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Introducing a more powerful Dropbox Pro
- of 12y agolol who cares?
- dchuk 12y agoPeople didn't downvote you because they care about Dropbox Pro, they downvoted you for saying nothing of substance and sounding like a child.
- __xtrimsky 12y agoI do care about dropbox, it's the only cloud system that works well on linux systems . It used to be overpriced but now the pricing is good. Also Google Drive is terrible on Windows if like me you have a lot of files. One drive is limited to 2GB of file size. I have yet to find a great alternative to it.
- CalRobert 12y agoOwncloud is great, and avoids the moral complexities of contributing to a board that includes at least one endorser of torture and warrantless surveillance.
- CalRobert 12y agoAnd yes, I will wear my downvotes with pride. We can't always separate our tools from the organizations which produce them, and we should be careful what behaviours we wish to reward, and thereby encourage.
- chmars 12y ago… if you have the knowledge, money and time to manage your Owncloud server in a secure way. Since such configuration includes a more advanced firewall, most users will not have the necessary skills I am afraid … Focused on Owncloud only, the latest version is indeed great! :)
- __xtrimsky 12y agoI have tried Owncloud, but I don't want to host a service myself (I do have the knowledge to do so). But on average it would cost me more than paying a service. I"m trying to minimize my monthly costs, it's hard to beat 8.25$ for a good server for Owncloud.
- of 12y agoI guess I just don't like the name "Dropbox", haha.
- nacs 12y agoReposting an earlier comment of mine: > it's the only cloud system that works well on linux systems AeroFS (what I use), Bittorrent Sync and Syncthing (Golang, OSS) all work well on Linux (and Mac/Win).
- of 12y agoWhoever downvoted my previous comment, can you explain to me why you care about Dropbox Pro?
- s3r3nity 12y agoI didn't downvote, but it wasn't a productive comment -- it was just snarky and condescending. I don't think this is front-page worthy of HN, sure, but anytime someone at Google/Dropbox/Apple does so much as pass gas, people around here get excited.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 12y agoI don't really care about it, but your comment was worthless and deserved to be downvoted. If you don't care about a story, ignore it. If you think it's wildly inappropriate, flag it. If you feel compelled to share your disdain with others, I recommend Twitter for that.
- jonnynezbo 12y agoI've been waiting on this for a long time. Now Dropbox might actually be a viable, affordable off-site backup solution.
- ptwiggens 12y agoDropbox isn't ideal for backup at all. Look into Crashplan. Client-side encryption, unlimited versioning, never deletes files, and only $6/month for truly unlimited backup.
- jonnynezbo 12y agoI'm already on the CrashPlan Family Plan. I love it. In all reality, I doubt I will get rid of Crashplan any time soon.
- Soyuz 12y agoCrashPlan is great and encrypted at rest and transmission. But, I prefer services outside US
- StavrosK 12y agoDoes it have an OSS Linux client, even headless? All I want is to encryptedly back up some directories on my home server, but nothing* really does that. I use SpiderOak at the moment, but it's not OSS. * Except attic, but I'd rather pay for a service as important as this (I don't trust the remote server to not lose files): http://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/ http://www.stavros.io/posts/holy-grail-backups/
- toomuchtodo 12y agohttp://www.tarsnap.com/ http://www.tarsnap.com/ http://rsync.net/ http://rsync.net/
- StavrosK 12y agoThanks, but both of those are extremely expensive for backing up photos and various files (100 GB worth).
- anu_gupta 12y agoMore granular permissioning, and an increase in space to 1TB. Not bad.
- PankajGhosh 12y agoI do not have a need of 1TB of space, just 100GB would do. It would be great if they provided a tier of 100GB plan (just like Google Drive)
- zzleeper 12y agoNo one (almost) needs 1TB... the way they can afford it is they expect most people to use at most a few hundred GB, but with the peace of mind that they could store more
- JoeAltmaier 12y agoYou'd be surprised how fast design artifacts can add up. 25 draft copies of a 12-layer image can be a GB, and that's one image in one project.
- __xtrimsky 12y agoI don't need 1TB, but I need more than 100GB. If Google Drive offered 500GB I would go with them, for now I'll stay with Dropbox as it's the same pricing (Dropbox's client is better quality).
