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?

[Chris R.]

WHO IS THE OTHER PROVIDER THAT SUPPORTS PUBLIC LINKS??

Please, do tell us because then we can all

1) move away from Dropbox and

2) blog / share widely who this other provider is.

[Albert_Sieben]

I went to Piwigo.com, they support public links as well... good luck everyone !

[Chris R.]

Thanks!

[Dolphinuser67]

I saw your comment. I searched around on google and it does seem that Onedrive has the Public Link option that Dropbox is abolishing, but I have not personnaly tested it:

https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Share-OneDrive-files-and-folders-9fcc2f7d-de0c-4cec-93b0-a8...

[Chris R.]

The important thing is not just Public links (Dropbox still has those) but DIRECT links, i.e. the kind you can insert in a post on another website and the relevant image will appear. Flickr and all the other  big image hosting sites have those on offer which you can copy and paste to other sites. Those are the kind of link Dropbox are exterminating. Does OneDrive or Google Drive have those?

[dw s.]

Yes, the free G/Drive has it, if this is what you mean? >>

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1Y77dv7BxpcYkFmMi1weVJnNHc

Only downside is that it doesn't show the file's name at end of link.

[Rich]

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Chris R. wrote:

The important thing is not just Public links (Dropbox still has those) but DIRECT links, i.e. the kind you can insert in a post on another website and the relevant image will appear. ... Those are the kind of link Dropbox are exterminating.

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No, Dropbox is not exterminating those links! You can still create such links using a Share Link, and you've been able to since Share Links were introduced as the replacement for Public links, years ago. The image below is using just such a link.

Read the following help article for more information:

• https://www.dropbox.com/help/201/

Only the Public folder and any links to files within the Public folder are ending. Share Links will continue to work as they always have, and you can modify a share link to be used to post images on other sites, just like you always have been able to.

[ColinC]

We keep coming back to this same comment over and over!  Yes, I agree that it is still possible under the new system to create links that directly insert images into posts. It's also possible to do this in google drive, OneDrive and probably numorous other cloud services.

HOWEVER... what they are also proposing is to make all the hundreds of thousands of existing links from the public folder invalid. THIS is what most of us are angry about; it's going to cause immense damage to a massive number of posts in places that simply cannot be edited to repair the links. I think what most of us want is for Dropbox to simply grandfather the current links into their new scheme by making the old public folder read-only and continueing to support the old links. It's their arrogant refusal to even acknowledge the damage their change is making that is getting up everyone's nose.

[rileyph]

Rich,

you have completely misunderstood the problem. It is not clear whether this is deliberate or an accident. Let me explain.

Many of use have used links to deliver content to our customers. In my case I have already embedded links into research papers so people can see my results. These papers are used by thousands of people, who in turn use my papers in their work.

The issue that is enraging so many dropbox users is that these existing links will not be working. So as far as our customers are concerned, the data will be unavailable, or in other terms deleted.

And there is no point in talking semantics about the data still being there and available to a new link. The bottom line is that the data will be unavailable.

Many people on this forum have tried politely asking, some begging dropbox to preserve existing links. YES we know we can setup new links and many are doing this. BUT many hundreds of thousands of links will become invalid costing dropbox users serous money.

The reason people are now walking away from dropbox in droves, is because dropbox cannot be trusted.

1). They have effectively deleted data, what will stop them doing it again??

2). They consistently refuse to give an explanation

[Rich]

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rileyph wrote:

Rich,

you have completely misunderstood the problem. It is not clear whether this is deliberate or an accident.

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I have not misunderstood the problem, at all. I was simply responding to someone who claimed that Dropbox was doing away with the ability to create a link that could be used to post an image on another site. I understand what the main issue is, but people keep posting (here and in other threads) that the ability to create such a link is being taking away. It is THAT comment that I was responding to.

I get that the important issue here is that existing links will be disabled. I agree with you all on that point but I'm not in a position where I can comment on that other than to say "I AGREE!" Nothing I can say will change that, but I can (and will continue to) comment on incorrect information that is posted here.