You might see that the Dropbox Community team have been busy working on some major updates to the Community itself! So, here is some info on what’s changed, what’s staying the same and what you can expect from the Dropbox Community overall.
Forum Discussion
Ending support of public folder
Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.
---------
As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Publ...
- LGM - the issue is that people are abusing it and causing issues for everybody by getting the Dropbox domains blacklisted which cause emails to fail and downloads to be blocked by firewalls etc.
In terms of changing the extension, sorry, no idea how you would do that!
One of the most frustrating issues with this change will be the complete and utter inability to modify any links already sent out by email and in newsletters to customers in the past. There won't be any way to create a 301 redirect of any kind, even if we do go with an alternative storage service with public access.
Having said that, we will be moving our files to a publically accessible Amazon S3 bucket. On top of that, to avoid future pitfalls of this kind, we will set up a unique CNAME record in our DNS to point to the S3 bucket. If you are planning something similar, you will most likely have to create the CNAME record anyhow unless you want your images and other media to be rejected by adblockers for not residing on the same domain. This step would also allow us to add a simple "middleware" script to quickly serve correct files by repointing them to correct location on the fly, in case Amazon decides to follow the same idiocratic steps to cancel publicly accessible folders. Or just repoint the same CNAME to a new service provider location, move the file structures intact, and Presto! All links should remain functional for the end users.
Just too bad we didn't follow these footsteps here. Dropbox management, if any of you read these comments, just for the record we are all extremely unimpressed with your decision. And now, I am going to go and pull that big knife out of my back you stabbed us with.
Peace out.
I'm also very disappointed about this change. Even there is time left almost a year, it gonna cause problems. Like many others, I have shared thousands of Dropbox links to customers and friends, and 2017 all of those will stop working.
I have also used the public folder when I have needed to transfer some file quickly to an unknown computer. In few seconds you can download the file you need with web browser without manually copying any sharing link, because the URL to shared folder will always be the same, so it can be remembered by hearth or linked for example via tinyurl.
Just wondering, that is there a technical problem with the public folder, or why it's going to be suspended. Most probably I need to change to use another service after the currect subscription to dropbox ends :(
