End of support for OS X 10.4 and 10.5

[Matthew S.]

Why pull support and remove functionality? Why not just drop support -- just stop updating the app but still allow basic functionality? There are still a lot of legacy machines that are still in use and CANNOT upgrade to 10.6, as they are PowerPC based. Yes, old systems still work. Why stop the app from working totally instead of just deprecating support for those systems?

[Nikita P.]

Please, don't do that. PowerPC community still exists, my father is still using a PowerPC G5, and he's no looking for a change. Dropbox play a vital role in computer sync, and it would be terrible, if the support is dropped.

[Phillip C.2]

JustCloud still fully supports OS X 10.5 on PPC. I'm testing it now and it works great for cloud backup but the sync folder on the free account is only 15MB and the free space is 1GB. With a paid account the sync folder can be 5GB for $5.95/year.
http://www.justcloud.com/planprice-information

[David T.75]

Add my name to the list to continue support for Tiger and Leopard. I still have a number of machines still in these old OS, which are rock solid, running on PPC machines. These machine can't be upgraded to Snow Leopard and are stuck. My Tiger machine is a G3 iBook (original Blueberry), which still is used everyday as an fax machine - saving Fax PDF files in a dropbox folder, so everyone can have access to it. I do have a several File Transporter, which allows me to have my own private cloud. The end of the Tiger and Leopard support, my also mean I will end my Dropbox account (since I kept the paid Dropbox account for these older machines).

For those who are looking to have their own private cloud, you may want to look at the FileTransporter.com, since we are being forced out of dropbox. Note: FileTransporter need Lion or later, but heck, we can't run Dropbox anymore on our old machines, so, may want to start looking for another solution.

[Old B.]

Anyone paying for Droopbox should reconsider. At what point are you going to be shafted, either by a security breach or by a suspension of service?

Should we really trust a company who can't keep faith with its users? Anyone who thinks "the cloud" i.e. trusting valuable and/or sensitive data to somebody else's server in a foreign country, is a bloody fool. We must thank droopbox for flagging this up! Bye.

[Luis D.]

It's unfortunate. I've said it before, but to a certain degree it's age-discrimination and continuing the planned obsolesce culture. Lots of older folks (I'm actually not one of them) are living on a budget and use dropbox and have an older mac. Do you think it's fair for them? I think this whole hamster wheel lifestyle will get dull and boring one day and all these computer system programmers will have to do something about it or the older generation people whether they are old or not or poor won't be included in the mix of things. What was the internet started to begin with? To bring communication together, but like all things in the US(eless) everything churns on the mighty buck and everyone else who doesn't agree will be on a list someplace and completely excluded. This is how troublemakers become even more troublesome.

[Cheryl H.8]

Add my name to list of those who are begging you to reconsider this move. I'd like nothing more than a new Mac—except meals, rent, dental care, etc. In the meanwhile I'm stuck at G5.

[Jeff P.8]

I have a 2011 MacBook Pro running Snow Leopard & Lion, a 2011 mini running Yosemite and my trusty workhorse PPC dual G4 running Leopard. I use 1Password on all of these, which is shared via Dropbox. It becomes a difficult and error-prone mess to lose Dropbox. There doesn't seem to be an equivalent cloud service out there for the PPC machines.

I applaud Dropbox for not being in the "force you to buy new hardware" business until now. You know how many PPC users of Dropbox there are. Must be thousands as there are hundreds blogging and signing petitions about this. You are capable of writing us en mass. What about a mailing to inquire if enough of us are willing to pony up a small fee to support a programmer to write the equivalent API-like code to keep Dropbox runnng on our machines?

-Jeff, Seattle

[Luis D.]

I already paid for a year of dropbox 1TB account days before this was announced. I'd be willing as Jeff from Seattle mentioned pay a fee to continue with our older machines. Otherwise dropbox is less useful to me.

[Phillip C.2]

As I said in my previous post, JustCloud (http://www.justcloud.com/planprice-information) is fully functional on 10.5 Leopard with G4 and G5 Macs (I'm using two G4s and two G5s). Fortunately I only needed to buy a Backup License for one of the G5s since the other 3 machines are only used with files in the sync folder. There's no limit to how many machines (including iOS) can use the sync folder.

There are some drawbacks:

1-The free version is so small (1GB total space and 15MB sync folder) it's only practical to use as a test to see if you will like the service. Once you sign up for the free service they will constantly hound you to upgrade to paid services. Although the hounding always includes some good discounts in the offer.

2-The sync folder is not on your desktop like Dropbox. It resides on their servers (actually Google's servers) and is accessed with their desktop app or their Website.

3-The sync folder does not update automatically. When you've updated a file you have to save it and then drag it to the sync folder in the app window or Website.

4-For backing up your hard drive it allows you to choose which files to back up and in subsequent backups it only backs up new files or files that have change which is good. However, when you delete a file from your hard drive that was backed up it does not get deleted from the cloud backup. You have to delete the file in both places. It would be very easy to forget to delete cloud files and suddenly go over your limit. Backups can take as long as 24 hours to appear in your cloud files.

5-JustCloud does not support 10.4 Tiger. Only 10.5 Leopard.

So all in all it's not as convenient to use as Dropbox but I've found it to be reliable and, after some consternation I got used to it. They claim to be working on improvements to the sync folder process. It was the only cloud backup I could find that is fully supported for PowerPC.

[Jeff P.8]

I looked at justcloud. It runs on PPC leopard, but the 15 MB sync folder and multiple steps involved is inconvenient at best. My equivalent solution is to use Synchronize Pro between my PPC machine and an Intel computer that is on and running Dropbox. But it still requires thinking about it. Dropbox is so seemless & easy for my dim memory and waning willingness to do multiple-step procedures. However, if the choice is pony up thousands for new computer and spend dozens of hours & even more $$$ acquiring and installing newer software, screw it - I'll do the stepwise stuff involved.