- rikkus 12y agoPersonal photos and videos I don't want to lose, which are of course backed up to actual backup systems, but I also want access to wherever I am. That's what I need 1TB for.
- jliptzin 12y agoIndeed, Dropbox can respond to google drive in two ways: (1) drop the price of the existing plan to match google drive or (2) increase the storage to compete on the $/GB/mo rate. Option 2 is much better for them because they can keep all their existing $9.99/mo customers on the same recurring plan even though the vast majority don't need the extra storage anyway.
- zzleeper 12y ago"You now have 1,045.GB .." Quite good news! I now just need a way to exclude some files (.aux .tmp) and will be set!
- jonnynezbo 12y agoYea, we need a .dbignore, or something of the sort.
- micheljansen 12y agoYou mean like this? http://konolige.com/dbignore/ http://konolige.com/dbignore/
- jonnynezbo 12y agoWow. Yes. Exactly like that. Good looking out.
- spindritf 12y agoA comment on the site points it out already but they charge European users more now (€9.99 which is $13.17 currently). Is there an external reason? Does that include VAT? Did they get a datacentre somewhere in the EU?
- jrnkntl 12y agoYeah, what's up with that? Apple-esque practices for digital goods. I just used a VPN to purchase the $ plan instead.
- petercooper 12y agoIf you bought it personally (i.e. a B2C sale) you should be fine, but as a warning for any (update: UK based, at least) VAT-registered traders or businesses, you will need to reverse charge the VAT which mostly defeats the point.
- jrnkntl 12y agoYou don't need to reverse charge the VAT as a EU business because there's no VAT stated on the invoice at all (b/c it's a US company). [edited] this is bullocks, IANAA(ccountant) applies here deservedly.
- petercooper 12y agoMaybe VAT law is different in your country but that is not true in the UK where reverse charging of VAT is required on services where the supplier is "outside the UK" (including outside the EU). Indeed, HMRC's guidance on this includes an example of a US-based Web hosting company providing hosting to a UK business: http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vatpossmanual/vatposs14300.htm http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/manuals/vatpossmanual/vatposs14300.ht... HMRC do note that "the UK applies the reverse charge provisions more widely than elsewhere in the EU", however, and for this I get the joy of having to reverse charge about 50 invoices a quarter for US services (all our hosting, SaaS bills, etc) ;-) For example, if a host in the US bills us $100, we then have to reverse charge $20 converted into GBP at approved rates, then claim the equivalent back.. so the net position is zero but it has to be accounted for (holds head in hands and rocks back and forth).
- f3llowtraveler 12y agoAll that matters: Does Dropbox encrypt my data on the client side, before storing it on the server? Or does Dropbox have the power to pilfer through my data, along with official snoopers and hackers?
- adamors 12y agoThey would say that. Like SpirderOak are saying it: https://spideroak.com/zero-knowledge/ https://spideroak.com/zero-knowledge/ or Crashplan: http://www.code42.com/crashplan/features/security/ http://www.code42.com/crashplan/features/security/
- chmars 12y agoDropbox does not claim to encrypt your data on the client side. They only claim encryption on their servers but that is not helpful in terms of encryption of your data … In CrashPlan, you can at least set your own private key if you like. You still need to trust the provider/vendor, however, the software is at least built to do local encryption. Dropbox does not work that way.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- chmars 12y agoNo, Dropbox does NOT encrypt your data on the client site. Alternatives would be Spideroak and Wuala or addon software like Boxcryptor. They work but not as flawlessly and user-friendly as Dropbox usually does …
- StavrosK 12y agoI've found EncFS over Dropbox to be pretty good, retaining the best of both worlds.
- AlyssaRowan 12y agoPlease be cautious: EncFS was not designed to resist an attacker having ongoing access to the volume, as they would in this scenario! In particular, an attacker having access to the ciphertext at two or more different times violates EncFS's security assumptions; undetected malicious modification of files is also feasible in this scenario. Many encrypted filesystems do not include such a property in their design criteria - for example, XTS mode as-is is not suitable for use in this scenario either, so please also try to avoid putting TrueCrypt (et al) on Dropbox! For a broad general example of what a system would look like which tries to address this use case more naturally and effectively (although, caveat: I have not reviewed it in great detail myself), please see Tahoe-LAFS.
