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Why we are leaving Dropbox

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Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#41

Post by vetinari »

dagw wrote: post #33
vetinari wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered, why do small companies use Dropbox at all? A 1 TB NAS in RAID-1 by Synology or QNAP will cost you about 400 EUR (including VAT). That's about 9% of what the author of the article paid for some 700 GB in Dropbox. It will do everything that Dropbox does, except you can use standard protocols (SMB, AFS, WebDAV, whatever) and the data will not leave your company.

It will do everything that Dropbox does Only after a whole lot of hacking and you'll probably end up having to slap a real server in front of your NAS.

What would the real server run?

I haven't found anything, that Dropbox does that the NAS doesn't. Maybe there is some marginal function, I don't know. But is that hypothetical marginal function worth the 900% price premium (per year) plus reduced privacy?

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#42

Post by baldfat »

orenbarzilai wrote: post #4

I'm using dropbox + google drive (due to google docs) both home and for work and I get all of your claims. But what's the alternative? Besides google drive that has it's own issues all other solutions are less than dropbox or same with something missing (proper mobile app etc)... So what are you switching to?

Personally I think BitTorrent Sync has something I really like. I am in the middle of evaluating SyncThing (Open Source project that is similar)

I really like BTSync for th following:

1) Like git the copies are on local machines

2) I control the servers and I control the folders that are shared

3) Super fast in a local network

4) You can use whatever encryption you want and it works perfectly

5) You can selectively sync individual folders and files

6) Easy to share things that are Read Only or Read/Write

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#43

Post by dagw »

vetinari wrote: post #41
dagw wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will do everything that Dropbox does Only after a whole lot of hacking and you'll probably end up having to slap a real server in front of your NAS.

What would the real server run? I haven't found anything, that Dropbox does that the NAS doesn't. Maybe there is some marginal function, I don't know. But is that hypothetical marginal function worth the 900% price premium (per year) plus reduced privacy?

How do you do offline syncing and sharing of folders with people outside of your network? Having to manage a bunch of VPN accounts for outside users seems like a major pain and getting them all set up with OpenVPN seems like an even bigger pain.

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#44

Post by vivab0rg »

baldfat wrote: post #42
orenbarzilai wrote: post #4

I'm using dropbox + google drive (due to google docs) both home and for work and I get all of your claims. But what's the alternative? Besides google drive that has it's own issues all other solutions are less than dropbox or same with something missing (proper mobile app etc)... So what are you switching to?

Personally I think BitTorrent Sync has something I really like. I am in the middle of evaluating SyncThing (Open Source project that is similar) I really like BTSync for th following: 1) Like git the copies are on local machines 2) I control the servers and I control the folders that are shared 3) Super fast in a local network 4) You can use whatever encryption you want and it works perfectly 5) You can selectively s…

Have you already upgraded to the "PRO" version? I've been using it on Linux for about a year and just recently a "7 days left" appeared on the Web UI.

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#45

Post by blfr »

There is no visual indication of progress. No clue about any ETA. No system logs. No detailed activity window.

Not returning any meaningful information when problems arise is the most annoying aspect of modern apps, especially on phones. Even Windows cryptic error numbers were better than this.

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#46

Post by smacktoward »

vetinari wrote: post #31
gvb wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and the data will not leave your company. That is a two-edged sword. The data is also inaccessible outside of your company. There are ways to make it accessible outside the company (VPN, WebDAV over https), but they tend to be complex, fragile, and sometimes unworkable (see next). > standard protocols (SMB, AFS, WebDAV, whatever) Support for the standard file sharing protocols (SMB, NFS, I presume AFS, and WebDAV)…

Well, every single NAS box offers VPN solution that can be enabled by few clicks (usually OpenVPN). Also, most NAS vendors provide mobile applications, so you can access the data. They realize, that the standard protocols on mobile devices are lacking. Anyway, to pay someone to get you such a NAS and configure everything for you is still a fraction of cost, that you would pay for cloud providers.

