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Forum Discussion
Dropbox acquires Boxcryptor. What will happen to all those files that have been encrypted?
Hi
As most will know, dropbox has purchased boxcryptor. At this point my question is, what will happen to all those files that have been encrypted with boxcryptor ? Should they all be decrypted an...
riccardo1981 wrote:
At this point my question is, what will happen to all those files that have been encrypted with boxcryptor ?
Since this is such a new development, such answers are likely not available yet, beyond what has been stated by the Boxcryptor founders (emphasis mine).
What does this mean for our users and customers?
First of all: All our existing users and customers will remain with the German Secomba GmbH with the same shareholders as during the past 10 years. No contracts, customer data or keys will migrate to Dropbox, all data will remain in our German data centers.
While we’ve sold several key technology assets to Dropbox, we will continue to service our existing users and customers pursuant to the terms of their existing contracts. However, as of today, we will not allow the creation of new accounts or purchases of any new licenses.
If you’re an existing customer, you can keep using Boxcryptor as you do today, and we’ll be in touch with more details as we join forces with Dropbox. If you’re new here and would like to stay up to date on Dropbox’s progress, join the Dropbox mailing list.
You will also find the most important FAQs regarding the next steps below.
Let me summarize the situation and suggest possible solutions:
Dropbox decided to stop Boxcrypter service before having a solution. I.e. no seamless transfer of service.
That puts its own developers under unnecessary pressure and increases risk releasing something not proper. Or wait very long.
Dropbox clearly communicated that encryption will only be available to Dropbox business models. Also there is no anticipated price.
Price is not clear but it is likely to be non-competitively high, looking at the already high-priced business solutions
I see ex-Boxcrypter customers faced with two options:
Wait for an indefinite time until Dropbox Business encryption is available. An interim solution is not available. And the pricing is unclear and a risk having to wait foe something too expensive.
Chose another provider. Just to name a few with end-to-end encryptions available: nordlocker, ionos hidrive, icloud, onedrive etc
Obviously, Dropbox has deliberately decided to not provide a seamless and uninterrupted solution for Boxcrypter customers. That means that customers have to spend an extra effort now for an interim solution. Since we need to spend the effort now anyway. I suggest to invest the effort to finding another permanent solution.
For me that means choosing solution #2. Might not be perfect yet, but without healthy competition (which also need support and feedback to progress) we are poised to having something like this happening again. I.e. I will spend my extra time supporting other companies that are really eager to listen to customers.
Has anyone found a good solution yet? I have just over a week to decrypt my data and find a new solution. At this point I am more than happy to move away from Dropbox if another company provides what they have failed to. I am looking into pCloud and filen.io, although after emailing pCloud for some details they asked me to email again in English, which is exactly the language my email was in... So, no help there! Filen.io looks great, but I haven't found much about them online. Anyone else desperately scrambling too? (Thanks again, Dropbox)
Yes, unfortunately that is the case.
Personally, I have only used the Boxcryptor app an all my devices to access my files in the past, so it is not a change for me at all.
Does anyone know of any other good alternatives to Boxcryptor?NX81 for me personally I saw disadvantages because without identifying files by their names I cannot use the native OneDrive app, Google Drive app, etc., and its features anymore to organize my files. So it's not very comfortable or even impossible to use the features of the native cloud apps and you are completely limited to Cryptormator's file managers on your computer and mobile devices.
- filen.io is relatively new but I'm a very happy and satisfied user of it for some months now for the reasons mentioned in this thread. Best cloud for me to replace the DB/BC couple and after testing everything else.
I will download my 1TB OneDrive data on the PC via boxcryptor, delete it in the cloud and then upload it again encrypted with cryptonator.
https://cryptomator.org/NX81 keep in mind that Cryptomator uses file name encryption...
I have taken this into account.
Do you see any disadvantages or concerns?Hi NX81. I feel like Cryptomator is the logical alternative at this point. It's open source I think, but you can make a donation. I've been using it in a test mode but haven't committed to it yet so I can't swear from first hand experience that it is solid, but everything I've seen inspires me with confidence. Good luck!
I have decided that I will have my cloud files encrypted with Cryptomator (purely as backup), and I will have an offline drive (or pc) with the unencrypted files to search (I have to search through hundreds of thousands of files every day, so filename obfuscation, albeit cool, is a huge pain for me). Big middle finger to Dropbox for this absolute dog act, literally making my job 100x harder, and just **bleep**ting all over their customers. I will be keeping my eye out for an alternative solution going forward.
