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What's wrong with Dropbox, and in which way this is an "alternative".. Or is the fact they made a dubsteppy video of young people dressed funny performing weir

What's wrong with Dropbox, and in which way this is an "alternative".. Or is the fact they made a dubsteppy video of young people dressed funny performing weird contortions going to make me sign up ? I fail to see the problem there is to solve here. It also presupposes other services aren't secure (no back-doors, etc...).

ak39 13y ago
Well, their USP (unique selling proposition) is that they are secure and that they respect your privacy. From a functional/feature point of view, F-Secure's "Dropbox" is probably identical to their competitors'. Can "Fun" be objectively assessed? I doubt it. It's just confusing when you start off with important features such as security & privacy. Why do I feel they cheapened that proposition by throwing in "Fun"?
- Jugurtha 13y ago
  Exactly. Here it is verbatim "We like what Dropbox and SkyDrive do but where is the privacy and fun?". And I thought : "Are you kidding me?". Like we're supposed to play with balloons and dance when uploading/downloading files and be all smiley. Fun ? Seriously ! I don't want it to be fun, I want it to be effectively done. The promo video is really clumsy. Accusing a service of lacking privacy (how do you know?) and fun (really?) and furthermore, failing to tell how their service is more private (and fun?) just is clumsy. Newbie marketing tactics, too: In my experience, the companies that accuse competitors' products of sucking, and fail to show how their own products are better aren't that great. - How do they know Dropbox isn't fun ? I find Dropbox great for what I want it to do. - How do they know Dropbox isn't secure? And claiming theirs is, how do we know it really is and not just a claim. In other words, if I were to ask folks at younited: What is Dropbox not doing that you are. Don't give me "not secure" answers, get technical. If they don't, it's just defamation. How do you measure privacy and security? Is there really anything secure .. I always found that talking in absolutes really shady when it comes to security. I uninstalled McAffee ages ago after seeing a pop-up saying "total security" or something like that. How can you guarantee privacy and security, when there are back-doors in the hardware itself. Then there's the user education (which you shouldn't count on), then there are the lines, then the ISP, and a whole bunch of routers and nodes and networks where the information passes.
  - staltz 13y ago
    I agree with everything, except: > What is Dropbox not doing that you are. I think the technical answer is that younited is aggregating your data across accounts such as Facebook, Dropbox, Picasa, etc. Dropbox doesn't do that, and it is actually nice to have all my data in one place. However, IMHO, having everything in one place dramatically increases the responsibilities of that "place". And I don't think a simple "we promise we won't share your data with governments" is strong enough to gain our trust. After all, companies do change their ToS...
pasiaj 13y ago
Well, not being under US jurisdiction helps a bunch. Finland has no (publicly known) questionable ties to US based or other intelligence services. The problem, of course, is that the international data cables to/from Finland go through Russia and Sweden. The former probably has no legal obstacles inspecting all web traffic and the latter is a known partner with the US/NSA in data inspection/gathering. I think there is a huge opportunity for a more secure cloud storage application with stringent design that provides no access to the data to the organization providing the service. Unfortunately F-Secure did not implement this, but instead created a service that provides 'automatic virus inspection for your files'. That is just too close to 'automatic general inspection of your files' for my taste.
- Jugurtha 13y ago
  I hear you. Personally, I don't need "automatic virus inspection' of my files. I know what I'm uploading. I'm the first person I think about sharing my files with. Most of what I keep is thesis related (documentation, code, articles, etc...). I store files on Dropbox, and e-mail myself thoughts I have not to forget, links, etc.. I used to e-mail myself files, too, but Db took care of it. Maybe I fail to see the benefit since I don't have an iPhone and I'm not on iTunes.. And even then, isn't there a Dropbox mobile app ? I might be just not getting it.
  - spurgu 13y ago
    The mobile Dropbox client doesn't sync AFAIK, it just gives you the ability to browse and download your files.
dbags 13y ago
My main issue with Dropbox is that they aren't trustworthy. How Dropbox lost my trust: 1) they flat-out lied in their promotional materials. They falsely claimed that data was kept encrypted and that they couldn't access it. They stopped claiming this only after a third-party revealed that it was a lie. 2) The CTO's reactions to major security flaws made crystal clear that he does not view loss exposures as a problem unless you suffer a loss. 3) The CTO's reactions to major security flaws made crystal clear that Dropbox prefers sweeping problems under the rug to transparency. This has created a situation where a reasonable person can't ever really trust Dropbox. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/ -- nice summary of Dropbox's flagrant lies about encrypted data.

ak39 13y ago

Well, their USP (unique selling proposition) is that they are secure and that they respect your privacy. From a functional/feature point of view, F-Secure's "Dropbox" is probably identical to their competitors'. Can "Fun" be objectively assessed? I doubt it. It's just confusing when you start off with important features such as security & privacy. Why do I feel they cheapened that proposition by throwing in "Fun"?

