
Dropbox silently installed new file manager app on users’ systems - hbgb
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/07/dropbox-silently-installs-new-file-manager-app-on-users-systems/
======
blackbrokkoli
Dropbox current direction just makes me sad.

I struggled with file management for a long time - balancing accessibility
from phone, highly effective programming environments, backing up large
quantities of not-small photos, that stuff. So I sat down one afternoon,
drafted a directory structure, subbed to Dropbox and...it worked so well.
Synced my configs between machines, got an Android app which could preview
lot's of filetypes, rarely thinking about the whole thing. I always thought of
Dropbox quite UNIX-like in a sense, do one thing, but really well.

And then things just kept getting worse. "Checking for changes" on my old
shitty VAIO running Ubuntu went from taking 5 minutes to taking half an hour
to taking 3 hours and never finishing syncing. Time sensitive file accessing
got harder and harder because of continuous UI changes. I tried doing stuff
with Smart Sync (or Selective Sync?) but got lost in the complex matrix of
which feature does what on what OS with what plan. Webapp keeps nagging me
about upgrading, even though I'm literally using less than 5% of my (paid)
plan. Come on, show me some valuation as customer, or better, nothing at all.

This got long, so I guess what I'm saying is: Please go back to being a folder
that syncs, and I'll be just be ok with your nonchalant mail that you're
randomly raising prices.

~~~
navigatesol
> _Please go back to being a folder that syncs_

A simple, effective utility can't support a multi-billion valuation. Where
else will the VC Ponzi dollars go?

~~~
bluedino
Isn't the problem that most Dropbox users just won't pay for it?

~~~
jvagner
I've paid for Dropbox for years, but recently cancelled, because I'm uncertain
of the direction they're heading in. It's like Evernote of yore.. in fact, I
sarcastically think Evernote and Dropbox should merge so I can simplify what I
nostalgically ignore to just one entity.

That said, I get Google Drive File Stream with my G Suite company account, and
I get Microsoft OneDrive with my Office 365 subscription, and I get 2TB in
iCloud with my iCloud subscription. This supports the "feature" idea.

I wasn't _thinking_ about dropping Dropbox until this latest round of product
news.

------
gwbas1c
I've worked for a major Dropbox competitor for almost a decade. Shenanigans
like this don't surprise me.

This happens because product managers, developers, designers, ect, like to get
creative. They think that they need to invent something new; AND, we (in the
industry) see how a certain group of users is constantly confused by the files
and folders concept.

Usually, cooler heads prevail and remind everyone why our customers use our
products: They just want basic file synchronization, sharing, and backup.
That's it!

Fortunately, in our case, we have very vocal major customers, so it's "easy"
for us to plan features and changes that they will like.

That being said: An important subset of users is extremely confused by files
and folders. Figuring out a UI that works for everyone, (power users, normal
users, and non-savy users,) is a bit of a holy grail, and a very important
problem to solve.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _This happens because product managers, developers, designers, ect, like to
> get creative. They think that they need to invent something new_

Capitalism is supposed to be about efficient allocation of resources. Cutting
down the fat. Taking away materiel and capital from people who squander it and
giving it to people who can put it to good work.

How come that those product managers, developers, designers, etc. all have
jobs? Why weren't they trimmed away as the fat they are? Why does this keep
happening to almost every SaaS company out there?

~~~
m463
The world is not planned like you think. All this is emergent behavior,
motivated by the views and interests of the many players.

If you're a developer, you might try implementing a new feature. If you're a
manager, you might encourage the developer because of his initiative and put
it in. Some managers try to differentiate themselves think stuff up and have
their folks do it. Marketing folks might come up with some hidden reason
(learn more about our customers) and implement something extra just to collect
more usage data.

The only place I've seen that discourages wild features is defense
contractors. They strictly develop specifications for what will be created,
then have requirement documents, then design documents tracking the
requirements, then these are followed all the way through to delivery.

------
CPLX
This seems like a good time to resurface the worlds best Quora answer, by
Michael Wolfe. Answering “Why is Dropbox more popular than other tools with
similar functionality?”:

 _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. They built
that.

Why didn't anyone else build that? I have no idea.

"But," you may ask, "so much more you could do! What about task management,
calendaring, customized dashboards, virtual white boarding. More than just
folders and files!"