- fein 12y agoIs there a reason the old thread was killed and this up in its place? I thought the sales page contained better information than the blog post. That aside, I feel this needs to be brought up in every Dropbox thread: Get rid of Condoleezza Rice and I'll happily use your product.
- sheetjs 12y agoOne possible explanation: Dropbox is a YC company, HN is a YC website, and the previous discussion seemed to take a turn for the negative
- fein 12y agoAs it should. We are a community voicing our opinions about a company. If we find they are doing wrong, shouldn't we say something about it?
- jamesbritt 12y agoAbsolutely. The support for Dropbox here is disheartening.
- dang 12y agoThe previous thread set off the HN software's flamewar detector. No moderator touched it.
- chmars 12y agoIt is disappointing that Dropbox still does not offer any options for secure storage. Personally, you might be fine with unencrypted stories but at least for companies in Europe, having (all) your data with an American cloud provider without local encryption on your side is simply not a legal option … Dropbox is a great service, however, it would be even greater if I could use Dropbox for all my data and not only selected data where I do not consider local encryption necessary. (I know about add-on software like Boxcryptor but all options I have tested so far were not user-friendly enough … Dropbox competitors with encryption like Spideroak and Wuala work good enough but are in no way as user-friendly and convenient as Dropbox.)
- lingben 12y agoAgreed. This was the first thing I checked. Still no client side encryption! Truly unfathomable in light of current world events, competitive offerings and the feasibility of the required technical implementation.
- drdaeman 12y ago> Dropbox competitors with encryption like Spideroak and Wuala Unless one doesn't really cares about security and wants encryption for the sake of having encryption, there's no way their implementations could be considered sufficient. Without audit you're just taking their word for it — which is exactly as when you take Dropbox's word that they won't peek at your data (unencrypted or possibly encrypted but one can't verify that). And to audit those one needs to spend a lot of time reverse engineering their applications, and then auto-update mechanism could render those efforts void at any moment. I've spent about a weekend debugging and looking at decompiled SpiderOak code and while I hadn't found anything suspicious (although I'm not a crypto or security expert) the only judgement I was certain with was "this behemoth's too complex to study in detail, not worth the time to continue the research" The point is, the data could be encrypted, but it's pointless to just have the encryption — to assume some security one must be certain about many aspects of how it's done — when, how and where encryption keys are generated, when, where and how data's processed, what are exact crypto algorithms used and how they are composed together and so on. And, obviously, a possibility to verify the description completely matches the actual implementation. So, I think, security should be really done by a separate software module that could be completely reviewed by anyone (from tech-savvy end-users to security researchers) and can't be remotely auto-updated without explicit user consent.
- raymondh 12y agoIt is unclear whether the packrat add-on for unlimited versioning is still available for Dropbox Pro.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- Styrke 12y agoI think it is only available if you were already signed up for it. I just chose to continue with the packrat add-on for my pro account. It seems like the alternative they are now offering is only extended version history. (which would save changes for a year)
- jrs235 12y agoIt looks like they also changed packrat to only include/keep one year of version history instead of forever.
- projectileboy 12y agoSo I have the $20/month a plan, and my reward appears to be that I pay twice as much and still have 200GB...? Do I have to cancel and re-subscribe? Anyone from Dropbox out there..???
- ayrx 12y ago> Already a Pro user? Dropbox will update automatically in the next couple days. You don’t have to do a thing. Looks like you just have to wait a few days.
- nroach 12y agoPlus, if you're on a larger plan the upgrade is to 10x your current space. So 2TB.
- projectileboy 12y agoD'oh! Thanks for pointing that out. Sorry for the noise.
- jingo 12y agoI've got something I like better than Dropbox. It's called rdiff. It does one thing only: deduplication. All the other stuff needed for remote, incremental backups, e.g., moving files back and forth over a network, can be done with other open source tools. I think I have a pretty good command of moving files around with open source software... I do not need a third party to help me via an obfuscated blob of Python and who knows what else. I like having control over my backups versus trusting it all to some closed-source, third party, "all-in-one" application. In my mind having control and transparency will always be more powerful than handing over my data deduplication and backup to a third party, such as "Dropbox". But I imagine there are few others who would agree. Forgive me for not loving Dropbox. Maybe some day I will see the light.