Jugurtha 13y ago
Exactly. Here it is verbatim "We like what Dropbox and SkyDrive do but where is the privacy and fun?". And I thought : "Are you kidding me?". Like we're supposed to play with balloons and dance when uploading/downloading files and be all smiley. Fun ? Seriously ! I don't want it to be fun, I want it to be effectively done. The promo video is really clumsy. Accusing a service of lacking privacy (how do you know?) and fun (really?) and furthermore, failing to tell how their service is more private (and fun?) just is clumsy. Newbie marketing tactics, too: In my experience, the companies that accuse competitors' products of sucking, and fail to show how their own products are better aren't that great. - How do they know Dropbox isn't fun ? I find Dropbox great for what I want it to do. - How do they know Dropbox isn't secure? And claiming theirs is, how do we know it really is and not just a claim. In other words, if I were to ask folks at younited: What is Dropbox not doing that you are. Don't give me "not secure" answers, get technical. If they don't, it's just defamation. How do you measure privacy and security? Is there really anything secure .. I always found that talking in absolutes really shady when it comes to security. I uninstalled McAffee ages ago after seeing a pop-up saying "total security" or something like that. How can you guarantee privacy and security, when there are back-doors in the hardware itself. Then there's the user education (which you shouldn't count on), then there are the lines, then the ISP, and a whole bunch of routers and nodes and networks where the information passes.
- staltz 13y ago
  I agree with everything, except: > What is Dropbox not doing that you are. I think the technical answer is that younited is aggregating your data across accounts such as Facebook, Dropbox, Picasa, etc. Dropbox doesn't do that, and it is actually nice to have all my data in one place. However, IMHO, having everything in one place dramatically increases the responsibilities of that "place". And I don't think a simple "we promise we won't share your data with governments" is strong enough to gain our trust. After all, companies do change their ToS...

pasiaj 13y ago

Well, not being under US jurisdiction helps a bunch. Finland has no (publicly known) questionable ties to US based or other intelligence services. The problem, of course, is that the international data cables to/from Finland go through Russia and Sweden. The former probably has no legal obstacles inspecting all web traffic and the latter is a known partner with the US/NSA in data inspection/gathering. I think there is a huge opportunity for a more secure cloud storage application with stringent design that provides no access to the data to the organization providing the service. Unfortunately F-Secure did not implement this, but instead created a service that provides 'automatic virus inspection for your files'. That is just too close to 'automatic general inspection of your files' for my taste.

Jugurtha 13y ago
I hear you. Personally, I don't need "automatic virus inspection' of my files. I know what I'm uploading. I'm the first person I think about sharing my files with. Most of what I keep is thesis related (documentation, code, articles, etc...). I store files on Dropbox, and e-mail myself thoughts I have not to forget, links, etc.. I used to e-mail myself files, too, but Db took care of it. Maybe I fail to see the benefit since I don't have an iPhone and I'm not on iTunes.. And even then, isn't there a Dropbox mobile app ? I might be just not getting it.
- spurgu 13y ago
  The mobile Dropbox client doesn't sync AFAIK, it just gives you the ability to browse and download your files.

dbags 13y ago

My main issue with Dropbox is that they aren't trustworthy. How Dropbox lost my trust: 1) they flat-out lied in their promotional materials. They falsely claimed that data was kept encrypted and that they couldn't access it. They stopped claiming this only after a third-party revealed that it was a lie. 2) The CTO's reactions to major security flaws made crystal clear that he does not view loss exposures as a problem unless you suffer a loss. 3) The CTO's reactions to major security flaws made crystal clear that Dropbox prefers sweeping problems under the rug to transparency. This has created a situation where a reasonable person can't ever really trust Dropbox. http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/ http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/ -- nice summary of Dropbox's flagrant lies about encrypted data.