Ending support of public folder

---

Rich wrote:

People have had more than four years to move away from using the Public folder. Their insistance on using a deprecated feature is the main cause of all the frustration now. If people had adopted the new share links sooner and moved away from a feature that was deprecated, they wouldn't have as many links out there about to break when the Public folder went away for good.

The writing has been on the wall for a long time. People just chose to ignore it.

---

This is actually not true. We carried on using a 'deprecated feature' because we were assured that we could, that it had only been removed for new users. Had we known back then that what is about to happen would happen, we might have stopped using the Public folder; and had we known back then that what is about to happen would happen, we might have investigated further how a simple modification would result in a direct link; and had we known back then that what is about to happen would happen, we might have begun the arduous task of converting links (those we could still trace) from Public direct links to Shared direct links. After all, as you point out, we had "more than four years" to do this.

Unfortunately, the "writing on the wall", as with all small print and as with all crystal ball gazing, was virtually indecipherable. I can assure you that had I had the foresight you apparently think I should have had (and I am not stupid) I would have stopped using the Public folder and instead started using dl=1 links.

The bottom line is, Dropbox are about to break parts of the internet, and they just don't care.

---

Rich wrote:

---

Chris R. wrote:
I 'get' that new links can be amended to 'dl=1' which means they will be displayed inline in a browser's page. I just have never known, and still don't, if this will survive after the ending of support for Public folder links;

---

Nothing is changing in the functionality of a Share Link. You will still be able to create a direct link, just as you always have been able to.

 

2) You personally are as upset as the rest of us about the 'breaking' of parts of the internet by the DB refusal to 'grandfather' existing links.

---

Not quite, and this is where I'll catch a lot of flack from most of you. Just remember, this is MY opinion, and not that of Dropbox.

 

Yes, I think that disabling existsing links is a bad idea. I agree with everyone there. However, the Public folder feature was deprecated four and a half YEARS ago (October 4, 2012). It was replaced then by Share Links. Any new accounts created after that time no longer received a Public folder and the only accounts that could still create one manually (for the few holdouts) were Pro and Business accounts. For Basic users after that time, the feature simply didn't exist.

 

People have had more than four years to move away from using the Public folder. Their insistance on using a deprecated feature is the main cause of all the frustration now. If people had adopted the new share links sooner and moved away from a feature that was deprecated, they wouldn't have as many links out there about to break when the Public folder went away for good.

 

The writing has been on the wall for a long time. People just chose to ignore it.

---

Rich, keeping misquoting what people say and making unsubstantiated assertions diminishes your credibility.

1). it does not matter when the "writing was on the wall", even if we accept your 4 year figure (which I don't) any links prior will have been lost.

2). I for one and I suspect many others were not aware of the "writing was on the wall" until dropbox sent me an email near the end of last year. I have a job of work to do, not to look at every nuance of the whims of dropbox

3). I find it insulting and offensive that you say "people chose to ignore it", as said previously we are not clairvoyant.

---

ColinC wrote:

I keep seeing this comment that we were notified years ago of the change. Sorry but I didn't receive any such notification. If I had I would have changed to the new system at the time.  (If it's relevant, I'm a Pro user.)

---

I think what Rich means is that the Public folder was stopped for new users years ago, and that therefore we should have had the commonsense to realise that Dropbox were lying when they said it would remain for existing users.

---

Rich wrote:

---

---

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.

---

That was me. What I was commenting on was not the ability to SHARE LINKS but whether these would be DIRECT LINKS. (The GDrive user above who posted the image "YES!" to demonstrate that these can be still be used proved nothing - clicking that link took me to my Google account's page - i.e. a Google website - where the image was displayed; that's not the same thing at all).

I 'get' that new links can be amended to 'dl=1' which means they will be displayed inline in a browser's page. I just have never known, and still don't, if this will survive after the ending of support for Public folder links; if they do not, and shared links simply take users to the Dropbox site to download the file, then we are no better off than we were before, in fact worse off because we will no longer have the Public folder from which to create DIRECT links.

It's the breaking of existing links by not 'grandfathering' them that really upsets even more people. That's why I asked about GDrive and OneDrive, because if DB persist with their stubborn refusal to do so, I will move immediately to any provider that does provide direct linking.

So I draw two conclusions:

1) GDrive (and presumably OneDrive) do NOT have a means to share data via direct links

2) You personally are as upset as the rest of us about the 'breaking' of parts of the internet by the DB refusal to 'grandfather' existing links.