But then you have to worry about keeping that VPN access secure. There's been cases where that's been a problem, like the ransomware attacks on Synology NAS boxes (see http://www.anandtech.com/show/8337/synology-advises-users-of...).

> to pay someone to get you such a NAS and configure everything for you is still a fraction of cost, that you would pay for cloud providers.

Dropbox for Business costs what, $75/month for 5 users? That's less than you'd pay for an hour of a competent person's time.

I'm not a huge fan of Dropbox for several of the reasons that have already been mentioned above (I use SpiderOak myself), but on these specific points they definitely beat the roll-your-own approach.

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#47

Post by fennecfoxen »

eevilspock wrote: post #37
pppp wrote: post #12

6. No client-side encryption 7. Deceptive advertising. Telling their customers that they encrypt data enroute and at rest without telling them that they use a single common password for every customer.

8. Condoleezza Rice on the board. 9. Mailbox app has server-side access to your email (Gmail or iCloud). This is totally unnecessary for a mail client. They claim they need it to support Snooze functionality, but that is not true. It can be implemented entirely in the client, storing snooze meta-data (with a reference to, not a copy of, the email) only on their servers for cross-device sync purposes.

I like that this new thing where we declare our political enemies anathema and refuse to do business with anything they're affiliated with. I think we need to escalate a little, though, and start boycotting every business that uses Dropbox, too. Also, Stanford.

It's the only way to effect justice in this crazy messed-up world.

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#48

Post by stalcottsmith »

gvb wrote: post #25
vetinari wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered, why do small companies use Dropbox at all? A 1 TB NAS in RAID-1 by Synology or QNAP will cost you about 400 EUR (including VAT). That's about 9% of what the author of the article paid for some 700 GB in Dropbox. It will do everything that Dropbox does, except you can use standard protocols (SMB, AFS, WebDAV, whatever) and the data will not leave your company.

> and the data will not leave your company. That is a two-edged sword. The data is also inaccessible outside of your company. There are ways to make it accessible outside the company (VPN, WebDAV over https), but they tend to be complex, fragile, and sometimes unworkable (see next). > standard protocols (SMB, AFS, WebDAV, whatever) Support for the standard file sharing protocols (SMB, NFS, I presume AFS, and WebDAV)…

Synology offers mobile apps to access the shares.

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#49

Post by ChrisArgyle »

jachwe wrote: post #22
codingdave wrote: post #14

It may be time to explain the "So What?" test of writing again. You should ask yourself that question any time you write an article. (Or give a talk, teach a lesson...) If you gave enough information, that should sound like a stupid question. But if it sounds like something that might reasonably be asked, you forgot to communicate something important. In this case, the big missing piece of data is what they will be u…

The title of the article was "4 reasons why we are leaving Dropbox" and not "10 alternatives to Dropbox", which would be an interesting, but totally different article on it's own. It is good to read about these issues, as these days many people think about moving from A to B in cloud storage. Personally i moved all my storage, contacts and calendars over to a self-hosted owncloud instance, which i did not regret so f…

It's important to voice concerns with wildly popular software but not very thought-provoking. You don't get the call-to-action feel without a discussion of solutions.

Re: Why we are leaving Dropbox

#50

Post by mattlutze »

DenisM wrote: post #34

One problem we have witnessed with Dropbox is that low-tech users tends to delete files they don't personally need. Often times this causes deletion of the files for the entire company. Resultingly admins are afraid to share file access with users, and users are afraid to cause problems, so they ask admins to email the files instead, which sort of puts you back at the square one. We might be approaching a point where…

It used to be a big pile of something-or-other, but the newest iteration of SharePoint is really quite a solid product, particularly for some of the trickier tasks around document management and distribution. And with the Office 365 versions, smaller businesses don't need to worry about building out the physical resources (or hiring the admin personnel) to run an instance.

It might be something to ask your IT folks if they've considered recently.

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