No, shut up. People don't use that crap. They just want a folder. A folder
that syncs.

"But," you may say, "this is valuable data...certainly users will feel more
comfortable tying their data to Windows Live, Apple Mobile Me, or a name they
already know."

No, shut up. Not a single person on Earth wakes up in the morning worried
about deriving more value from their Windows Live login. People already trust
folders. And Dropbox looks just like a folder. One that syncs.

"But," you may say, "folders are so 1995. why not leverage the full power of
the web? With HTML 5 you can drag and drop files, you can build intergalactic
dashboards of stats showing how much storage you are using, you can publish
your files as RSS feeds and tweets, and you can add your company logo!"

No, shut up. Most of the world doesn't sit in front of their browser all day.
If they do, it is IE 6 at work that they are not allowed to upgrade. Browsers
suck for these kinds of things. Their stuff is already in folders. They just
want a folder. That syncs.

That is what it does. _

[http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Why-is-Dropbox-more-popular-
tha...](http://www.quora.com/Dropbox/Why-is-Dropbox-more-popular-than-other-
programs-with-similar-functionality/answer/Michael-Wolfe)

Oh well.

~~~
bhouston
> "But," you may ask, "so much more you could do! What about task management,
> calendaring, customized dashboards, virtual white boarding. More than just
> folders and files!" > > No, shut up. People don't use that crap. They just
> want a folder. A folder that syncs.

This argument is a good one but it only covers the rise of Dropbox. We are now
in a different era.

Dropbox's functionality is now table stakes and not something new. Windows by
default has cloud sync, macOS does as well. We switched at our company from
Dropbox to Google Drive Stream. Box is really focused on enterprise solutions
-- lots of permissions, probably too much in my opinion but C-suite like that
shit.

This quora answer is irrelevant in the current context. Dropbox needs to
figure out how to stay in a commoditized market where their special sauce is
being integrated into OSes and larger offerings (G-Suite.)

Maybe a return to simplicity is it? But we moved away from the simple solution
because it wasn't sufficent for our needs. And others are just never adopting
it in the first place because it is built into their OS or their app suite.
Dropbox has a long-term relevancy problem here that they have not cracked.

~~~
mrlala
Dropbox can handle a LOT of files. I haven't seen any other service that
doesn't just break.

OneDrive cannot handle tons of files. It just doesn't work. It ends up
freezing, you have no idea what's going on. Can't speak to macOS related
stuff.

We finally were able to migrate off of this.. but we had a VERY file hefty
folder structure. Instead of databases we chose to keep things in individual
files for various reasons. Needless to say this didn't scale well, and there
were about 750k files on the structure. Most of this was archival, but we
simply didn't have the time or care enough to reduce the number of files.. we
just wanted to be able to sync this to cloud data as is. Many files were super
small, so never an absolute size thing just a LOT of files. And a chunk would
keep changing throughout the day.

Dropbox was able to handle this for years- never an issue. Yeah it was fairly
CPU intensive, but it worked very well.

I tried OneDrive on this.. what a nightmare. I tried owncloud, bittorrent
sync, some others I can't even recall. Granted this has been about 3-4 years
since I really tried some other ones with lots of files, but I was so annoyed
every time I did.

~~~
bhouston
Google File Stream
([https://support.google.com/drive/answer/7329379?hl=en](https://support.google.com/drive/answer/7329379?hl=en))
is the bomb - many TBs of files in it, can not even count how many and it is
fast and adaptive.

If you haven't tried it, you do not know what you are missing.

~~~
TeMPOraL
What's up with them? They now have _three_ applications to do file syncing?
Google Drive, Backup & Sync, and Drive File Stream?

I've kept using Dropbox for all these years because they never confused people
like this. There was a single app that gave you a folder that synced.

~~~
stirfrykitty
Personally, I think rsync.net is the best if you're in IT, particularly if
you're a *nix user. Nothing better yet unless you wanted to roll your own. And
the fact they use ZFS makes it great. You can choose where your data resides
and it's fairly inexpensive all things considered. And to the best of my
knowledge, I don't recall them being involved in anything overtly political. I
like tech companies doing what they do best. Tech.

~~~
rsync
Thank you for your kind words - appreciated.

