
Dropbox Founder on New Features and Global Expansion - immad
http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/01/24/dropbox-founder-on-new-features-and-global-expansion/
======
latch
Dropbox is great, and it's one of the few companies I don't mind pimping out.
However, even I have my limits, and "the best 30 comments on this post
explaining why Dropbox is awesome will be given 5GB, of extra storage on their
account" crosses the line. It's just ego stroking and obvious advertising at
that point.

If you must, why not reward people with the best ideas to improve dropbox or
who have unique ways of leveraging it? I'll give you $5 to tell me how great I
am...seriously?

~~~
ivankirigin
Dropbox did something interesting with "best comments" on this reddit thread.
Reddit spoofed our logo, and we did it to celebrate.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dm8ep/ohai_reddi...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/dm8ep/ohai_reddit_thanks_for_stealing_the_dropbox_logo/)

The best comment was about interesting ways to use dropbox. Some even I hadn't
heard of. The second comment thread was recursive actually, showing how
awesome reddit can be.

These things are more fun than serious. Throwing around GBs to people that
like Dropbox is really common (see Dropquest, <http://dropbox.com/edu>
<http://dropbox.com/free> ). I wouldn't read too much into it here; folks just
thought it would be nice and fun.

btw I work for Dropbox. I ran that reddit mini campaign.

------
TheUSMarshall
Any files and folders that haven't been specifically made public by users
through the existing "Public" sharing model and/or the new shareable link
model are Private and inaccessible to anyone who does not have direct access
to a user's Dropbox account.

The new sharing model allows you to create links to folders and individual
files outside of the "Public" and "Photos" folders. The feature is currently
still being tested and it has only been enabled for a subset of users. The
links created by this sharing model utilize SSL, they can be revoked at any
time by going to dropbox.com/share (in the "links" section) and they only
provide access to the specific folder or files that the users creates the link
to.

We also have specific policies with regards to intellectual property. More
information about this and other Dropbox policies can be found here:

<https://www.dropbox.com/terms>

------
joelhaasnoot
The one thing that Dropbox fails on, together with just about every other
version control system, is that novice users (or your business-type
cofounders), easily create conflicts with Word, Excel and other files. There's
no easy way to handle it, but the current way is very annoying at best. Most
of the time I guess it, and delete the one I think is wrong, but one day that
will lead to the loss of some important changes. It's hard to merge every type
of document, but atleast give me the best info, or a list of conflicts: who
created it, when the versions were each last edited, file sizes, etc. Often a
user will edit an old copy of the file and wreak havoc. Finally, dropbox syncs
_everytime_ I view an Office document. Must be Word's fault, but it's
annoying.

~~~
patio11
Thankfully, if you ever blow away something important, Dropbox gives you an
undo. (Create a file, let it sync, delete it, then go check their website.)

~~~
ddlatham
Do deleted revisions count against your quota?

~~~
rufo
No, though deleted files/revisions are purged after 30 days unless you have a
paid account.

------
jeffclark
Dropbox is one of those companies I gladly hand over $10/month to.

Invaluable for backup, let alone for storage.

------
r00fus
Hmm... so you can publicly share your mp3s and videos? Haven't we heard of
this before (mp3.com)... I wonder how they'll deal with "infringement" cases
from the media cartel?

As a current dropbox user, I'm a bit concerned about this functionality (since
by default public means public but unlisted, it can still be shared). Hope
these guys did a bit of homework here.

~~~
ugh
You can already publicly share files in Dropbox, even with those who don’t
have a Dropbox account. They have to be in your “Public” folder (if you don’t
have one you can create one).

Here is a link to a file in my public Dropbox folder:
<http://dl.dropbox.com/u/4073000/Dropbox.txt>

I have never actually seen anyone share Dropbox links to pirated content. I
don’t know why that is (pirates seem to use all other services which allow you
to upload files) but as far as I can see, Dropbox has no big problems with
piracy.

