
Dropbox finally launches to the public (YC summer 07) - dhouston
http://blog.getdropbox.com/?p=13
======
rantfoil
Dropbox is the first and only sync / storage solution of its kind that
ACTUALLY WORKS. Tremendous job, and I love using Dropbox every day.

~~~
crescendo
Same here. Dropbox is the best YC-backed product to date, IMO.

~~~
fallentimes
Ahem, TicketStumbler.

Just kidding, I'm in love with their service and am a very happy user. They're
backed by Sequoia and some other BSDs.

How the hell do you make something boring like file storage viral and cool? I
don't know but Dropbox just did it.

~~~
AndyKelley
How is it viral?

~~~
fallentimes
Not only have I enjoyed it so much I've told countless friends about dropbox,
it also auto invites your friends to join when you share a file with them.
That's in part why they already had over 100,000 beta testers before even
launching.

------
tuukkah
I find this misleading at best: <http://www.getdropbox.com/install?os=linux>

_It's here, it's open source, and it's free software! Dropbox for Linux is
finally available and ready for your everyday use._

Further down the page:

\-- _dropboxd is a per-user closed-source daemon process that makes sure your
$HOME/Dropbox directory is properly synchronized._

~~~
tzury
want the souce? get it:

[http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/5143/nautilus-dropbox-
packages/0....](http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/5143/nautilus-dropbox-
packages/0.4.1/nautilus-dropbox-0.4.1.tar.bz2)

~~~
tuukkah
That's not Dropbox, that's the Nautilus integration. That is, you keep the
essential parts proprietary and closed, and open the parts where you hope
others to do work for you. It's not the oddest strategy, but it doesn't live
up to the promise either.

On the other hand, if you freed the daemon too, you could get included in
Linux distributions, and people would know what all Dropbox is doing on their
computers.

------
josefresco
"It started in Boston’s South Station in November 2006 where one night, while
waiting for the Chinatown bus to New York, I wrote the first lines of code of
what eventually became Dropbox. I had forgotten my USB drive at home and was
frustrated that I couldn’t get any 'real work' done."

Ha, classic 'founder story' as discussed 7 days ago:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=294663>

~~~
j2d2
It's funny because dropbox wouldn't help him on a bus... :)

~~~
cdr
Not like there's not mobile wireless, and there's even buses with wifi.

------
rokhayakebe
DropBox a winner? Xobni a winner? How did they do it?

The recipe is to not rush your product out there. I think most entrepreneurs
do not understand "Release Early, Update Daily, Weekly, Monthly". Sometimes
releasing early can work against you. Be patient.

~~~
KrisJordan
DropBox did release early, though, didn't they? Just not publicly. My
understanding was they did iterate _a lot_ with early testers.

~~~
mattmaroon
I know some people who have early clients installed that they can't get rid of
:)

------
tdavis
I routinely forget I even have Dropbox because it gets out of my way so damn
perfectly.

Amazing job. And thank you most of all for the "undo" feature. I'm not saying
that one day Dan accidently deleted all of our files, but you know,
hypothetically.

~~~
fallentimes
Livingston did it.

~~~
tdavis
Don't blame this on poor, sweet Livingston you knave!

------
Hexstream
Makes me giggle when I remember Joel's rant
(<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html>):

" _Since 1988 many prominent architecture astronauts have been convinced that
the biggest problem to solve is synchronization.

[...]

When did the first sync web sites start coming out? 1999? There were a million
versions. xdrive, mydrive, idrive, youdrive, wealldrive for ice cream. Nobody
cared then and nobody cares now, because synchronizing files is just not a
killer application. I'm sorry. It seems like it should be. But it's not.

[...]

this so called synchronization problem is just not an actual problem, it's a
fun programming exercise that you're doing because it's just hard enough to be
interesting but not so hard that you can't figure it out._"

You show him!

~~~
Bluem00
He seems to have embraced it, regardless of his earlier opinions on the
subject: <http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/09/11b.html>

------
aidanf
You should add a link to your main site on your blog. I arrived on the blog
from the HN link having no idea what Dropbox is or what it does. I had to
manually edit the url to get to the main page to find out what it does. Lots
of users would be too lazy to do that.

~~~
thalur
Snap. Also, the tour thing doesn't load on the PCs here at work (probably the
firewall), so I still don't know what it is! The site could do with a bit of
simple plain boring old html text which tells us poor people behind firewalls
what all the fuss is about :)

------
thedob
I'd like to emphasize how well Dropbox works as a collaborative tool. Never
having to attach and download shared files from email is a great help in
staying organized.

A co-worker can simply shoot you an IM or shout across the office that a
document has been updated, and it's already on your machine ready to be
opened.

I hope people don't get this confused with a source code repository though, as
it definitely isn't optimal for working on shared source code. Stick with
documents, images, and media, and you'll be fine.

------
immad
Reddit:
[http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/70yy8/dropbox_gd...](http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/70yy8/dropbox_gdrive_killer_finally_launches_plus)

Digg:
[http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_GDrive_Killer_finally_launc...](http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_GDrive_Killer_finally_launches_plus_Linux_iPhone)

Already at the top of digg!

------
mrtron
I have been using it for quite a few months and am officially impressed with
the stability of the app. This is a good time to remember to backup - I will
be saving some important photos immediately!

The only complaint I have is that it does not make explicitly clear (to me)
what folders are public.

------
brlewis
Is there an API such that an automated service could detect that someone
shared a folder with it? Failing that, is there a Linux command-line client?