I hope that it will be useful and interesting to note that we have added
'rclone'[1] to our platform[2] which means that your rsync.net account is
truly a swiss army knife for cloud storage organization.

This is very much like our 'borg' support - we actually have the binary
executable installed on our end so you can run it properly. There is also a
discounted signup for these two use-cases.[3][4]

[1] [https://rclone.org/](https://rclone.org/)

[2]
[https://github.com/ncw/rclone/issues/3254](https://github.com/ncw/rclone/issues/3254)

[3]
[https://www.rsync.net/products/borg.html](https://www.rsync.net/products/borg.html)

[4]
[https://www.rsync.net/products/rclone.html](https://www.rsync.net/products/rclone.html)

------
zymhan
Has anyone clicked the link at all? Dropbox says this was a feature in testing
that got accidentally deployed, not an intended update.

> Update 4:06pm ET: Dropbox says this was a mistake. "We recently announced a
> new desktop app experience that is now currently available in Early Access.
> Due to an error, some users were accidentally exposed to the new app for a
> short period of time. The issue has been resolved, though there might be a
> short lag for some users to see resolution. We apologize for any
> inconvenience this has caused."

~~~
bborud
So it is a matter of timing. Why would they test something they do not intend
to ship?

~~~
Bjartr
To find out if they should ship it?

~~~
IanSanders
I could have told the answer without testing required. Jokes aside, probably
depends on what they are trying to achieve.

------
dreamcompiler
Dropbox is two things: Cheap cloud file storage with an API, and a desktop
app.

The desktop app used to be a glorified FUSE app that worked well (except on
ARM Linux for some reason) and got out of your way. Now Dropbox has decided
it's time to ruin the desktop app in an effort to chase conversions. This
strategy will fail.

Fortunately their cloud storage backend still works (unless it bugs you that
they just increased the price a little bit while doubling the storage). There
are several third-party clients that seem to work as replacements for the
Dropbox client app. I'll probably move to Expandrive, which now supports Linux
(it didn't before). Other suggestions welcome.

~~~
obituary_latte
As an Apple ecosystem user (not evangelist), I stopped using Dropbox
completely in favor of iCloud. I mainly only used DB for syncing 1Password
keychains but randomly other stuff too. I do trust apple in terms of security
and their offering is affordable, painless and works well for my needs. May
not fit well for more power-user types and for people who need cross-platform
compatibility but it’s worth a look if you happen to be in the ecosystem and
haven’t taken a gander as yet.

~~~
rimliu
Same here. I even had premium (or whatever they called it) plan, but moved
everything to the iCloud drive and went back to basic, though most likely I
don't even have Dropbox running on my machine right now.

------
mothsonasloth
After Dropbox introduced the 3 machine limit to free tier accounts back in
March. I decided to migrate to Nextcloud.

The migration was easy:

1\. Setup a directory on my VPS for storing files

2\. Install Nextcloud

3\. Configure security

4\. Install clients on (Mac/ Windows and Androd phone)

5\. Starting adding files

~~~
konart
>3 machine limit to free tier

>on my VPS

Well, your VPS is not free I presume?

~~~
tadzik_
Dropbox's cheapest plan that I see on their website is €11.99. My VPS costs me
$5 per month and runs Nextcloud with no arbitrary usage limits, as well as
tons of other shit I need for different things. I assume it's the same for OP.

~~~
dreamcompiler
My VPS (Digital Ocean) gives me a whopping 25GB for $5/month. Are you saying
you can get a TB or more of storage included with your VPS for $5? Please tell
me where!

------
ungzd
Does not look so bad. It's similar to web interface on dropbox.com, but
packaged as "electron-like" app. Its functionality is related only to Dropbox,
and it can be considered a part of main application. If it was third-party
crapware, like free-to-play game or antivirus, I might be concerned, but it's
just a piece of new bad UI and not worse than that.