~~~
VomisaCaasi
I have had my Public Folder disabled twice after sharing few non-copyrighted
music sets to reddit's underground. I don't think they really care about
copyright, since I did in fact have copyrighted music in my Dropbox as well
that I shared only to friends, but rather by monitoring bandwidth. Dropbox
isn't saying out loud what exact number is, but I figure it could be around
somewhere 10GB of traffic per month per user.

~~~
ugh
That might be what makes it unattractive for pirates. I think filehosters
pirates use don’t have that kind of bandwidth limitation. (If 10GB is the cap,
a 600MB movie could only be downloaded about 17 times.)

I think that hosters like Rapidshare have an upload quota but no bandwidth
limit. Bandwidth is limited for downloaders, not uploaders. (It’s impossible
to download much without paying but an uploaded file will not become
inaccessible because too many people download it.)

Rapidshare obviously makes money with piracy so they cleverly encourage it
without overstepping legal boundaries. Dropbox is a very different company, I
don’t think it would be good for them to be seen as a tool used be pirates
which is why the cleverly discourage it.

------
theBaba
I really like Dropbox - the ubiquity and ease of use are great.

There's one annoying hangup tho, and this is what so far has kept me from
paying for a great service I would otherwise immediately sign up for a paid
account:

When you share a file/folder in your Dropbox with someone the space used
counts against BOTH your quota AND the other person's quota.

This means that even if I am paying $10/month for a 50GB account, if I share a
folder that has 2GB of data with a coworker or friend that only has a free
account, that share immediately fills their entire quota.

Dropbox's only answer to this problem is that you should sign up for "Dropbox
for teams." This is $795/year for 5 users with a shared quota. Not really an
acceptable solution in my opinion.

~~~
limmeau
On the other hand, if sharing didn't count towards both parties' quotas, then
you could just create an army of sockpuppets, each of whom shares their 2GB
folders with you. I understand that the Dropbox people don't want to make it
that easy.

------
drdaeman
I'd say Dropbox can be fun for quite unusal reason - their software. Custom-
built CPython with encrypted .pyc files (some of them are free software, so
there's a known-plaintext) and without any useful introspection modules left.
Aren't this _fun_?

Disclaimer: Regrettably, Dropbox TOS forbids reverse-engineering, so I didn't
dare to violate them. ;) (Even though local laws here, in Russia permit some
limited reverse-engineering for some conditions.)

------
markessien
Dropbox works in china partially. Even though it is blocked, you just need to
connect to the VPN shortly, and even if you disconnect, after that it works
fine.

------
pdx

        Share any folder or file in your Dropbox without having to 
        move it to the Public folder. So you can just right-click 
        on a file to share it.
    

Hmmm, I have to say, this concerns me. It seems to open up security
vulnerabilities that are currently not present. I'm sure they'll do a fine job
implementing it, but this makes me wary and watchful for the security of my
files.

~~~
rst
Well, it gives careless users more rope to hang themselves, but I'm not sure
it changes anything in principle. The Linux version at least works by running
a binary that they ship you, which runs with your uid and communicates with
their servers. Short of building from source yourself (if you can get the
source!), you already have to trust them to ship code which looks at only the
stuff that they're supposed to be looking at, and not to be rifling through
your firefox history on the side.

~~~
pdx
It's not dropbox I'm worried about, so much as the fact that a system that has
the ability to make public any file at the owners direction, could be
potentially exploited to make public any file without the owners direction.

Are non-public files now accessible to third parties who have the correct url?
Is there code that maps encoded url's to every file in my dropbox? If so, this
is a security vulnerability that is not present currently.

~~~
TheUSMarshall
Non-shared files are inaccessible to anyone who isn't logged into that Dropbox
account... if it's not shared by the user, it's not accessible.

------
Florin_Andrei
Did they add yet that new feature where the software is actually updated when
they release a new version? As opposed to manual update, or wait 6 months
until the autoupdater decides it's time to wake up.

~~~
ivankirigin
The desktop clients update themselves regularly and have for some time.

------
reinler
Dropbox is the best thing I have ever come across. It has saved my life so
many times on term papers and keeps all of my school work safe. Never will a
"dog eat my homework" happen again...although I suppose that the excuse does
come in handy sometime... :)

------
hoag
+1 I _love_ Dropbox and use it for everything. Refuse to store anything
precious exclusively on my laptop.

