I switched away from Dropbox to Syncthing https://syncthing.net/ a few years ago.
Running it on Windows, Mac and Linux (I don't use it on mobile) to keep all manner of files in sync across a bunch of machines. While it doesn't have all the shell integration and end-user friendliness of Dropbox, it also doesn't have the pitfalls like (non-optional) telemetry and constant up-sell.
Syncthing is so much better than Dropbox. There are no accounts, so it's much easier to set up syncing between multiple machines that may not belong to the same user, or to shared devices. I use it to sync family documents, work documents, for syncing Factorio save games, ...
I've also never had problems with CPU usage (Dropbox often caused high CPU usage in some cases)
The only downside is that background sync on iOS with Möbius Sync doesn't work reliably, but I think that is mainly because of how Apple cripples background processing. It does sync quickly if you manually start the app.
It's a bit challenging for new users (you need to understand machine keys, folder identifiers, ignore lists), but once it's set up it just works.
I did the same. Plus also I'm using on my Android phone. Replaces Dropbox completely unless I want to share something with other people. But for that case I usually use Sharing feature from Synology NAS.
Syncthing saved my ass last month. My Framework laptop got stolen while I was traveling. I was able to pick up a second-hand MacBook Air, connect it to my introducer, and within a few hours I had all my files back.
I have a Pi with software RAID and two HDDs running Syncthing in my apartment. I rent a cheap Storage VPS from time4vps.com which is untrusted and set as an introducer--meaning, the data is encrypted before it reaches the VPS, and as an introducer it will announce devices to one another. My (former) laptop and an iMac where I do all my work are always in sync. If I need to add a new device, I only have to connect it to the VPS and suddenly all the other devices know of it.
I use Syncthing too, but only between my local machines. I don't use it for cloud backup because I've never found 2 TB of cloud storage as cheap as Dropbox. If anybody knows of such a vendor I'd love to hear about it.
Edit: I should further qualify that I'm not interested in solutions that would lock me into Apple's walled garden or anybody else's.
Many times on HN, commenters have mocked those who questioned why someone would use Dropbox instead of a method controlled by the user. I guess becausse someone made lots of money from it or it became popular or something. I always found this perplexing because I look at solutions from the perspective of the user, namely, me, not from the perspective of a third party "tech" startup founder. It's insensitive to the people on HN who want to other tried and true solutions. "Other people are using Dropbox, so you should too." Who cares. Every user is different. If someone wants to use something else besides Dropbox, why harass them. I could care less what "99%" of users are doing. I care about what I'm doing.
I confess I have never used it. I still rely on USB sticks for a variety of tasks, more than simply transferring files. Anyway, for me, this telemetry nonsense would be one reason I would avoid Dropbox.
Maybe there will someday be telemetry in USB sticks. We'll see. Meanwhile...
Dropbox became popular because, from the perspective of 99% of users, it provides an incredibly simple and effective UX for syncing files across devices and locations. And better UX is enough to be a billion-dollar company.
> I confess I have never used it. I still rely on USB sticks
Phew boy. You really should try dropbox or a competing service.*
Picture this:
1. Double click a file
2. Type some words
3. Save the file
That's it. There is no step 4. Your file is now synced to all your other computers and to any colleagues who also need that file.
Seriously you shouldn't be using USB sticks these days. Also - I'm guessing you haven't started the transition to USB-C yet? USB sticks are going to get really painful when you do.
(* I use a competing service - more than one actually, but I have used dropbox in the past and it worked well. I just didn't like the direction the company was taking it. This story is yet another example of that)
I have a Dropbox account, since eternity, but used it very rarely. Until I decided to remove my desktop computer from my life, and live with my Office PC and a laptop.
Suddenly I have ripped myself out of a lot of stationary storage space, and access to a lot of files in the process. Moreover, this change was also compounded by lifestyle changes, which reduced my computer time at evenings a lot.
Then, I realized that I used these files a lot, and I needed them where I am, regardless of the device I have with me. After that, I understood what Dropbox is about. I have all my files, everywhere I need, anytime I need.
Moreover, many of the bookstores and merchants deliver things I buy directly into my Dropbox. That's great. Even updates to these items arrive automatically.
I backup the whole thing weekly via rclone to a disk, and I'm happy.
I remember when Dropbox was new and it was possibly the only solution I could find to seamlessly sync files on multiple computers (or at least the only one I knew about).
There was this "Dropbox" folder in your home folder, and anything put in there would show up in the home folder on your other computer or operating system or eventually even your phone. I also knew about Apple File Sharing and it was basically that but much more intuitive and worked on separate networks and on Windows (maybe Dropbox was inspired by AFS and the write-only "Drop Box"). Drop Box just worked, and to less tech-savvy younger me that was the only thing that mattered.
Now we have 300+ other programs which can do the same thing, and I use Git/Github for syncing and woof/AirDrop for individual files, so no Dropbox for me. And probably not for most technical users either.
But the average non tech-savvy user still needs a cross-platform service which "just works". And I'm sure their are alternatives which also "just work", but Dropbox is popular, and they don't care about the telemetry.
Dropbox's specific popularity on HN may partially stem from its original backing by YC. It will have enjoyed additional exposure here thanks to that, and to be fair to Dropbox, it was a good product.
I say *was because I cannot speak for how it is now, I do not have any data to judge how it is now.
I stopped using it a long time ago – not because I disliked it, I just picked a different solution.