If I do "apt-get upgrade" and "gnome" metapackage installs me another new
picture viewer/calculator/text editor appeared in new version, does it mean
"Gnome silently installs unwanted software on users computers"?

~~~
nacs
> If I do "apt-get upgrade" and "gnome" metapackage installs me another new
> picture viewer/calculator/text editor appeared in new version, does it mean
> "Gnome silently installs unwanted software on users computers"

The difference is that when I choose my operating system (in this example
Ubuntu/Debian), I trust it's native package manager and repos to install what
they need more than some 3rd party provider shipping new proprietary blobs
without my asking for it.

Also note that when you do `apt upgrade` it prompts for permission if it sees
any new packages/dependencies are being pulled in.

------
thirdsun
While I’m not liking the direction Dropbox is taking I still haven’t found
anything that rivals it as general purpose online storage and meets the
following requirements:

\- can be used as cloud backup destination - I use Arq[0] to backup a huge
music library close to 1TB in daily intervals to my Dropbox. I have never used
Dropbox‘ official app.

\- since my music is located in a place of my , an external drive which might
as well be an NAS at some point, I‘d need to be able to set the source folder
for that backup/sync workflow. Moving my library to a special sync folder,
like the Dropbox folder, isn‘t an option.

\- I‘d also need be able to use that storage to upload and share large files
for public download occasionally. S3 could certainly do that but I‘d prefer a
simpler approach that allows me to quickly upload and share files from monile
and desktop environments alike. Dropbox‘ mobile app and website work quite
well in that regard. I don‘t want separate services for my backup and file
sharing.

\- preferably cross-platform, but macOS support and good browser UX is
required at the very least.

\- should be affordable, certainly not more than 10 bucks monthly for at least
1 TB. S3 pricing structure is too variable. It should be a flat fee.

Is there any worthwhile alternative to Dropbox that ticks all those boxes?

[0] [https://www.arqbackup.com/](https://www.arqbackup.com/)

~~~
GordonS
If you're willing to put in a little work, Seafile fits the bill. For less
than 5 users, you can access the "professional" version for free.

I run it on a cheap Azure VM, backed with with Azure blob storage. It's $15/m
for "cool" tier storage (not too far off your target), or $1/m for the
"archive" tier.

Unlike Dropbox etc, you can also sync files from anywhere on any disk - you're
not limited to a single "Dropbox" folder.

You get a nice web UI that let's you upload/download from there if you want,
and you can also stuff with others if you want.

~~~
thirdsun
Thanks, while it looks interesting they seem to use a bring your own storage
approach - that sounds like more work than I‘d like to put into it. I‘d prefer
to avoid managing servers and VMs.

Due to using Arq I‘m not limited to using the special Dropbox folder. I just
tell Arq which folder to backup to Dropbox. I don‘t use the official client at
all.

------
izzydata
Ever since they killed public folder hosting I've mostly stopped using Dropbox
and moved to Imgur. I want to be able to drag pictures into a folder and then
right click them and get a url to give to people. It was also nice for various
types of small files.

I haven't found anything else that has that level of convenience. The windows
context menus on right click were very good and now they are gone.

~~~
pestaa
I use NextCloud and it has this feature on the desktop. Though it may be a
dialog box first to configure expiration date, and password, I don't fully
recall.

Agreed about the public folder hosting. I remember memorizing my Dropbox user
ID just so I could send people a public URL within seconds.

------
redm
I don't think this was a mistake. The mistake is that they were automatically
switched but I'm sure they intended to download and install it in the
background. I know several people who clicked "try the new dropbox" and it was
instantly installed/available.

I'm not sure this is a problem because I/they asked to try it, but it still
felt a bit odd that it was already installed. Uncanny Valley.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley)

~~~
carti
I don't think the uncanny valley concept is really applicable here, unless the
file manager resembles a human. It's certainly a departure from the expected
behavior, though.

~~~
RobotRidge
Anything that looks almost like what you expect, but is not quite what you
expect, can qualify as falling into the uncanny valley. That term doesn't
exclude definitions outside of robotics / AI but really applies to any UI.

A good example of this is trying to emulate OS UI (like a file manager that
looks like Windows or MacOS) in a browser using Java - this used to happen
more than it does now. But whenever you interacted with it, it wasn't quite
web UI and it wasn't quite OS ui - even though it was trying to be.... It was
really terrible UX and has since fallen out of favor and been replaced by UI
that is clearly web - Dropbox's website is a great example. That's because it
fell into the uncanny valley.

TLDR; if it almost does what you expect, but not quite, it _could be_ uncanny
valley.

------
Ensorceled
Yeah, I had this new interface popup yesterday at random, same time as I got a
notification that a file had been uploaded. I didn't click on the
notification, Dropbox seems to have used this as a hook to launch the
preloaded new application. WTF, Dropbox?

