Dropbox to kill-off Public folders?

[Golden]

The popular storage service is reportedly ditching its public folders after July 31, telling developers that they should make a change to their application functionality.

Dropbox to kill off public folders? | Internet & Media - CNET News

 

[Trucidation]

According to the article, they're not exactly removing the sharing feature; they're going to replace (?) it with the Get Links feature they announced earlier in April.

Not quite sure I understand what the difference is.

 

[jimbo45]

According to the article, they're not exactly removing the sharing feature; they're going to replace (?) it with the Get Links feature they announced earlier in April.

Not quite sure I understand what the difference is.

Hi there

just being sceptical here -- but what was probably FREE will now be a "Charge for feature" usually promoted as "...PRO" versions or you'll have to accept load of commercials on the so called "Free Version".

Stuff that starts out as Free and is excellent usually ends up this way -- and good to relate most of the EXCELLENT open source / free applications that still remain go from strength to strength. Forget the bunch of Scrobbits that entice you to a "Freebie" and then continually Nag you into going "Pro".

In I.T my experience is that any mention of "PRO" in an application means "PAY".

As an example just take the very popular VLC player -- does stuff that PAID for apps like PowerDvd don't do at all.

Cheers
jimbo

 

[boohbah]

Public folders in existing accounts, however, will continue to function as before."

im alright then and my other two accounts

 

[pparks1]

Jimbo, did you read the article before you commented? They aren't taking away something with the intent of making you pay. They have simply instituted a new method and are asking developers to use the new API going forward.

 

[seekermeister]

Hmm, never heard of it...until now. Trying to think if I would find it of any use. The free account is too small to hold very much, but might be useful to share a few videos. The question in my mind is exactly what "sharing" means? Would it permit someone else to download the file? Is there a limit as to how large a single file can be...other than the size limit of the account?

 

[pparks1]

Seeker: Look at their FAQ:
https://www.dropbox.com/help/5/en

There is no limit via the Windows app, but there is a 300MB limit if you use the website to upload.

Here is everything there is to know about sharing
https://www.dropbox.com/help/category/Sharing

 

[seekermeister]

Hmm, I went ahead and installed it, and put a video into the public folder to test how this all works. The only thing that I've found so far that annoys me is that even with the bandwidth set to unlimited, it is only running at ~ 47KB/sec, which will take ~ 7 hours to finish the 1.2GB video file. I'm assuming this is due to my ISP connection, because the upload speed when I test it with Speedtest.net is approximately that speed also. If I had a higher upload speed, would the Dropbox app use all that is available, or would it still be slow?

 

[boohbah]

if you can get all your friends to sign up and install from your recommendation seeker, then dropbox will give you half a gb free for each signee. you can get up to 16Gb free ,i currently have 5and a half Gb in one acount and four in another.
the speed is what your internet speed is, and for sharing ,when you right click on a file in the public folder you click dropbox in the context menu that opens click "copy public link" then you can paste that into an instant message or email.
a tip for sharing a folder with several items in it like a music album( un copyrighted!) is to zip it first then add it to the public folder.

 

[seekermeister]

Thanks, but with the "friends" that I have, I will probably always remains at 2GBs.

 

[boohbah]

so no need to share then.

 

[seekermeister]

Not necessarily, I don't require a person to be a friend to share with them.

 

[boohbah]

actually the public folder is good for putting images to upload the image url (public link) to websites ,
bit like your own imageshack.

 

[pparks1]

Hmm, I went ahead and installed it, and put a video into the public folder to test how this all works. The only thing that I've found so far that annoys me is that even with the bandwidth set to unlimited, it is only running at ~ 47KB/sec, which will take ~ 7 hours to finish the 1.2GB video file. I'm assuming this is due to my ISP connection, because the upload speed when I test it with Speedtest.net is approximately that speed also. If I had a higher upload speed, would the Dropbox app use all that is available, or would it still be slow?

Yes, the more upload speed you have the faster this goes. I uploaded something from work last night and was getting around 500KB/sec on my upload speed via dropbox.

Limited upload speeds are why I don't make huge use of cloud based services yet, and also the reason that I am more than happy with 2-5GB of free space...because I use the cloud storage mainly for small files.