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Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

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Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#161

Post by stirfrykitty »

PascLeRasc wrote: post #128
mrlala wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dropbox can handle a LOT of files. I haven't seen any other service that doesn't just break. OneDrive cannot handle tons of files. It just doesn't work. It ends up freezing, you have no idea what's going on. Can't speak to macOS related stuff. We finally were able to migrate off of this.. but we had a VERY file hefty folder structure. Instead of databases we chose to keep things in individual files for various reason…

We just had to switch from Box to OneDrive at work, and it's caused massive headaches. Most days no one can log in, and some Excel sheets uploaded have been corrupted or have missing sheets - I don't know how that happens unless Microsoft is scanning our files.

OneDrive is an abomination. We use it at work and I have to manage it for everyone on top of my other duties (medium non-profit). It's not the panacea everyone thought it would be. I inherited it upon coming here. I've tried to see this as more or less a devops experiment. I try to control as much as I can with PowerShell, but some things don't lend themselves well to that method. Oddly enough, the lion's share of all end users are on Macs that are on a Windows domain. It proved interesting to get everything working.

What I've done is tell people to create documents from the "cloud" and edit them there within the Office365 ecosystem. Documentation needs where I work are fairly simple, with very few people needing much beyond the basic functionality. No one is doing amortization tables or complicated formulas. Word use is also fairly basic.

It seems that every week almost Microsoft changes the admin page for Office365 and adds or removes a feature or changes the way things look. Because of our basic Office needs, I'm seeing growing success with getting people to start and stay in the cloud. Prevents nonsense to a great degree. SharePoint to share between departments.

Oddly enough, I've had great success in "rescuing" Office files using LibreOffice running on Linux. Office files just add so much crufty proprietary stuff.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#162

Post by TeMPOraL »

kilroy123 wrote: post #14
CPLX wrote: post #3

This seems like a good time to resurface the worlds best Quora answer, by Michael Wolfe. Answering “Why is Dropbox more popular than other tools with similar functionality?”: Well, let's take a step back and think about the sync problem and what the ideal solution for it would do: There would be a folder. You'd put your stuff in it. It would sync. They built that. Why didn't anyone else build that? I have no idea. "B…

I still think this is 100% true and that's still exactly what I want, as a paying Dropbox customer. What they're trying to build now are all things I'll never use.

That's a nice example of why "voting with your wallet" doesn't work.

I've been a paying Dropbox customers for years now, and not on the lowest tier either. How much more money and to whom can you or me give, for Dropbox to stop doing the shit they're doing, and forever just remain a folder that syncs on every platform?

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#163

Post by wincent »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #129
papln wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows by default has cloud sync on Mac and iOS and Linux and Android? > macOS does as well. On Windows and Linux and Android?

Not everyone needs any-platform syncing; you only need a solution that covers the devices you actually have. For instance, the only thing I really need Dropbox for at this point is one shared folder with friends who use both Mac and Windows (which could likely be handled by Google Drive, and might even be able to be handled by iCloud Drive by the end of the year) -- and Scrivener, because its developer apparently can…

> Not everyone needs any-platform syncing; you only need a solution that covers the devices you actually have.

You still have the vendor lock-in problem though. Somebody might only have Apple devices now, but 5 years from now the fact that all their data is in Apple's cloud (and maybe they got their whole family to put it in there too) makes it that much harder to switch away when you realize that Apple still hasn't fixed its keyboards.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#164

Post by TeMPOraL »

chipotle_coyote wrote: post #129
papln wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Windows by default has cloud sync on Mac and iOS and Linux and Android? > macOS does as well. On Windows and Linux and Android?

Not everyone needs any-platform syncing; you only need a solution that covers the devices you actually have. For instance, the only thing I really need Dropbox for at this point is one shared folder with friends who use both Mac and Windows (which could likely be handled by Google Drive, and might even be able to be handled by iCloud Drive by the end of the year) -- and Scrivener, because its developer apparently can…

> Not everyone needs any-platform syncing; you only need a solution that covers the devices you actually have.