I've recently unsubscribed from Dropbox Pro, in part because I was no longer
using it that much and, mostly, because of the non-stop, incessant, annoying
pleas for me to upgrade to Dropbox Business. I'm a paying customer, stop
advertising upsells to me! I actually get less advertising now that I'm on a
free Dropbox account.

Anyway, depressing to see a service I once counted on go so far wrong.

Reminds me of Evernote and the "Upgrade to business and share your personal
notes and journals with co-workers. And we have chat!!! Did we mention we have
chat? You should check out chat."

~~~
Gene_Parmesan
I'll never understand this impulse to hard sell your already-paying customers
on more shit. It's like once these companies start facing adversity, they just
can't help themselves from trying to squeeze things from people who are
already giving them money. It lends this sort of 'captive-audience' vibe to
the whole affair.

Like, sure, publicize your higher tiers, make their value propositions such
that I might say, "Huh, actually I could use that stuff." But if that stuff is
appropriately displayed at the time I originally signed up, _I 've generally
already completed that value evaluation when I made whatever initial purchase
I made._ I already went through and decided what features I needed or didn't
need, and selected appropriately. If I didn't want the extra upload bandwidth
(or whatever) when I originally signed up, I _probably_ don't want it two
weeks later.

Getting hard sells from a product you already use is almost insulting in a
way. I'm already giving you money -- with today's subscription models, I'm
probably giving you money every month. But that's not enough for you? It
totally changes my opinion of a thing from "useful product that does what I
want" to "merely a means for its owners to make money." Those are two very
different outlooks. The first is collaborative: they create a product that I
find useful and provide it, thereby making my life better in some small way,
and I benefit them by paying for it. The second feels almost manipulative,
like I have to be on guard for potential marketing tactics that don't actually
benefit me in any way.

Honestly, the only thing that these sort of 'push-notification upsells' do for
me is they act as small prompts for me to reconsider my attachment to the
product. Each time I get one, it makes me go, "Wow, this just keeps annoying
me more. Do I really use this thing enough to justify this ongoing annoyance?"

~~~
Ensorceled
I contrast 1Password, which sent me an email on their opted in Channel telling
me about their new Team feature, with Evernote which added a “chat” button and
had it constantly pop up along with a request to upgrade to business. Worse, I
hide the button in settings and it reappeared at least twice now.

With DropBox, when ever I logged in on the web interface, they would redirect
me to a business upgrade landing page, in the best dark pattern tradition it
took a bit to figure out how to get back to my folders.

------
fortran77
I switched to OneDrive and it's great. It works everywhere (iOS, Mac, too) and
it's a first-class citizen on Windows.

And for the same price as DropBox, I get online Office365, two installable
desktop licences of Office, the iOS versions of the office apps, and an
Outlook account, in addition to the 1 TB of storage.

It would be really, really hard for DropBox to come up with an application
suite and bundle it along with their "folder that syncs." So they scramble and
try things like their alternate file manager, that nobody in his right mind
would use!

------
whatever_dude
I've been feeling the same as many people in this thread - DropBox keep adding
all these weird features I don't want or need (document editor? file manager?
notification this and that?) while not doing what I expected (better file
masking for sharing, less resources).

I've heard of pCloud and have been considering testing them since /I simply
want a folder to sync/. Curious if anyone has tried it before and can compare
it directly.

~~~
wwarren
Been a self-hosting ownCloud user for quite some time now, and can highly
recommend it.

------
scarface74
Dropbox is almost as bad as every single third party anti virus product.

I won’t install it on any of my personal computers. If I have to share a
document, I’ll just upload it via the web.

~~~
nessunodoro
I love my Nextcloud so much. I use it all day every day and it just works.
It's missing a few tiny things on my wish list, but it's crazy to me how I
don't miss Dropbox at all.

