Ending support of public folder

[ae2rigc]

Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.

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As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Public folder until
September 1, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.

If you’d like to keep sharing files in your Public folder, you can create new shared links. Just make sure to send the new URLs to your collaborators.

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It is one of the most useful features of the service for me as I use it to get links to single files that I can send to people without setting up shared folders and requiring them to have dropbox accounts.

(Save file to my public folder locally, syncs, right click, get publick link, paste. Doesn't get any easier than that.)

It's also useful for bb style forum posts where you can link to images with an easy tag.

With the public folder support being removed, is there going to be an alternative solution to allow easy public sharing of single files?

[Matthew T.27]

@River - You clearly have not read nor do you care about the concerns of Dropbox users. Dropbox has simply become untrustworthy. Public folder links were the cornerstone of Dropbox and you have decided to bulk-delete all of these links because you wrongly believe they are inferior or replaced by the new sharing feature. You are wrong for numerous reasons outlined by this thread - which have been either not responded to, or poorly explained by super users acting mindlessly to protect Dropbox's image.

You have not just broken links, you have broken the trust of the community. This is by far the worst decision Dropbox has done. Updating these links is simply not possible in numerous situations which have been outlined in this thread. Hundreds of thousands of links and images will now no longer be functional around the internet. This is ridiculous.

Dropbox's response to this issue has been extremely poor and typical. Dropbox genuinely believes it can directly harm its community and not suffer the consequences. For people still here - read this as a warning. What will come next? Systematically deleting .mp4 files in peoples Dropbox? Invalidating the 'new' shared links? You simply can not longer be trusted. I am moving to another service. Goodbye.

[wayneharropson]

I have years of important documents, some legal, many published, that have hundreds of tinyurl links the 99% of which are to DropBox links to supporting references without which the documents are irreparably damaged.

Tinyurl guarantees the perminence of their links which gives me the confidence that future, past and present possessors of my literary and legal work product will still be able to click those links.

As you may know tinyurl links are customizable which facilitates easy identification. so even if I endeavored to repair spoiled links the new links would lose the * identity customized to be associated with them.

If Dropbox breaks those links they will cripple literally every document I have created since I first subscribed to DropBox.

Many people have in their possession souvenir items with Tinyurl/dropbox links which will be rendered inoperable if links are broken by dropbox.  Example: http://tinyurl.com/JMad5G  http://tinyurl.com/RiderSouvenir  

Please open and examine for yourselves a few of hundreds of examples and please assure me that DropBox will not break and destroy the integrity of years of work product in its March transition.

I will begin creating and linking all new documents outside the Public folder, but even my new work product will frequently, if not always, refer to my extensive established dossier behind tinyurl's permanent links which are permanently and *unchangeably associated with established Public folder dropbox links.

Wayne Harropson

Examples:

http://tinyurl.com/EastEggEpiph

 http://tinyurl.com/MB33221

http://tinyurl.com/grtseal

 http://tinyurl.com/HarropWrite 

[mart]

Just adding my disdain.

I'd like to be able to share a whole folder of .WAV files of something I recorded.  Will I now have to make an individual link to each file? Way too much work!

[Grunker]

I think DropBox is one of the cleanest, most user-friendly, and most well-functioning pieces of software ever developed for the PC. On average, I would guess that I have been sitting behind a keyboard for several hours a day for the last 20 or so years. It is rare that a program is as functional and streamlined as Dropbox.

With this post I am adding my voice to those who are displeased that this will no longer be completely true for DropBox. I am sure I will continue using and recommending your product, but I would be lying if I said I wasn't hugely discouraged by this change.

Finally, I think it would benefit your company more if you just told the truth about why you are nixing the Public folder. While I am sure the real reason might be harmful to your firm if disclosed, I doubt it can be any worse than the speculation and accusational environment you have created by being vague about it and hiding it behind corporate newspeak.

[dw s.]

@mart
Google Drive will give you a link to a whole folder......no problem! :-))

[Chris R.]

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@Grunker wrote:

...I think it would benefit your company more if you just told the truth about why you are nixing the Public folder. While I am sure the real reason might be harmful to your firm if disclosed, I doubt it can be any worse than the speculation and accusational environment you have created by being vague about it and hiding it behind corporate newspeak.

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Hear, hear. Why won't you tell us? What are you hiding? Why won't you protect the sections of the Internet that will die unless you do something so easy as preserve the links that are already out there?

[rileyph]

DB have had security problems in the past, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dropbox_(service).
They say this is not the problem. So what could it be? Maybe they are going out of business and cutting back on functionality to save money. Whatever the reason, they can't be trusted anymore.

[Bob J.]

Seems the Public Folders are to go! Without comment or concern by DropBox Central.  Sad!

So what are the alternatives?

Ideally there is a folder on my computer somewhere that is auto-synched to the cloud, and which is then accessible from the cloud by anyone.

One should be able to create a single shortened url to that folder via tiny.cc (which is I think the only url shortener providing access at folder level). For example my public folder would have a full url (in the DropBox case) of "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1234567/"  which I might shorten to  "https://tiny.cc/Jordan/"

Now when needing to put a kml/pdf/jpg or other file into the public domain as part of a forum entry (ie providing the wider community with some details of a bug/feature/technique as part of my responsibility to the world), I just need to put that file (say "example.jpg") into my public folder and publicise the name as "https://tiny.cc/Jordan/example.jpg".

In theory it is now available to that forum's readers in perpetuity.

This can (or could) be done with ease with DropBox.

I so wish I had been sufficiently diligent to start this years ago because my tiny.cc account allows me to redirect the location of that folder using a simple edit as part of the tiny.cc user service. If I had taken that step I could point the whole box and caboodle soemwhere else!

Alas it is too late and those many links will now be broken. Worse, I cannot find another way of doing this other than to create and maintain my own domain.

Security of public files they say - What? I place files there to be publically available. If the content is sensitive they will not go in that place. So I look after the files in there because I know they may be visited at any time by a concerned user who finds my forum entry.

How many times has my skin been saved by the work of others who have done similar things. We are a community!!!

Are readers aware of a suitable alternative?

The key features are the auto synching of the folder (dump a file in and it goes public), and the simplicity (no need to ftp those files to some strange place or maintain a complex list of obscure link names).

But now I also question my susceptibility to a policy change by tiny.cc and of any alternative provider that I use in the future.

Oh woe is me.

What do I do Dr DropBox? Please, what do I do?

Bob Jordan

DropBox user since 2009

Now a Pro user (ie payer)

Soon - dumped!

[Bob J.]

Maybe there is a commercial opportunity for an alternative like this.
I would pay for it!!

B.

[Chris R.]

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@Bob J. wrote:
Maybe there is a commercial opportunity for an alternative like this.
I would pay for it!!

B.

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@Yet another situation where Dropbox have been unbusinesslike - their only options have been FREE or FULL SUBSCRIPTION. Contrast this with Apple's iCloud Drive where there is FREE (5GB), 50GB @ 79 pence monthly, 200GB @ £2:49, or FULL 1TB @ £6:99. Dropbox users clamoured from the start for such a tiered system, but as usual Dropbox made the fatal error of not listening to their users.