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Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

dropbox.com

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Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#41

Post by baby »

scrollaway wrote: post #34
baby wrote: post #7

This was amazingly awesome because: I could teach people how to make a website, and how to have on the internet, in minutes. Having said that, I haven't had that public folder in many many many many many years. So I'm surprised about this announce. If anyone knows a quick way to let anyone do what I described above, please do tell.

Archive.org lets you upload your own files, with metadata. http://archive.org/ You have a bit more of a guarantee there. Bonus points if you fill in the copyright field correctly. PDFs, audio files, video files etc will all be post-processed and rendered like you would expect them to be.

Isn't that taking advantage of a service that is not to be used for this?

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#42

Post by brandon272 »

make3 wrote: post #35

I really have the feeling that DropBox will die. They don't do anything Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Apple iCloud doesn't do, and these companies all have much more money / talent / infrastructure / synergy with other products.

For some reason I still only instinctively trust Dropbox to reliably sync my files. I'm always worried I'm going to lose something if I put it into my Google Drive or iCloud folder, though I'm sure by this point it is probably just as good/reliable.

My concerns have less to do with individual files being manually added to a Google Drive or iCloud folder and more to do with how well it handles starting entire new project folders w/ hundreds (or thousands) of files that are constantly being updated.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#43

Post by frakkingcylons »

swiley wrote: post #18
dublinben wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How exactly does Tor replace the ease of publishing something with Dropbox?

You just run a web server in a hidden service, it takes less than five minutes to set up. People without for can still see it with onion.to.

What's a hidden service?

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#45

Post by nsm »

gk1 wrote: post #38
onli wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, they definitely notified their users. There were emails and warnings in the UI, it was very visible. Really, you can't blame Dropbox there. However, one can still blame Dropbox for the change itself. I used this on several occasions, including hosting archives for academic publications. No way in hell I can change those links. Maybe that wasn't a wise choice, but at that time it looked like a good way: The link d…

I'm a Dropbox Plus user and I didn't see a single email or in-app message about this.

There was an email in mid December 2016, another one at the beginning of March 2017, and if I remember correctly, one even before that. I'm not even a Pro user.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#46

Post by codazoda »

codazoda wrote: post #33
baby wrote: post #7

This was amazingly awesome because: I could teach people how to make a website, and how to have on the internet, in minutes. Having said that, I haven't had that public folder in many many many many many years. So I'm surprised about this announce. If anyone knows a quick way to let anyone do what I described above, please do tell.

I use GitHub. I'm a developer, so maybe this is hard... They let you use their website to create a repo, add a file, and then in the settings specify that master is the source branch for GhPages so that it's available via the browser to the world at yourname.github.io/yourproject. You can even add a custom domain if you want.

Here are the quick steps to do this.

Visit github.com

Create an account or login

Click the green "New repository" button

Give your website a name like "hello"

Check the box to Initialize this repository with a README

Click the Create repository button

Click the Create new file button

Name the file index.html

Enter

Hello World

in the body of the file

Click the Commit new file button

Click the Settings gear icon

Scroll down to GitHub Pages

Select master branch under Source

Click the Save button

There's now a link to username.github.io/hello under the GitHub Pages heading. You can now edit the index.html file or add css and js resources in the same way you just added the index file. Uploading files, such as images, is also supported. All without using Git.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#49

Post by RachelF »

mixedbit wrote: post #40
bane wrote: post #6

This feels like a step backwards. DB has struggled to figure out something beyond being a really great cloud-share drive thing, and sorta kinda messed around with using your DB to host media like photos (which would then make users desire to upgrade their space) and automagically supply some interface sugar around a pile of photos. But they could have kept going in that direction and competed with all of the photosha…

My guess is that the reason they are closing this is the cost of bandwidth. Dropbox allowed to host publicly all types of large files and exchange such files by a link that did not require any interaction with DropBox to download. It seems really hard to monetize such usage.

Perhaps, but the MPAA/RIAA and what happened to KimDotCom are also probably a big factor.

Re: Dropbox accounts created after Oct. 2012 won't have a public folder

#50

Post by ajmurmann »

cpg wrote: post #27
zitterbewegung wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have an email notification from Dropbox in December of last year saying this will be disabled.

Yes, I probably missed the notifications somehow. They probably should have had some warning on the app itself when putting or sharing files from that folder. It's a free service, so my bad for using it without a good backup, but I had used programs for a long long time that produce screenshots with one keystroke and copy the URL to the clipboard, saving time. I figured this was relatively low overhead for them and a…

I got the same email as the GP, but also saw a message on the web page. However, how frequently does anyone log in to the web page?

Disclaimer: I've been fed delicious lamb chops and duck at the DB office, so my view might be tainted.

Edit: I also received another email about it on March 1st

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