This website is near impossible to read on a large 4k screen. The huge headers and the low contrast makes is very shitty reading experience.
The new Dropbox
521–530 of 590 posts
Re: The new Dropbox
#522Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are taking strong positions on what is right or wrong when there is no objective answer and tradeoffs both directions. > It is a user's responsibility to insure that a symlink will work elsewhere; cloud services should just copy the file, just like any other. The users who expect a symlink to trick a cloud service into special behaviour (like syncing folders elsewhere) are also wrong. You no more want a cloud ser…
>symlinks to Windows (or at least WinXP since they didn't exist until Vista) The version of NTFS in windows xp and the version of windows explorer both supported symlinks just fine. There was just no user-mode api to create them. You could use a kernel driver to make them, or even mount the disk offline and make them
Great point (found tons of resources here: http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext...)
Still a lot of restrictions here that would make in Dropbox's shoes circa 2008 not attempt to support them:
1. Kernel driver requirement requires admin rights which hurts installing ability
2. General instability (looks like applications might not respect symlinks right -- e.g. deletes could recursively delete contents within the symlink)
3. Won't work with users running older NTFS or FAT32 (e.g. XP upgrades) -- not sure how common that was in 2008 though.
Re: The new Dropbox
#523Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Personally what I value is just basic cloud storage with a decent automatic sync. That reminds me of a pretty famous Quora answer (here https://www.quora.com/Dropbox-product/Why-is-Dropbox-more-po... ) that described why Dropbox succeeded: > 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. T…
>No, shut up. Most of the world doesn't sit in front of their browser all day. well, I've got bad news for the guy. Just being a data storage company is probably not a great business strategy because the web and competition have become ubiquitous.
I disagree. If you have a niche, and you do it WELL, you can do that. And Dropbox did.
But now they are messing that up. And not just this. They implemented a 3 device limit, and the next level is super expensive. Unlike any of their competitors. I'd say that is not a great business strategy.
Re: The new Dropbox
#524Earlier quoted context omitted.
The limit on number of syncing devices has me exploring other options - I'm an oldschool Dropbox user, I got most of my storage space with referrals years ago, and I consume about 6GB on the free plan. I don't need 2TB. I don't really even want 2TB, and I'm certainly not going to pay over $100 a year for 2TB. I'd pay some smaller amount of money for the ability to sync additional devices without storage that I'll nev…
You (and I) were definitely part of the problem, but limiting the number of devices was brilliant on their part as it forced me (and many others) to think hard about my options. Unlike you however, I came to the conclusion that 1) Dropbox are far superior to the competition for me (eg., I regularily build and test out of a Dropbox folder), 2) I actually get enormous value of it. $120 (they raised the price) is worth…
The limiting isn't really the problem, because its smart like you said.
The problem is free -> $120 a year is a big jump. I don't need 2TB of space. I probably don't even need 10GB of space. But I would pay $50 for more space and more devices.
Re: The new Dropbox
#525I'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…
I would do selfhosting:
big with https://www.freenas.org/
small with https://freedombox.org/
scaling with https://nextcloud.com/
If you cant do any self hosting https://nextcloud.com/ can be paid for. THere is a demo here https://demo.nextcloud.com/
Re: The new Dropbox
#526What are the best alternatives to Dropbox? Is google drive better?
Run your own: Seafile or NextCloud
Big company: iCloud or OneDrive
Re: The new Dropbox
#527Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't need 2TB either, but I do need a cross-platform solution where the incentives of the company are aligned more or less with mine in providing the service. iCloud will always primarily be about Apple devices, which I like well enough and have several of, but maybe won't always. Microsoft's offering will probably be the same from the PC side of things. Google will offer me the world for free but data mine the he…
The dropbox linux client works, but it's not great. It's recently stopped syncing for me because it now only supports ext4 filesystems, for some reason - and I currently have everything on btrfs.
You can use a loopback file to work around that, e.g. see https://metabubble.net/linux/how-to-keep-using-dropbox-even-....
Re: The new Dropbox
#528I'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 custome…
Glad I'm not the only one that thought this. I just want a folder on my computer I can put stuff in and have it backed up / synced automatically. I don't use/want any other features.
Re: The new Dropbox
#529Earlier quoted context omitted.
"To be fair, most commercial cloud services overthink this, and also get it wrong." ssh user@rsync.net ls -asl some/dir ... looking good ... "There's exactly one sync program that gets it all right: Unison, written by Benjamin Pierce" ssh user@rsync.net unison Usage: unison [options] or unison root1 root2 [options] or unison profilename [options] (Ask about the HN readers' discount)
I tried to use unison for serious production work a few years ago, and it fell short. It would fail or become incredibly slow with large (but not huge) amounts of data. A pity because the concept is great. I wonder if it has improved since.
You can work around failures of large initial unison syncs by creating a partial directory tree on the target manually.
It treats the creation of a new directory as an atomic operation, and rolls it back on failure.
(So, if the initial sync will take a week, then precreate the top level or two of the directory hierarchy...)
It’s an annoying problem, but after the initial sync, partial syncs are fast and reliable.
Re: The new Dropbox
#530Earlier quoted context omitted.
> control over my files like that does not appeal to me in the slightest. Then self-host Nextcloud on your NAS. > anti-consumer practices when it comes to hardware repairability and data ownership. Hardware repairability? Agreed, but this goes hand-in-hand with security. IMO all hardware and data should be entangled with the Secure Enclave/T2 chip but Apple is a long way from that (looks, however, as if they are work…
> Then self-host Nextcloud on your NAS. Nextcloud's implementation is terrible. > IMO all hardware and data should be entangled with the Secure Enclave/T2 chip This is an absolutely terrible implementation of security. There is no reason that your data should be tied to a circuit board that does everything. Mac logic boards are ticking time bombs. > I don't get tech people who do this. You go to a store, ask about a…
> Nextcloud's implementation is terrible.
Please explain more