- ayrx 12y agoDon't think of Dropbox as backup. Think of Dropbox as a convenient way of syncing files across multiple platforms, both traditional and mobile. I'm a big fan of open source when it works but there is nothing as seamless as Dropbox when it comes to syncing.
- SandB0x 12y agoWhat do you mean by better? My grandparents manage to use Dropbox. I think that's pretty amazing.
- mikeash 12y agoHow do I set up these tools to automatically sync a set of files between multiple computers and make them accessible from my smartphone and tablet?
- ewzimm 12y agoIt's been mentioned in a few other comments, but ownCloud does all that. https://owncloud.org/ https://owncloud.org/ You don't even need to set it up yourself: https://owncloud.org/providers/ https://owncloud.org/providers/
- 12y ago
- fit2rule 12y agoI wish OS vendors weren't asleep at the wheel. This sort of service needs to be integrated into the OS. I'm sick of having an OS that doesn't include next-generation features like seamless p2p filesharing. I guess its time to make one ..
- cbhl 12y agoYou mean like Windows 8 and OneDrive? Or OS X and iCloud? Or Ubuntu and Ubuntu One(now discontinued)?
- fit2rule 12y agoThese are just backup services between Microsft/Apple/Ubuntu, Inc., and the users. What I want is true p2p. Like, nobody in between necessary, because the OS has everything onboard to make it happen. That sort of 'asleep at the wheel'..
- mayneack 12y agoMac, Windows, and Ubuntu all do. Half the reason to use dropbox is that it works on all of them.
- fit2rule 12y agoThe point is that seamless peer-to-peer hasn't happened, at the OS level. If Dropbox' NS servers go splooey, there goes your backup. However if me and every family member want to share our own private files, internally across the vast Internet, without any 3rd-party interaction - i.e. really peer-to-peer, only the open-source/3rd-party-app route works, feasibly, at the moment. Which is what I mean when I say that I think that OS designers are asleep at the wheel; or, perhaps, brain-dead. An OS which does point to point encryption across untrusted networks, successfully, and which wraps up the whole thing in a workable GUI provided by the OS vendor .. its just not there yet. I suppose soon, though.
- jamesbritt 12y agoDropbox is morally corrupt and support for them by HN users is disappointing. I wrote to Dropbox and said I wanted to cancel my account and get a pro-rated refund because of their hiring of Condoleezza Rice. Her involvement in the Iraq war and the mass surveillance of Americans is deplorable. A few days after my request my account was converted to the free version, with the limitations of the free version. I could no longer sync any files. When I saw this I assumed I was going to get the refund. Days passed. I asked about the refund. The support email included disturbingly fawning about Ms. Rice and how amazing she was, and insisted that the Dropbox ToS made it flat-out impossible for them to issue any refunds. My account was changed back to allow the 100 GB of storage and Dropbox acted like it never botched my request. It almost funny that they would not even respect differing opinion on their hiring of Ms. Rice and graciously offer a refund to those offended by such a move. Hiding behind their own ToS just shows how deaf they are to the matter. They basically don't give a fuck, and they don't have to because they have enough people who are more concerned with convenience than principles as amply shown on HN. There are very good alternatives to Dropbox. Both SpiderOak and ownCloud work great on Windows, OSX, and Linux. You can get managed ownCloud hosting if you don't want to set up your own: https://owner.io https://owner.io. It's puzzling that anyone would trust them with their data given their behavior.
- encoderer 12y agoWhy are you entitled to a refund? You disagree with their hiring policies? You already paid the $99 for 1 year of service. You already bought it. It's done. Your option is to cancel at renewal or not. That's my take, anyway. I also asked for a refund when Google announced their far cheaper plans for GDrive, and this just a month after I renewed. They told me the same thing -- a policy of no partial refunds. So I asked them to ensure I would not be auto rebilled, and that was that. Why exactly are they morally corrupt for this?
- jljljl 12y agoIf OP's account is true, the took away the features but then refused to provide a refund. At best, that's a pretty serious customer service fail.