I can't speak for what it's like to administer Nextcloud for a large org, but
for my personal work sync it is a godsend. Easily my favorite software of the
last three years.

~~~
zapnuk
I just switched back to dropbox after switching to Nextcloud.

For some reason I constantly got a'... could not be downloaded because of a
local file clash' error with 6 files. 2*3 files have the same name but are in
different subfolders. I've searched for this error, deleted the filed locally
and in the cloud. Every time I add them again, I get the same error.

Not to mention that I get reminded of this error every 30 minutes or so...

Whats also annoying was that there are different versions in the Ubuntu
software store. Some are deprecated and don't work anymore. Somehow the
Appimage from their website didn't work either. I imagine this can be
frustrating for new users.

This is why I went back to Dropbox. My usecase is exactly what the top rated
comment says. I need a folder that syncs. Without any problems.

I imagine that icloud would also be a viable option for casual users like me.
However, they don't have a linux client..

~~~
scarface74
There are so many better options then Dropbox.

iCloud once Apple introduces folder sharing in iOS 13.

OneDrive - $9.99 a month full Office Suite including on mobile/web and 6TB of
storage. There is a third party Linux client
([https://www.expandrive.com/onedrive-for-
linux/](https://www.expandrive.com/onedrive-for-linux/))

------
bborud
Well, Dropbox have accomplished one thing: I now see it is time to have a look
at my use of cloud storage and have another look at where the alternatives
are.

I actually use several cloud storage services. I should probably stop using
one or two of them. If nothing else then to save a bit of money and simplify
things.

Congratulations Dropbox.

------
mike_ivanov
The most important Dropbox advantage over OS-integrated solutions is
interoperability. I can sync a folder between Mac, Linux, Windows and mobile
platforms. There is no other product that does it so smoothly, and neither
iCloud nor Window Live will _ever_ do that.

This new stuff, however, is irrelevant. I just don't care, all I need from
Dropbox is to keep syncing a folder between my devices, that's it.

They could have spent money on innovating in their core field of competence:
syncing. Hey Dropbox, how about seamless syncing with S3 for one? Remote NAS
access? Distributed cross-provider virtual filesystems?

But no, instead we have this silly file manager.

------
jabl
With recent changes like the 5 device limit (for the free edition), refusing
to supporting any filesystem on Linux except ext4, and now this, I'm very
happy with my decision to switch to syncthing.

~~~
JshWright
Yeah, I dropped Dropbox when they dropped support for my file system.

------
krzrak
I recommend sync.com as an alternative. It works great, has end-to-end
encryption and their support is very responsive (you can't say that about
Dropbox's support).

~~~
james_pm
I also just discovered sync.com as an alternative to Dropbox. Seems pretty
solid, and delivers on sync without all the additional crap Dropbox keeps
layering on. E2E encryption with a good mobile app.

------
veidr
I wonder how many Dropbox users are like me. I still pay for it, for one
reason only: all the stuff I have shared with a Dropbox link.

I set up Syncthing, and it completely and flawlessly replaced the Dropbox
folder syncing. (It's actually way _better_ , because the sync part is as
reliable, but unlike Dropbox it also supports symlinks, meaning I can sync my
active ongoing work, including stuff like git repos with uncommitted changes —
no need to commit some unfinished work-in-progress before moving to a new
location. Plus, since I'm not sharing my data with Dropbox employees and thus
by extension the US government plus whoever hacks them, I can store even
private data in the folders I sync.)

But the "share with link" feature of Dropbox works really, really well. Want
to paste a video into a bug report, but not deal with horridly slow JIRA? Just
paste the Dropbox link. Want to share a 500MB cute video of your kids? Dropbox
link. Want to paste an image into an HN discussion? You can't, but you can
easily paste a Dropbox link. Giving a talk at a conference and want a few
friends to critique your delivery beforehand? Record yourself practicing and
email/text/whatever them the Dropbox link.

I suspect (without evidence) that lots of Dropbox users are like me. I've
shared hundreds of things that way over the years, and although it isn't
mission-critical or anything, I don't want those links to go dark.

So I keep paying. That's why I think their tiny 2GB free plan is important. If
the stuff you've shared includes even a handful of videos, you quickly exceed
that limit.

In my case, if they upped the free limit to 25GB, I would cancel my paid
service immediately.

------
chubs
It seems to me that every other month this certain company does something that
is anti-their customer base, and maybe there's a market for people considering
moving away from them?

I've been inspired lately by the people who do Pinboard and Arq - both seem to
be doing the one-man-band software thing, making something small and niche yet
making a living out of it.

Background info: Arq is a one-off purchase app that backs up to your cloud
storage account (eg you have an AWS account with an S3 bucket, and Arq backs
up to there).

