http://www.yodlee.com/security.html http://www.yodlee.com/security.html As one data point, my credit union specifically recognizes accesses to my account from Yodlee, due to my Mint usage.
- 1123581321 14y ago
  The difference is Dropbox specializes in files. They have years of practice designing their technology and organization to not spy on their users. Zapler does not have as much practice so screw-ups are more likely.
  - wamatt 14y ago
    Indeed. And it's not just about spying. The Zapier people are probably decent and honest etc, however that's not the point. It introduces a new security threat and attack vectors unnecessarily It violates the principle of needing just enough access, to perform a task.
zubairov 14y ago
Problem is not that Zapier or any other system want access to your whole Dropbox. Problem is that Dropbox API is constructed in such a way that no granular access is possible to request from a user. Google Drive in comparison is more fine-graned however more complicated to use (from API side) too.