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The new Dropbox

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: The new Dropbox

#231

Post by mirthflat83 »

pentae wrote: post #224
liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

They also just put the price up of the plus plan $20 a year. I already pay for iCloud so I don't know why I'm still a customer really. Laziness I suppose. I trust Apple with my data a lot more also.

iCloud doesnt offer file history though. Once you accidentally delete a file, it’s gone.

Re: The new Dropbox

#232

Post by jwr »

pedroaraujo wrote: post #206
liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

Seafile is a wonderful Dropbox replacement: - https://www.seafile.com/en/home/ Open-source and all. :)

Hmm, it is made by a Chinese company. That gives me pause.

Re: The new Dropbox

#233

Post by asdff »

azinman2 wrote: post #172
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it is now a feature in iCloud. Perhaps those original comments on the DropBox launch people keep referring to were right all along.

And it doesn’t work nearly as well. He underestimated how hard it would be to solve it properly.

Onedrive at least works great in my experiences. I bave a dropbox account, but my uni supplied me with a huge onedrive allotment. I sync every user file on my computer and I can access it anywhere with an internet connection. The msoffice integrations are great too, and ms office online is pretty feature rich.

Dropbox had a great idea, but it's not hard for a large company to copy it like microsoft did. Apple just does a lot of things half assed if it's not a priority to them. Nothing stopping iCloud from being better than dropbox in a couple years if apple one day decided they gave a damn about it.

Re: The new Dropbox

#234

Post by wazoox »

liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

MIgrating to NextCloud, I'm pretty happy with it. It has many extensions, plugins, and helper applications. Say no to centralized web :)

Re: The new Dropbox

#235

Post by vvoyer »

liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

After receiving an email like: > This is all for just $20.88 more a year

1. I never asked for anything more 2. you still charge me for more at a higher price

I just bought 2TB data on iCloud, moving everything there. Now I will have good photo application with face recognition which is awesome. Do not expect any move from Dropbox to make your personal life better, they won't. They are going towards enterprise customers.

Use iCloud that's it if you're in the apple word.

Re: The new Dropbox

#236

Post by signal11 »

azinman2 wrote: post #172
tonyedgecombe wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well it is now a feature in iCloud. Perhaps those original comments on the DropBox launch people keep referring to were right all along.

And it doesn’t work nearly as well. He underestimated how hard it would be to solve it properly.

iCloud is great for Mac/iOS users. I never felt it worked well on Windows. It never felt right. So yes, Apple still has work to do if they want wider iCloud use. Maybe they don't want to?

But Microsoft and Google are creeping up. Their file sync is almost there with Dropbox.

OneDrive works on Mac and Windows, supports Files on Demand (similar to Dropbox Infinite - essentially placeholder files, very useful for small SSDs), and are working on differential sync for 2019.

The kicker is that OneDrive costs $99 as part of Office 365 Home, and gives you + 5 family members each 1TB storage, GBs of Outlook storage, the desktop Office apps for all devices including Android (they run really well on Android-enabled Chromebooks). And access to phone-based support. What's more, many people can get Office 365 discounted to $70 via the new Home Use Program, or even free if they're students or teachers[1].

Google One (one.google.com) is also a pretty formidable offering where available. File storage via Google Drive, a great photo storage service, tons of Gmail space, and access to Google's support teams.

So yes -- file storage is becoming a feature and the Google & Microsoft offerings will end up tempting many customers. Dropbox still does sync really well and has the best app, in my opinion -- including the only one that works on Linux, but I'm not sure that'll be a massive concern for the average customer.

[1] https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office

Re: The new Dropbox

#237

Post by octorian »

pgm8705 wrote: post #229
liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

My previous experience with Google Drive was that it would chew up CPU and memory a lot more than I liked. I've been pretty happy with iCloud Drive since I switched to it. Works seamlessly and effortlessly on my Mac and iPhone, affordable pricing fo storage which can be shared with family, and also solves my photo storage needs with Apple Photos. The only drawback is the lack of shared folders, but they just announce…

Yeah, I've never had a good experience with the Google Drive client. Heck, I remember when the Windows version would suck up all available file handles and basically make the machine unusable.

That being said, the whole point of Dropbox to me is that its cross-platform. iCloud Drive is basically worthless for the Dropbox use case unless your entire computing universe is on Apple equipment.

Re: The new Dropbox

#238

Post by octorian »

atonse wrote: post #209
liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

Is this really true? wow. I'm shocked that a company of Dropbox's size hasn't built native clients for each platform (or rearchitected the core to be based on something like Go or Rust that is fast and cross platform, and just building the UI parts in the native frameworks)

For reasons I cannot fathom, it seems like bigger companies are far less likely to justify the resources to build multi-platform native software than smaller ones.

Re: The new Dropbox

#239

Post by josteink »

The new Dropbox for me:

- the free plan completely gimped with only 3 devices allowed to link

- the official Linux client effectively rendered useless as it no longer works on anything except ext4 filesystems (an artificial limitations added years after I’ve gone all in ZFS).

The new Dropbox clearly wants me to leave. Which is a shame.

I’ve always chosen Dropbox because it was the universal solution which “just worked” everywhere, while all the competitors had a catch here or there.

Now Dropbox are intentionally adding limitations making it non-universal, and therefore losing its own unique selling point.

Re: The new Dropbox

#240

Post by redm »

redfern314 wrote: post #220
liyanage wrote: post #203

I've been a Dropbox user for many years but I'm looking for a replacement. What drives me nuts and hasn't gotten better over the years is their truly awful Python-based macOS client software. It is constantly burning a ton of CPU/battery. It's always at or near the top of Activity Monitor's list in the Energy tab. It seems like their app constantly reacts to any file system activity, even if that activity is outside…

Google's is much worse for any significant number of files. It burns a bunch of CPU/battery like you described for Dropbox, but it also freezes eventually and has to be force-killed. I gave up trying to sync my former Dropbox files to Drive.

When was the last time you tried Google Drive?

I had the exact opposite experience. I tried to sync about 700k files to Dropbox and it chewed up CPU for hours, never got past "Preparing to Sync" (or whatever is the equivalent), then crashed. I tried a number of things. Circa about 2 years ago.

Google drive does annoy me when it decides to do a "full scan" and won't sync anything new until it completes, BUT, it does sync all my data, and it doesn't crash or use tons of CPU.

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