Not if you want to sync with other people, or with work. There are three major types of desktop OSes and two mobile ones; even if you just one of each, you probably know and interact with people using a different set.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#165

Post by EpicEng »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #159
EpicEng wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. He specifically called out the fact that their entire product is eventually going to be a single feature in every consumer OS. And now it is. That hardly applies to every product/service out there.

The problem here is that the biggest value of that product is that there is one of it . We have three major desktop OSes and two major phone OSes, people have multiple devices - usually at least one running a desktop OS and one running a mobile OS. File syncing as an OS feature has significantly less utility, because OS vendors can't get their shit together and agree on a standard, cross-platform solution. This is ve…

>We have three major desktop OSes and two major phone OSes, people have multiple devices - usually at least one running a desktop OS and one running a mobile OS.

Sure... Kinda. How many people spend a lot of time on desktop these days? I see two large camps; windows + Android and... Well, Mac (e.g. iPad + iPhone). Those combos already work (MS client runs on android.) How many people run android + iPad/MacBook, windows + iPhone, or Linux? I imagine not too many, which is perhaps why DB is so focused on Enterprise.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#166

Post by chacha2 »

flanbiscuit wrote: post #53

I've been meaning to move off of Dropbox and Google drive, does anyone have any recommendations? I know there are some Torrent related syncs out there. I just want something that is not centralized and controlled by an entity. I want full control of it and I sync between desktop/laptop and Android

NextCloud, Syncthing or a NAS like Synology.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#167

Post by toomuchtodo »

ohnope wrote: post #150
hylaride wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had the same experience with dropbox. I first started to balk at them when the agent kept sucking more and more memory as updates came, then everything you describe. I ultimately just went all-in with icloud. The pricing is (now) better than dropbox, but I'm also all-in on the Apple ecosystem.

I would be all in on iCloud for sync if it had selective sync. What do you do for that?

https://github.com/Obbut/iCloud-Control

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#168

Post by mike_ivanov »

The most important Dropbox advantage over OS-integrated solutions is interoperability. I can sync a folder between Mac, Linux, Windows and mobile platforms. There is no other product that does it so smoothly, and neither iCloud nor Window Live will ever do that.

This new stuff, however, is irrelevant. I just don't care, all I need from Dropbox is to keep syncing a folder between my devices, that's it.

They could have spent money on innovating in their core field of competence: syncing. Hey Dropbox, how about seamless syncing with S3 for one? Remote NAS access? Distributed cross-provider virtual filesystems?

But no, instead we have this silly file manager.

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#169

Post by sucrose »

dreamcompiler wrote: post #17

Dropbox is two things: Cheap cloud file storage with an API, and a desktop app. The desktop app used to be a glorified FUSE app that worked well (except on ARM Linux for some reason) and got out of your way. Now Dropbox has decided it's time to ruin the desktop app in an effort to chase conversions. This strategy will fail. Fortunately their cloud storage backend still works (unless it bugs you that they just increas…

> Expandrive

How does ExpanDrive compare to AirExplorer¹? The ExpanDrive UI looks cleaner.

¹https://airexplorer.net/

Re: Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems

#170

Post by TeMPOraL »

bluedino wrote: post #65
navigatesol wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Please go back to being a folder that syncs A simple, effective utility can't support a multi-billion valuation. Where else will the VC Ponzi dollars go?

Isn't the problem that most Dropbox users just won't pay for it?

From the money they burned on Paper, multiple UI changes and that disastrous site redesign of a year or two ago, they'd probably be able to cover the cost of most of users on free plan. Storage isn't that expensive.

Still, I pay. I get increasingly bad service. The only reason I didn't switch yet is that all competitors are strictly worse, and I'm too lazy to set up Syncthing.

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