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?

[Server_Align]

I think its pretty clear that dropbox has NO intention of changing this.

And I think its pretty clear they did it on purpose to cripple peoples ability to host links.

This garbage that you can host files from any location and that is so much better, is just that garbage!

Public folder links worked as follows.

ONE LINK THAT NEVER CHANGED got you to the public folder, from there you just generated a valid web file path and attached it to the end of it. So all you needed to do is place a file into the public folder (or subfolders) and attache theat path to the end of the NEVER CHANGING LINK, no interaction needed with Dropbox, you already had your link, you drop the file in to your folder and generate your link, place/send it where that needs to go and your done, simple as to automate should you need to in any of a million ways.

Any file links work as follows.

NEW LINKS EVERY FILE, drop the file into a folder, use the context menu or web site to generate a link, use that link as required.

Great kiss automation good bye! Everything is down to the user having to do it.

And who did they do this to?

Was it the JUST THE FREE USERS, if they want something for free they live with what they get?

NO NO NO, DO IT TO THE PAYING CUSTOMERS, that way they will get less for the money they pay! 

FYI: this is not a blip on the radar either, they have kicked paying customers in the head over and over, things like

Increasing the wateful path length of the DfB folder accounts, even when we tell them that will hurt us, there reply, Oh change your file system structure! WTF change for the service provider?

Need more room for your photos, buy a DFB account, and then find you cant sync photos to it, there reply, get a free account and uplaod them to that! WTF did you sell me something I couldnt use for?

And now offer a service and then withdraw it saying this crappy other service is "so much better", there reply "we dont care, we dont care, we stick our fingers in our ears" 

Walk people!

[iollivier]

I personaly think this move has a lot to do with the below article about Dropbox moving from Amazon servers to build their own system.

Not sure but I am just guessing their reasoning .. it's possibke they had no choice but switch offsupport for public folders.

Also when you build your own solution you implement your own way of working from scratch and new APIs.

https://techcrunch.com/2017/09/15/why-dropbox-decided-to-drop-aws-and-build-its-own-infrastructure-a...

I'm not sugessting that they will get back with Public forlder functionality, but I understand now it could have been hard decision for them.

Having said that.

I have used often Public forlder links for placing photos on public formus, email signatures, website photos too.

And this actually is possible to still achieve.

What isn't possible for me now is to have a direct download link for the deployment of my mobile database apps.

You can still use the download links but not in the automated way.

It always want to take you to the dropbox page first.

I.e. my app would call trigger a mobile download proces via URL link and then download new version from dropbox automatically into a container. It's not possible anmore. At least my all test has failed.

I had to start using my webiste file sharing functionality to do just that.

Dropbox feels now like a degraded feature. I still use it for storing my beloved data but's it's not the same anymore.

[iollivier]

Bare in mind @gbm that Google Drive has been discontinued.
It is in faze of switching it to a new system.

[gbm]

@iollivier wrote:
@Bare in mind @gbm that Google Drive has been discontinued.
It is in faze of switching it to a new system.

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From Google Drive Help Forum:

Jeff Prater said:

You seem to have been misinformed about the status of Google Drive. The Google Drive service is not going away. What is being discontinued is the Google Drive app. Google has replaced the Drive sync client with the new Backup and Sync client. At the end of Feb, the old Drive sync client will not work, and you will have to install the Backup and Sync client instead. In other words, you have nothing to worry about. 🙂

More here: https://www.extremetech.com/computing/255283-google-replacing-desktop-google-drive-app-two-new-apps?...

[adamdz]

I've cancelled my paid account and uninstalled Dropbox from all my computers. I hope that's what Dropbox wanted, no?

[ThomasPaul]

Yes, Yes, Yes. This is one of the biggest disservises a company has ever implemented on it customers and millions of other people seeking knowledge.

The links of millions of photos, musical compositions, illustrations and other educational materials on websites and forums, placed through millions of manhours of work of Dropbox customers have now been broken, wasting the effort of every DropBox customer (millions) over a decade or two. Just as outrageous are the millions of people trying to entertain or educate themselves at these websites, blogs, and forums and not being able to use the links to millions of pieces of information.

This is truly one of the worst moves a company has ever made in the history of the internet. They could have left these links intact and started the new policy going forward.

Between this move and DropBox's excessive use of system resources that has been ongoing for years without a technical fix, I am finally going to move to another cloud service. I also use Box, iCloud, and One Drive and all function much better than DropBox. Before the year is out, I am migrating my files and cancelling my premium service. I am so angry at DropBox for breaking all my links at forums.

Simply cannot believe how Dropbox could have made such a devastating decision that wasted millions of hours of their customers' time and prevents the dissemination of millions of pieces of important and creative work intended for the education and betterment of the world wide population.

Tom     

[awolff]

There never has been and there never will be a guarantee that ANY company will forever give you access to their services in the cloud. ALL of them, without exception will change the rules when ever they think it is to their advantage. Companies like Adobe and others have determined that they can make more money with software subscription licensing rather than selling a permanent license. As advancing technology makes it possible, human greed will always take advantage thereof. If the needs of the customer happen to be congruent with maximum profit, then all is well. If not, then customers must suck it up and try to find an alternate solution if possible. Just like you, everybody should learn to utilize multiple solutions, so that if one company screws you, hopefully the others won't do so right away.

[LGM]

Since the removal of the public folder I have been using links like https://www.dropbox.com/s/esdsdsdsddxcrds/my_image.jpg?dl=1 to include images in my phpbb forum.

But I have just realized that all images now show empty !! These links do no longer work !

What ???? Dropbox changed their policy again ??

Btw I keep getting this irritating popup warning that tells me I'm running out of space in my dropbox acount when I still have 15% room in there and even though I have turned off every single notification from the preferences menu.

Dropbox, you're wasting my time and efforts, you suck.

[ym58]

try that :

https://www.dropbox.com/s/esdsdsdsddxcrds/my_image.jpg?raw=1

[LGM]

Yes thanks for the tip, I tried it and it works but ... do I really want to change all these messages or take the time to create a hasardous mysql search/replace regexp ?? When I know dropbox will again change their policy in maybe just a few weeks ...

This is so disapointing .. Dropbox used to be perfect for syncing folders, saving photos, sharing folders with family and co workers ... what a mess.

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