As an alternative, I recently setup Nextcloud on an Ubuntu running vm using the snap package[1] and it took around 30 minutes in total.
Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
91–100 of 393 posts
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#92I really wish mobile OSes would allow you to grant apps permissions but serve fake data, (that's important!) without giving the app the ability to tell the difference. Just so it appears to the app that you've given the permission, when you in fact have not. This would solve this entire class of problems and then some. So, for example: - App "has" access to contacts, but the system returns that you have none. - App "…
I use xprivacy lua in android that does exactly this. It's not simple for general public though and it needs root.
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#93Syncthing might be a good option for those that wish to migrate. It is a stable open-source solution for syncing a directory in many-to-many clients situation. The syncthing itself provides no servers. But if you wish to have a central server it could be as easy as just installing synchting on your main machine or a cheap VPS. The UI is good enough and it is stable.
Syncthing has been working very reliably for our agency, with multiple users reading/writing to shared projects, with a NAS elected as "master" (though ST doesn't care who's who). Frankly impressive for an OSS project.
However setting up and managing Syncthing is far from self-explanatory for a non-technical audience. It's OK in our case as we can hand-hold and onboard people in-house, but not ideal. Syncthing's usability would benefit immensely from an updated front-end UX, consistent across platforms.
Dropbox for all its recent dark patterns and upsells is still one of the most intuitive systems. Yes, the client UX has worsened, but the core service retains a very predictable behaviour. A folder is a folder. Shared with X and Y. When un-sharing or deleting a folder or file the options are clearly communicated. Compare this with Google Drive, where a "file" can become orphaned and keep existing in limbo, where it's invisible in the browser or filesystem, but it's discoverable by search. It drove us nuts multiple times making it very hard to track access to old documents without having to update settings one-by-one, etc. Google Drive feels like an afterthought to accompany the otherwise great Docs, Slides. and Sheets.
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
iOS almost allows this for geo-location nowadays, where one can pick whether to give ones exact position or a much less exact position, and for photos where one can select exactly what photos the app should get access to.
Does android have this API? The problem I see is, if they are introduced in later versions, people are anyway used to apps asking these permissions and developers don't bother to use these. Also, a question to security experts: In many apps say we want a UX where the user would immediately be able to see their recent pics and select from them (think recent photos bar in whatsapp), but app shouldn't be able to access…
Android has a better API, and has had it for at least 5 years. An app can open the system UI for you to choose a file, and it would then only get access to that particular file while the activity (screen) that requested it is running. As far as the user is concerned, this requires no permissions. Under the hood, the app gets a content:// URI with an "URI permission" granted. This is also how sharing (Intent.ACTION_SEND) works. You could as well use this mechanism to expose the content in your app to other apps in a controlled manner.
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#95OP here. Just to clarify some confusion. I can still login using my username and password. I just liked the simplicity of logging in via Google, since I was already logged in there.
Seems like I'm no longer able to do that and, from what I read here, some users might be completely locked out unless they give access to Google contacts.
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#96Syncthing might be a good option for those that wish to migrate. It is a stable open-source solution for syncing a directory in many-to-many clients situation. The syncthing itself provides no servers. But if you wish to have a central server it could be as easy as just installing synchting on your main machine or a cheap VPS. The UI is good enough and it is stable.
I use both Syncthing and Nextcloud (each for different things). Nextcloud is more akin to Dropbox, and works very well. Syncthing is peer-to-peer, so you don't get a web UI you can browse on your phone and selectively download data (it's "all or nothing" per directory), but I haven't had a single problem with it in years. It just works.
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#97Hi, I'm working on a Dropbox alternative where only you own your data. It's still in beta, but files are already stored on the decentralized Sia Skynet network and only you have access because all files are encrypted with your key!
https://marstorage.hns.siasky.net/
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#98Do you need Google login though? I think for every platform I have created a separate account (and don't link them together).
Me too. I buy a domain and setup a forward-all email server.
For example, github@mydomain.dev for github. With a password manager, I won't confused at login.
And most importantly, use fb@mydomain.dev at Facebook since I will see AD on Facebook about what I just browsed on another shopping site with the same email account.
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#99I left dropbox when they changed the full page upsell to "dropbox business" so that I couldn't easily figure out how to skip it and get on with my work. I had a paid pro account at the time. I actually had a conversation with a product manager; I checked the yes you can contact me when I cancelled my account. They simply refused to admit that an upsell was a advertisement and that disrupting my workflow on my paid, p…
Exact same experience, your first reaction when you see it is "am i logged into the right account?" because you know you have a paid account
Re: Tell HN: Dropbox now requires access to contacts for Google login
#100Syncthing might be a good option for those that wish to migrate. It is a stable open-source solution for syncing a directory in many-to-many clients situation. The syncthing itself provides no servers. But if you wish to have a central server it could be as easy as just installing synchting on your main machine or a cheap VPS. The UI is good enough and it is stable.
Syncthing has been working very reliably for our agency, with multiple users reading/writing to shared projects, with a NAS elected as "master" (though ST doesn't care who's who). Frankly impressive for an OSS project. However setting up and managing Syncthing is far from self-explanatory for a non-technical audience. It's OK in our case as we can hand-hold and onboard people in-house, but not ideal. Syncthing's usab…
That's because Syncthing is a different beast. If you want something closer to Dropbox, use Nextcloud, which does basically everything Dropbox does (and more) and has the simple sharing UI you're talking about.