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Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

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Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#81

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

zamnos wrote: post #79
NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep searching xkcd, but all my efforts are frustrated, and this is as close as I get: https://xkcd.com/908/ I distinctly recall a webcomic in the past few years lampooning cloud storage. There was a guy who said "hey, there's this guy down the street who lets me keep stuff on shelves in his garage." "What does he charge you?" "Nothing, he says it's just cool if I keep it there." and then the stuff is sold off or t…

https://xkcd.com/1150/ ?

THANK YOU, zamnos! No wonder I couldn't find it. It was a current-events piece about a change in Instagram's TOS. Explanation here: https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1150:_Instagram

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#82

Post by meling »

wanda wrote: post #45
1vuio0pswjnm7 wrote: post #19

Many times on HN, commenters have mocked those who questioned why someone would use Dropbox instead of a method controlled by the user. I guess becausse someone made lots of money from it or it became popular or something. I always found this perplexing because I look at solutions from the perspective of the user, namely, me, not from the perspective of a third party "tech" startup founder. It's insensitive to the pe…

Dropbox's specific popularity on HN may partially stem from its original backing by YC. It will have enjoyed additional exposure here thanks to that, and to be fair to Dropbox, it was a good product. I say *was because I cannot speak for how it is now, I do not have any data to judge how it is now. I stopped using it a long time ago – not because I disliked it, I just picked a different solution.

I’m still using it, but to me their service has become worse over time as more and more features were tacked on that I don’t want or need… and they are really not listening to their users who want a better experience instead of more junk. I’m also in the market for a better alternative, but haven’t found one so far that is as easy to use as Dropbox. I’d prefer to not have to manage my own servers.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#83

Post by aborsy »

I usually share telemetry with open source software that I am happy with. Log reports, crashes, usage, etc, in Linux and so on.

It’s a good way to give back, and improve software that is often free. It’s presumably anonymized and safe. I don’t think we should be adversarial.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#84

Post by alkonaut »

redder23 wrote: post #47

Don't use any if these proprietary shit apps in the first place. I find it silly to complain about things like that. Even if they have opt-out or even opt-in. They will eventually change it, they will abuse you. They will have "bugs" that leak data. You can only trust open source. And there are plenty of alternatives, that you can self host.

I don’t want to self host. I don’t even want to self-setup some cloud blob store to which my open source can sync. I want something that is free as in beer and zero setup for myself. Happy to take suggestions but Dropbox does seem to fit.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#85

Post by Xeamek »

qwerty456127 wrote: post #74

Fuck all telemetry (sharing any information which is not just "you have no control over" but anything which is not logically necessary for the app to do its primary job). Just don't use any apps you can block from doing this. IMHO this (sending redundant and untransparent information from a user's machine) should be outlawed.

Error reporting is far from being redundant though, it's literally 1 step away from being 'logically necessary'

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#86

Post by mtmail »

smittywerben wrote: post #29

I stopped using dropbox after finding it quarantines files. You won't know about this until you try to migrate off Dropbox. It just gives me the creeps now.

For me it was watching my desktop folder. If I created a screenshot there would suddenly be a notification window asking me if I wanted to upload/share it via Dropbox. Contacted their support, you couldn't switch it off and they didn't understand why such notifications would annoy a user.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#87

Post by sneak »

newaccount74 wrote: post #52
popey wrote: post #34

I switched away from Dropbox to Syncthing https://syncthing.net/ a few years ago. Running it on Windows, Mac and Linux (I don't use it on mobile) to keep all manner of files in sync across a bunch of machines. While it doesn't have all the shell integration and end-user friendliness of Dropbox, it also doesn't have the pitfalls like (non-optional) telemetry and constant up-sell.

Syncthing is so much better than Dropbox. There are no accounts, so it's much easier to set up syncing between multiple machines that may not belong to the same user, or to shared devices. I use it to sync family documents, work documents, for syncing Factorio save games, ... I've also never had problems with CPU usage (Dropbox often caused high CPU usage in some cases) The only downside is that background sync on iO…

Möbius Sync is more IAP cancer, unfortunately.

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#88

Post by jraph »

brettermeier wrote: post #48
jiri wrote: post #35

One can install and use nextcloud. You get similar client and similar experience. You need to care about your data and server though.

Taking care of data and servers is the big problem, even for people who are more into computers. There are many holes to fall into.

There are Nextcloud providers :-)

Here's a list in French: https://wiki.chatons.org/doku.php/services/nextcloud

BTW I'm learning from it that /e/ [1] partners with Murena [2] which offers accounts with 1 GB of free storage. Apparently, Murena is French.

[1] https://murena.io/

[2] https://e.foundation/

Re: Dropbox telemetry can't be disabled

#90

Post by layer8 »

p-e-w wrote: post #60
qwezxcrty wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The essential feature that Syncthing as a Dropbox replacement lacks is public sharing. Although requested by many users throughout the years, the maintainers never considered it seriously.

And I'm glad they didn't. The mere existence of such a feature would make me worry about unintentionally enabling it and exposing private data as a result.

You don’t expose data just by enabling the sharing, because it’s only accessible via a URL containing a hash-like identifier that can’t be guessed. It’s not more realistic than someone guessing your Syncthing password.
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