I was thinking of making a native Mac app Dropbox clone that would be much
like arq (as in, BYO storage account).

Eg it does automatic two-way sync of a folder to S3.

Eg a company could have an AWS S3 account, and buy a copy of this app for each
staff member, and they could all sync to the same S3 account.

I'd charge like $30 for it, which is vs $120/year for dropbox, and your S3 /
Backblaze B2 pricing would be tiny.

Do you think this is crazy? Would you use it if I made it?

Do you think it's a good enough idea to put on indiegogo / kickstarter /
producthunt and see if there's any traction before starting on this?

Thanks peeps

------
spacenick88
I deleted my account when they purposefully made their Linux version not
launch on any other FS than ext4. I use btrfs and that supports all the
features they use, still Dropbox refused to work with it. I complained to
their support and then deleted my account. Then again I guess having a private
server with NextCloud means I'm pretty privileged.

~~~
manigandham
Linux users are already a tiny fraction to be worth the support costs. Adding
multiple filesystems isn't viable.

~~~
yjftsjthsd-h
It's not _added_ ; it used to work and then they removed it.

~~~
manigandham
Same thing, software isn't static and it probably wasn't worth the ongoing
engineering and support.

------
gumby
Poor Dropbox (and poor Dropbox investors). Their core product is really just a
feature, and now others offer that...where's the value?

With the recent price increase I've moved most of my DB stuff elsewhere and
now can get by with the free plan, only for reading things others share with
me.

------
flanbiscuit
I've been meaning to move off of Dropbox and Google drive, does anyone have
any recommendations? I know there are some Torrent related syncs out there. I
just want something that is not centralized and controlled by an entity. I
want full control of it and I sync between desktop/laptop and Android

~~~
proactivesvcs
Syncthing is open source continuous file syncing software. No account needed,
no third-party data storage and can be configured not to use any of the
project's discovery or relaying infrastructure.

[https://syncthing.net/](https://syncthing.net/)

------
noonespecial
About the time dropbox limited me to 3 devices and obsoleted itself on half
the OS's I needed it to shlep files to anyway, I relegated it to a docker
container that also ties into Nextcloud and exports a samba share.

Its pretty much empty now, I just needed to maintain it for some folders I
share with other users.

------
jdlyga
I recently moved from Dropbox to OneDrive. I think OneDrive's been moving
forward more with tying standard windows user folders into syncing. It works
more seamlessly with Windows. If only there was a better Linux client though.

~~~
mrlala
I would have loved to just use OneDrive, but it sucks with a lot of little
files. It literally just doesn't work properly.

At a few hundred thousand files I found OneDrive just stalls.. sometimes it
might work, other times not. Usually it just sits there and you have no idea
what it's doing.

------
jammygit
> Update 4:06pm ET: Dropbox says this was a mistake. "We recently announced a
> new desktop app experience that is now currently available in Early Access.
> Due to an error, some users were accidentally exposed to the new app for a
> short period of time. The issue has been resolved, though there might be a
> short lag for some users to see resolution. We apologize for any
> inconvenience this has caused."

Also, for linux users:

> On Linux, well, Dropbox doesn't care enough about Linux to port the file
> manager app over. Lucky penguins.

------
kristiandupont
I use Resilio Sync for some files between two machines but that only works
when they are both on at the same time. What are some good alternatives?

~~~
swinglock
Run it in daemon mode on a server as well. It even has an encryption option so
that the server can't read or write to the files, just keep them available for
your clients.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
A file manager... If only they could add this little feature "show folder
size"...

------
pyreal
I love the app. I started using it immediately upon seeing it - then went
looking for it all over my system when it disappeared. Makes using Dropbox
much easier on my Mac - and I love being able to create Google Docs right in
Dropbox from it.

------
gekkonier
I needed a tool to sync my files across different platforms. I learned that I
don't need that. You can say lessions learned. I now use a proper backup tool,
and don't spread my digital life through every cloud thats there and not here.

------
seanieb
Lots of “why don’t you just use rsync” type answers .

~~~
TeMPOraL
Precisely the opposite. Most of them are "you made a perfect file syncing app,
would you _please stop messing with it_?".