------
sireat
First impressions: Very positive

Dropbox will probably take over gmail as my primary file storage on the go...
;)

Now, one question though, is Dropbox smart enough to only access network when
I am actually doing anything with it(ie transfering files from/to Dropbox), or
will it occasionally do weird sync type of things even when I am not using
it(but have Dropbox folder open on desktop)?

------
JesseAldridge
Weird issue with the website: On this page:
<http://www.getdropbox.com/install?os=linux> if I move my mousewheel while the
cursor is over that ascii dropbox on the right my cpu usage jumps to 100% and
Firefox hangs for a few seconds. Using Firefox 3.0.1 on Ubuntu 8.04.

------
whacked_new
I can't wait to sign up... but would really like to see encryption. Is this on
the todo shortlist? (third time asking!)

~~~
aston
I think if you're actually interested in encryption, your best bet is actually
not to wait on us to help you with it. If we're cooperating with you to
encrypt your data, it's by definition not secure. A number of security-
conscious users use us combined with TrueCrypt volumes.

~~~
tlrobinson
I see a couple ways you could introduce encryption securely.

1\. At the very least, encrypt data being transfered using SSL, to prevent
sniffing on WiFi and other public networks. Public key cryptography (like SSL)
certainly can be secure, and does or doesn't require "cooperation" depending
on your definition.

2\. Your client could somehow integrate with something like TrueCrypt, but
leave it up to the user to manage their keys.

~~~
aston
We definitely do use encryption for both data transfer and storage. I didn't
mean to imply that those things happen in the clear.

And yeah, hopefully we can find a way to help users along the path of managing
their own keys.

------
dskhatri
I must say that while I was already impressed by the product, the blog post
announcing the public launch was just as impressive. It is very well written
and portrays the company as having great professionalism and aptitude. You
don't see many startups doing this.

Finally, yay! for being an MIT startup :)

------
extension
There seems to be an explosion of these online storage services. They will
become much more useful when/if there is a standardized API with per-app
isolation and access control. The closest I've seen to that is Openomy:

<http://api.openomy.com/2.0>

------
froo
This story has already been Dugg, and interesting to note there seems to be
people signing up to Digg just to badmouth dropbox and plug sugarsync.

eg <http://digg.com/users/supersaucer>

EDIT - PS, love dropbox guys, good work!

------
netcan
Is this an intended use:
<http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/09/11b.html> ?

BTW, he's right about the URL. Wonder how much the squatters want for it?

------
truebosko
That's awesome. I finally got the invite a week or so ago and I couldn't be
happier. I already got 3 of my friends on it as well because it just WORKS.
Beautiful

~~~
adamt
I've use jungledisk and MobileMe/iDisk, but on seeing this story this morning
I thought I'd give dropbox a try, and I was blown away by how well it 'just
worked'. Things like sharing, proper diffs, public folders all done properly
and simply. Really need Mac Finder integration. I'm a convert!

Shame that someone else has the dropbox.com domain though ...

------
KrisJordan
Congrats on the release! Just got an invite yesterday and believe this is a
truly great product that provides end-users a beautiful experience.

------
jonknee
Fantastic! Now if I could only get the Linux app to work with my Aspire One
I'll be in heaven (libgio-2.0.so.0 is a missing dependency).

------
jaymstr
Looks pretty cool. I'm looking forward to using it. They're presentation at
TC50 didn't go so hot though. I feel bad for the guy.

------
raju
Great job guys! Dropbox is certainly one of the best products I have used, and
you guys are definitely making it better...

------
chmike
What about privacy ? Data is stored in clear text ? Where is it stored ?

How about making it possible to setup a private server ?

------
btw0
I will use it only if it has a command that will mount the dropbox somewhere
in my filesystem, no nautilus.

~~~
clay
I started reading this thread and I thought, oh finally linux. But then I got
really sad when I learned that nautilus was required :(

------
nostrademons
W00t, congrats guys, and you're gonna make me regret that I didn't join back
last February. :-)

------
Protophore
Congrats! I'll pass the word around and see if I can't get some more people to
sign up.

------
rms
Highly recommended -- Dropbox provides an extremely rare, zen-like experience.

------
tectonic
Does DropBox encrypt your files? I couldn't find anything on their site.

------
AndyKelley
The tutorial video is great. One of the files was named TPS Report.doc.

------
jodrellblank
"Sometimes you need your files on the run, and we were amazed that no one had
made it easy"

What? Never heard of offline files, briefcases, SSH/FTP/SFTP/Web/WebDAV
servers, Sharepoint, Groove...? (or any of millions of online file
repositories?)

~~~
LogicHoleFlaw
Keyword being "easy."

~~~
jodrellblank
That seems an odd keyword for the sort of person capable of writing dropbox
and for a site like HN which revels in arguments about what kind of threading
mechanisms are preferable.

I don't suppose I'd win any favor for saying Offline Folders - you logoff your
domain, they sync, you logon, they sync again. It isn't _any_ effort once it's
setup. Not even browsing to a webpage or entering a password.

~~~
nailer
a) Home users don't have Windows domains

b) Nor can they set up offline folders easily

------
ttol
congrats (again) drew!

------
ryanspahn
Congrats and dugg!

Is a domain name change in the future? Drop the word get?

------
bradgessler
This is awesome; exactly what I've been looking for.

Congrats on the launch!

------
netcan
I liked this :

 _Now with lots of AJAX!_

------
nazgulnarsil
this seems like an easy backup solution for a small business.

------
fallentimes
Love it.