- mbillie1 12y agoI switched to Copy since the Condoleeza Rice situation and I have had no problems whatsoever. I have the app running on a macbook pro, an imac and two android mobile devices. It's also about half the price that Dropbox charges. I recommend it.
- gnufied 12y agoHonest question, how good is their client? The Google Drive client on OSX appears to be bit shit and I am considering moving everything away to a new system.
- mbillie1 12y agoHonest answer: it seems to be a bit slower than Dropbox, but it's still pretty good. I haven't had any issues yet (no lost files). They also offer the same auto-upload of your photos from your smartphone, which I am running on an Android device, and that works wonderfully as well. I'm a very satisfied customer.
- rikkus 12y agoTheir max personal plan seems to be 500GB for $14.99/month. Dropbox Pro is now 1TB for £9.99/month.
- mbillie1 12y agoAh, I did not check the updated dropbox pricing. At the time, I was getting 250GB for $9.99/mo, and Dropbox was offering me 100GB for the same price iirc.
- Shorel 12y agoI switched to hubiC. I think right now any american company is in bed with NSA until proved otherwise.
- cryoshon 12y agoDitch Condi Rice and apologize for allowing her in, and I'll consider using Dropbox again. As it stands, there are an abundance of other companies doing the same thing as Dropbox which do not associate with known war criminals. This makes them more desirable business partners.
- Artemis2 12y agoA quick reminder of the practices of Dr. Rice, member of Dropbox's Board of directors: http://drop-dropbox.com http://drop-dropbox.com.
- hackpm 12y agohttp://www.quora.com/Why-did-Dropbox-slash-its-price-99-yr-for-1TB-Aug-2014 http://www.quora.com/Why-did-Dropbox-slash-its-price-99-yr-f...
- chaostheory 12y agoWas privacy ever a feature? Will it ever become a Dropbox feature or is it impossible due to either today's political climate or Dropbox's internal views on the matter?
- rogerbinns 12y agoDropbox having good Linux support is a big reason I use them personally and professionally (both paid). But geez do they mess other things up. For example you can only share top level folders. We have to share with various outside parties and that limitation leads to a very cluttered file structure. The solution for multiple accounts is beyond annoying. The correct way of doing it how google does it - you provide however many sets of credentials and can then easily select the current set to use/view. Dropbox do this idiotic thing where you tie your personal one into a business one, then logging into the latter also logs you into the former and everything works as though it is one account, with enforced folder names. I'm sure there is some weak justification about how this prevents issues with free accounts, but making paying users have a horrible time isn't the way to achieve that.
- nacs 12y ago> Dropbox having good Linux support is a big reason I use them personally AeroFS (what I use), Bittorrent Sync and Syncthing (Golang, OSS) all support Linux (and Mac/Win) and are good alternatives.
- rogerbinns 12y agoWhile they all have desirable attributes, especially for individual usage, they are harder to cooperate with others. (By that I mean try to get friends and relatives to use them with you, when those folk aren't tech savvy and certainly don't have their own storage.)
- hemancuso 12y agoShameless plug for my product, ExpanDrive http://www.expandrive.com/expandrive http://www.expandrive.com/expandrive Mount Dropbox as a network drive. Smart local cache. Access the data on demand without syncing the repo in first. Also supports gdrive, s3, sftp, onedrive, box and more. Makes a 1TB account make a lot more sense if you only have a 128GB SSD. Use selective sync with the primary client to only sync a portion of your Dropbox. Then use ExpanDrive to offload the rest and access it as needed.
- Rainymood 12y agoI feel like I missed out on something major reading these comments. What have I missed in the last 6 months concerning db and Condoleezza Rice?
- kakashi19 12y agoEncFS over Dropbox works best for me: http://ninjatips.com/encrypt-dropbox-using-encfs/ http://ninjatips.com/encrypt-dropbox-using-encfs/
- jkmcf 12y agoThe biggest benefit of Dropbox is the mobile app client support. On iOS, you see Dropbox and iCloud support, but rarely anything else. When other sync services like Box and friends get more integration, I’ll gladly switch away since I would love some sort of encryption, which Dropbox, and Evernote damn you, appear unable or unwilling to implement.