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?

[gbm]

Timon, I don't think you will get any disagreement from the rest of us EX - Public Folder users. 

I have hundreds on broken links in how-to documents that I posted on various forum sites. The sites would like to have them fixed, but the documents can no longer be edited, especially when they have been re-quoted. 

So far as business users are concerned, they REALLY have a beef. They paid for a service and removal will no doubt cause them grief and loss of income. They should sue Dropbox.  If not, they should at least move on. The way Dropbox handled the breech of security last year was a sure sign that this was not a company to trust your documents with.

[Rob S.47]

I can't get Dl=1 to work on a BBS, the shared Dropbox link just shows up, not the image.

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@Chris R. wrote:

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@Photo O. wrote:

I'm finding that even dl=1 works when you enclose it in BBCode on a forum

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Yes, that's so. Some forums don't even require you to know BBCode - if you click their Image button you get [img][/img] in your post, with the cursor placed between so you can paste a url in. The only problem (I've discovered) is that though the image renders successfully, if someone right clicks it to open the image in a new window/tab, it doesn't, it downloads instead.

None of this helps with the mountain of broken links that Dropbox have just created and refuse to fix.

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age.

[Matthew T.27]

@Timon Why just the business users? The existing links should have been left for EVERYONE. They should have just shutdown creating older type links.

I agree, but that ship has sailed.

[Chris R.]

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@Rob S.47 wrote:

I can't get Dl=1 to work on a BBS, the shared Dropbox link just shows up, not the image.

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@Chris R. wrote:

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@Photo O. wrote:

I'm finding that even dl=1 works when you enclose it in BBCode on a forum

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Yes, that's so. Some forums don't even require you to know BBCode - if you click their Image button you get [img][/img] in your post, with the cursor placed between so you can paste a url in. The only problem (I've discovered) is that though the image renders successfully, if someone right clicks it to open the image in a new window/tab, it doesn't, it downloads instead.

None of this helps with the mountain of broken links that Dropbox have just created and refuse to fix.

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I've tried it in a forum powered by phpBB software and it works there ok. Mind you, it's a forum where you can't upload images, only link to external images, but even so DL=1 (or Raw=1) seems to work fine between [img][/img] html. Perhaps BBS works in a different way?

[Photo O.]

I have tried all three, both with and without IMG BBCode tags in vBulletin, and this is how they behave for me.

With IMG tags
dl=0 does not work, it just shows a "broken image" icon in the input box, and nothing at all in the post.
dl=1 works, and right click>view image opens a download dialog box
raw=1 works, and right click>view image opens the image in the current browser tab

Without IMG tags
dl=0 shows a link that, when left clicked, opens the image in a Dropbox browser window
dl=1 shows a link that, when left clicked, opens a download dialog box
raw=1 shows a link that, when left clicked, opens the image in a new tab

[Matthew T.27]

when the image below 404's, along with all my other forum post images, I advise everyone to walk out the door 🙂

Another reason the functionality of the new shared links is inferior: you can't maintain a logical folder structure on your links, such as 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4647608/test-folder/test-file.txt

Instead you get a random string of garble.

Wow, my user ID is exposed, how utterly concerning. 4647608. There ya go. That's how concerned I am about that information being public info. Who. Cares.

[malphadour]

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@Mark wrote:
I'm not sure how its different behaviour in the examples you gave?

You can also create any link using the format above to get a BB-type link by changing the www. to dl-dropbox...

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Firstly this means having to eidt EVERY time you create a link - something I do dozens of times a day.  Secondly if it is so easy then why change it in the first place?????   This move makes absolutely NO sense and has just annoyed your user base.  I currently have a dropbox rep trying to sell us a pro account and he has jsut lost the sale because simple file lining is the single reason we use dropbox - making this function complicated (i.e having to MANUALLY edit every link we create) is utter stupidity and a step backwards - how is that usefull??

[Paul11]

I do not understand the Dropbox owners. Every comment made in this forum makes sense. I too have thousands of links to images on BB's. This is a nightmare.
No single need to continue my Pro subscription. Let's cancel!

[Dan R.16]

I wonder if they actually care? I'm still livid about this. Yes they can change what they want but to break all existing links is quite simply, unprofessional, disgusting and totally unacceptable!

[gbm]

Can't argue with that. It is really hard to understand why a company would treat customers as Dropbox have. Unless of course if they were just trying to get rid of us (and their file sharing business)

I was going to move all my files to another cloud service that I use. But on second thoughts, I will copy files to the other service, but still leave them on Dropbox. Then also transfer files from the other service to Dropbox, up the maximum storage I am allowed. Dropbox will just become a backup. But their facilities will still be used without any income being generated. Of course, I won't RELY on it, because we have learned the hard way that Dropbox cannot be trusted.