---

Chris R. wrote:

---

This is actually not true. We carried on using a 'deprecated feature' because we were assured that we could, that it had only been removed for new users. Had we known back then that what is about to happen would happen, we might have stopped using the Public folder; and had we known back then that what is about to happen would happen, we might have investigated further how a simple modification would result in a direct link; and had we known back then that what is about to happen would happen, we might have begun the arduous task of converting links (those we could still trace) from Public direct links to Shared direct links. After all, as you point out, we had "more than four years" to do this.

 

Unfortunately, the "writing on the wall", as with all small print and as with all crystal ball gazing, was virtually indecipherable. I can assure you that had I had the foresight you apparently think I should have had (and I am not stupid) I would have stopped using the Public folder and instead started using dl=1 links.

 

The bottom line is, Dropbox are about to break parts of the internet, and they just don't care.

 

---

 

---

To expand on what Chris R. said... had we known back then what was about to happen right now we might have investigated other ways to get our jobs done THAT DID NOT INCLUDE DROPBOX.  Instead we went happily along using and paying for Dropbox and referring tons of new users to the service.

---

Chris R. wrote:

---

ColinC wrote:

I keep seeing this comment that we were notified years ago of the change. Sorry but I didn't receive any such notification. If I had I would have changed to the new system at the time.  (If it's relevant, I'm a Pro user.)

---

I think what Rich means is that the Public folder was stopped for new users years ago, and that therefore we should have had the commonsense to realize that Dropbox were lying when they said it would remain for existing users.

---

To my knowledge I've never received any notification about public folders until the one that started all of this. I don't share my public folder however I do share links to files contained in the folder. I've always followed the following instructions.

******************* Instructions for sharing links *******************

The Public Folder lets you easily share single files in your Dropbox.  Any file you put in this folder gets its own Internet link so that you can share it with others -- even non-Dropbox users!  These links work even if your computer’s turned off.  

Step 1:  Drop a file into the Public folder.

Step 2:  Right-click/control-click this file, then choose Dropbox > Copy Public Link. This copies the Internet link to your file so that you can paste it somewhere else.

That's it!  You can now share this file with others: just paste the link into e-mails, instant message conversations, blogs, etc.!

If you'd like more help with sharing files, head here: http://www.dropbox.com/help/16

Happy Dropboxing!

- The Dropbox Team

Note: You can only link to actual files within your Public Folder, not to folders.

*********************************************************************

Note the line that reads "Note: You can only link to actual files within your Public Folder, not to folders." so this was after they removed the ability to post links to the entire public folder so basically it worked the same way as the public link in any other folder works. Yet this files was put in my public folder when I first started using it.

Dropbox could have saved everyone a lot of problems had they set any links created inside the public folder back, when they supposedly notified everyone, to have the exact format as any links created in regular folders but with the dl=1 set. But nooooo, they had to let everyone keep create in a format that they knew was going to break. If they couldn't do that they at least could have popped up a warning box whenever you used the command to create an old style link but nooo, they couldn't do that.

I think dropbox has the moral duty to not break any of the old direct links to files. They may not be legally bound to do so but it would be the moral and ethical thing to do. To do anything else proves how unethical they really are.

---

Ross D.2 wrote:

pardon me for not reading 44 pages of messages to get the answer...but it seems there may be ways to post direct links  of images in blogs/forums but I can't find a simple description of how.

---

I hope this is reliable and someone will come online and correct me if not...

Right click any file in your Dropbox and Copy Dropbox Link. When you paste that into a forum you will see the url ends 'dl=0'. Just change that to 'dl=1' and the image should then appear inline without the viewer having to go to Dropbox website to fetch it.

It is much more comfortable to have a public folder to be honest than selecting links, changing the end and pasting in my e-mail. 

I do not see the need to open a browser to download an attachment from my thunderbird email. 

That is why I closed a paid dropbox account from another person in my company a couple of years ago, and that is why I will switch to owncloud if this decision goes on in September. 

About the android app, is getting worst and worst you need a few clicks to open a .pdf file or an .odt with your favourite program instead of the one that dropbox has.

Not listening to your customers is not a very good policy. 

Maybe the glut of users insisting on using a deprecated, old feature instead of the shiny, bloated, Javascript-filled replacement should have acted as a hint that the old way was simpler and better. They need to provide an adequate replacement if they want users to switch.

And manually editing the links after copying them is not a good solution. Furthermore "?dl=1" makes a link that causes a download if opened in a separate tab. We can no longer make *normal* links. The choices are a cruddy Javascript abomination with an ugly frame and chat that performs badly on mobile and can't be wgetted, or a link that can't be viewed directly in a browser.

With a public link, you can embed it in a forum post, post it to a chat where people will click it, view it on a phone, and retrieve it from the command line with wget. All with one link, and without editing it manually. THAT is why we continued using the old way for 4 and a half years. "Upgrading" feels like switching from a nailgun to a rock tied onto a stick.