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Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

forums.dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#141

Post by reneherse »

soupboy wrote: post #93
reneherse wrote: post #90

Houston, we have a problem. Just about the only thing I use Dropbox for is the public folder. I've gotten many of my friends and collaborators to sign up for the service, based on the recommendation of this very feature. It's been a real boon for rapidly iterating front end mock ups. Dropping support for what Dropbox evidently regards as "edge use cases" is not how you "build the next Apple or Google". The Public fol…

I think you are overreacting. Are you serious about using the public folder for "rapidly iterating front end mock ups"? Why would you want to put sensitive and confidential data for everyone in the world to see?

Different strokes and all that. I prefer to do mockups mostly in the browser, and using the public folder as a local server is an easy way to check pages on multiple devices. (I'm sure a more technically inclined person would just set up their own server.)

If I were doing anything requiring confidentiality or stealth I would work another way.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#142

Post by chimeracoder »

snsr wrote: post #70
euroclydon wrote: post #51

What I find disappointing is their focus on photo uploads. I think users really just want to pick a best of breed provider for major features like this in their lives, and Facebook has photos sharing locked up. Dropbox has brought simple file synchronization between machines that are not necessarily on the same network, to the masses, but they need to do it in away that doesn't make you want to drop Dropbox when it g…

> I updated the clock, Dropbox deleted all files in my Dropbox that were newer than the last time I had that machine running. While off-topic, this is a concerning scenario that I hadn't considered.

Does it still have the symlink problem? (Creating a symlink and then deleting it would delete the original file).

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#143

Post by johns »

reneherse wrote: post #90

Houston, we have a problem. Just about the only thing I use Dropbox for is the public folder. I've gotten many of my friends and collaborators to sign up for the service, based on the recommendation of this very feature. It's been a real boon for rapidly iterating front end mock ups. Dropping support for what Dropbox evidently regards as "edge use cases" is not how you "build the next Apple or Google". The Public fol…

localtunnel.com

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#144

Post by statictype »

parfe wrote: post #63
statictype wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you would still have to generate links for each individual file in there right?

I right clicked a random folder and used "Get a Link" and I was able to browse to it without being logged into Firefox. What more do you want?

ok. Didn't realize you could generate a link for a folder. That makes it far better.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#145

Post by URSpider94 »

My bet is that it's a financial decision. It's easy to see how hotlinked image files (or even entire web sites run out of /Public) could account for a major portion of Dropbox's outgoing bandwidth charges.

However, if that were it, you'd think they would consider keeping the feature for paid subscribers.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#147

Post by ThomPete »

antidoh wrote: post #57
nl wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox has a website? (Yes I knew Dropbox had a website. I'm speaking for all those users who downloaded it once and now use it to synchronize their computers, never realizing there is a website too. And yes, these people do use the public folders: they right click & send the link to someone, but don't connect that to the idea they can see their own files on the web)

I have helped a computerphobe (hates computers and Internet, clueless, but must use them) with Dropbox. She gets that her folders on various computers around town are synchronized. I had a very difficult time explaining to her that her same folders and files are available via the web interface. Those people are out there.

My GF who is pretty computer savy have a hard time understanding it too. She basically don't trust it even though I have told her that it has multiple safety measures and the fact that it's on more than one machine (we have 8) is actually making it better. There are of course issues with regards to syncing but besides that.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#148

Post by bierko »

nl wrote: post #47
_delirium wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do like the Public folder, but you can still easily get a list of exactly what's shared; the "Links" sidebar ( https://www.dropbox.com/links ) lists all links you've created, and lets you deactivate any that you don't want to be available anymore.

Dropbox has a website? (Yes I knew Dropbox had a website. I'm speaking for all those users who downloaded it once and now use it to synchronize their computers, never realizing there is a website too. And yes, these people do use the public folders: they right click & send the link to someone, but don't connect that to the idea they can see their own files on the web)

This is a good point. I went to a Dropbox talk, and one of the employees mentioned, in a similar vein, that a lot of users first use the app on a mobile device and never realize that there's also a desktop client.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#149

Post by Gormo »

deefour wrote: post #110
runn1ng wrote: post #32

A hint to everyone: If you got the link, made by "Get link", and you don't like the innecessary preview in browser, just add "?dl=1" to the end of the link example: https://www.dropbox.com/s/1axoy96uwa80wko/matfyzak%20%281%29... - ugly preview page https://www.dropbox.com/s/1axoy96uwa80wko/matfyzak%20%281%29... - sane PDF link

Dropbox support offered up the ?dl=1 querystring as the solution to permanent, public URLs when I emailed them, but I have the same issue with the fact that the files are forced to download. If they're going to stick with Dropbox branded preview for public URLs, I'd like to at least see a similar ?view=1 querystring to keep images/pdfs/etc.. displaying directly in the browser.

Delete the '?dl=1' parameter, and change the URL from 'www.dropbox.com' to 'dl.dropbox.com'.

This yields a proper direct link to the file, but the directory tree is still inaccessible.

Re: Dropbox' Public/ folders will be phased out soon

#150

Post by Gormo »

snsr wrote: post #70
euroclydon wrote: post #51

What I find disappointing is their focus on photo uploads. I think users really just want to pick a best of breed provider for major features like this in their lives, and Facebook has photos sharing locked up. Dropbox has brought simple file synchronization between machines that are not necessarily on the same network, to the masses, but they need to do it in away that doesn't make you want to drop Dropbox when it g…

> I updated the clock, Dropbox deleted all files in my Dropbox that were newer than the last time I had that machine running. While off-topic, this is a concerning scenario that I hadn't considered.

It's pretty bizarre if Dropbox is solely using client-side timestamps as the basis for comparison.
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