~~~
seanieb
They’re building a new tool to complement they base offering. Nothing has
changed about that or the way you can use it. You can close this new app and
forget it exists. You want rsync and they’re building a UI for it.

------
kasperset
Is Delta sync exclusive to Dropbox? I wonder if that is the killer feature of
Dropbox or with faster bandwidth it does not matter?

------
eyeball
iCloud Drive it is I guess.

~~~
mikece
I recently stopped using Dropbox and switched to iCloud Drive as well. I had
exceeded the 3 machine limit and was ready to pay for upgraded Dropbox but
decided to compare options first. In addition to costing the same as Dropbox,
iCloud drive allows me to do full system backups and restores to/from iCloud
for iPhone. I don't know if this is unique but I like it and need to figure
out how to get my two MacBooks to do the same thing.

------
novaRom
I did use Dropbox almost daily, 5-10 years ago. Then Acrobat reader got its
own online storage and I see no reason anymore.

------
bbmario
Guess I'm moving to rclone and S3.

~~~
fortran77
> For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite
> trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and
> then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this
> FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

(See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863)
)

~~~
m11r
That comment was written in 2007 when the original suggestion would have been
somewhat more acceptable. In 2019, please do not use _plaintext_ FTP for
anything at all if you can help it, especially for a setup involving personal
documents or other data you care about keeping private. Every single syncing
solution worth anything today, open or proprietary – including Dropbox, Google
Drive, iCloud Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Syncthing, et al. – uses TLS or
another strong form of transport encryption, and that should also be the
_absolute minimum bar_ for anything self-hosted, too.

There are _many_ other better ways of building a Dropbox-like system on Linux
these days than that advice, including the aforementioned Syncthing[1], but
the appropriate update to that comment alone would be "getting a SSH account,
mounting it locally with sshfs[2], and then using Git on the mounted
filesystem".

[1]: [https://syncthing.net](https://syncthing.net)

[2]: [https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs](https://github.com/libfuse/sshfs)

------
awill
I moved from Dropbox (when they dropped xfs Linux support) to Google Drive.
Fine so far.

------
slouch
I don't care at all what Dropbox adds to their app on my computer, because I
don't use it. It runs, and I ignore it.

------
0_gravitas
Perhaps I dont fully understand the value of something like DropBox, when it
comes to syncing my files the only thing I've ever needed has been github (or
other online repo). Among syncing it has all the other version control
goodness, and I will likely use it until I can setup some kind of home server

~~~
jcranberry
From the users perspective git is an application which you use to actively
maintain a repo. Whereas Dropbox is more or less just a magic folder. Entirely
different levels of convenience.

~~~
0_gravitas
I definitely understand why "normal" users wouldn't use an online repo
(especially if they've never used git itself), but I can't really buy `git add
., git commit -m "sync", git push -u` being too inconvenient, especially when
you can just alias all of those. Now if mobile phones are the main reason I
can definately understand a bit more, but I do my best to minimize my usage of
it anyway, it's mainly a messenger + hn device.

~~~
tsegers
That's still one action more than is required for using a synchronization
service. The killer feature is not having to do anything at all. I save my
file on one computer, and it's available on all my other machines, my phone
and anything with a web browser without a conscious thought at all.

~~~
0_gravitas
I wonder how hard it would be to make a folder that automatically pushes
itself to a git repo whenever it detects a change in its contents, I've
actually been thinking about that for a bit now. The optimist in me thinks it
can't be too hard, could be a nice project to do someday.

~~~
jcranberry
You could do it easily with a service which just indexes the files and
periodically looks at most recently modified timestamps and then pushes if any
of them are later than the most recent sync.

------
seanieb
No one comment about the actual substance of the change or why they don’t like
it. Just lots of emotions ! And the author seems to have left out the most
critical thing about this update, the main interphase is still the OS and the
tiny badge in the system tray. The new file browser thing can remain closed
and unused unless you want to use Dropbox search natively or one of their
upcoming 3rd party integrations. It’s a very simple file browser that you need
to click to open, that you don’t need to use, not a bloody crypto miner or an
opt in to sell your data. It would be awesome if folks would actually
criticize the design and technical implementation!

I really dislike this type of FUD based reporting
[https://twitter.com/ronamadeo/status/1151947264149131265?s=2...](https://twitter.com/ronamadeo/status/1151947264149131265?s=21)