Dropbox is in a rut because Microsoft used their monopoly power to move a lot of people to OneDrive. Which as a Microsoft product of course is all telemetry, no end to end encryption and a poor syncing experience. But the software comes with the OS and the subscription is included with Office 365.
Dropbox is popular because it's super-usable and works super-well. Approximately 0% of ordinary end users want to gaffer-tape something together by hand. (Happy Dropbox user here, but I've been tempted to do it by hand at times myself. If only rsync to s3 was easier ...)
I get that for some classes of "local-only" apps like compilers (famous from a recent discussion on the same topic), network communication can be surprising and therefore feel unnecessary. But for an app whose sole purpose is sending and receiving lots of sensitive private data to Dropbox servers, who has the energy to be outraged that there is also some other anonymous data sent such as program crash info?
I mean Dropbox has the contents of my files should I find it creepy or unnecessary that they know my RAM amount or what the last exception was?
I am on the fence as to whether I agree with you, but I'll embellish a certain aspect: these folks keep citing how the number of DNS lookups (what pihole reports/blocks) is extraordinary, exceeding all other vendors they use, which says pretty much nothing about the nature of the payload other than that Dropbox likely has very granular client uptime data. The client could cache the DNS response instead of doing so many lookups, and some amount of rage would disappear.
For any local program, I can block its access to the network and still use it. For a program whose functionality requires internet access, I can either inspect every outgoing packet for exfiltrated data, or I can choose to trust some programs to be non-malicious based on their reputation. That trust is incredibly fragile, and unannounced spying/telemetry breaks it.
I'm wondering where the line is between acceptable and unacceptable logs. Obviously no one appreciates analytics used by marketing teams, but virtually every internet service has logs used by engineers (which seem to be what this post is about). A few factors that seem relevant:
- Is the service running locally?
- Do we trust/expect that the data is not used for marketing (i.e. would the user have complained if the domain was "error-reporting.dropbox.com")?
- Is the data anonymous (think twice, everyone who has IPs or user IDs in request logs)
- Did we agree to relevant ToS or privacy policies?
If we think carefully about this, I'd bet that most people here have used or even implemented some form of logging that has privacy problems.
I actually enjoy Dropbox - for a flat fee of ~€10/month I get 2TB of cloud space plus the synchronization across unlimited devices. I don't mind the telemetry thing, at least not too much.
However, their approach to Android is absolutely ridiculous. There is no files or folders synchronization - at least not at the OS level, like in Windows or Linux. If I need to access my Dropbox files on an Android device, the only way is to do it via the Dropbox app, and it is clunky. The biggest pain point is that I cannot use 3rd party apps to open a folder in my Dropbox storage - I can open a single file, fine, but for example Obsidian is out of reach as it requires opening an entire folder, which is currently not possible.
(I can create an offline copy of the folder on the device and open that one but it defies the purpose of having a sophisticated synchronization software).
So I think at some point I will start investigating alternatives.
Stopped using Dropbox a long time ago. Their constant "marketing" emails were bordering on scammy "Your dropbox is almost full!" etc - I try not to deal with companies that play these games.
That's exactly why I quit using Dropbox. I have TWO pictures in my Dropbox, no way in hell it's almost full. You lie to me in your advertising, you don't get my money, period.
I stopped using dropbox after finding it quarantines files. You won't know about this until you try to migrate off Dropbox. It just gives me the creeps now.
For me it was watching my desktop folder. If I created a screenshot there would suddenly be a notification window asking me if I wanted to upload/share it via Dropbox. Contacted their support, you couldn't switch it off and they didn't understand why such notifications would annoy a user.
I stopped when I stopped being comfortable with them looking at my data. My sensibilities changed and software options had advanced to the point that the activation energy of switching to an E2EE solution had been surpassed. I use self-hosted nextcloud + wireguard + B2 encrypted backup. It's not perfect, it's more setup on each device (no longer a single auth away from the data), but it's well worth it to me.
There's a market here. Idk how big. Apple seems to think there's a market here too. If they offered larger sizes I might be tempted to go all in on Apple.
What does this mean in this context? I tried searching but couldn't find anything other than antivirus software sometimes quarantined files in their Dropbox folder which isn't really a Dropbox issue. Are Dropbox deleting files without notification?
I was a very early user of Dropbox but I’ve fallen out of love with the product over the years, and while I still have an account, I’ve avoided installing the clients for awhile now.
I’ve been migrating things over to Synology Drive hosted in my closet, and the UX for this is a lot like Dropbox (in a good way).
Combined with Tailscale, I get all of the convenience without the ick, and a hell of a lot more storage for that matter.
My limited syncing requirements are met with Signal. Put something into "Notes to Self" and it then exists anywhere I have Signal, which is on everything.
I finally got off of Dropbox recently in favor of the iCloud with "Advanced Data Protection", i.e. end-to-end encryption.
People tend to think that "Tech Independence" [1] and "The Cloud" are at odds with each other. But, end-to-end encrypted services that sync via the cloud really are the best of both worlds - convenient and secure.
I run Boxcryptor (the unpaid version with local keys) on top of Dropbox. They have recently been acquired by Dropbox, so I’m hoping that Dropbox will be integrating E2EE as well.
(Of course that doesn’t solve the telemetry issue.)
Fuck all telemetry (sharing any information which is not just "you have no control over" but anything which is not logically necessary for the app to do its primary job). Just don't use any apps you can block from doing this. IMHO this (sending redundant and untransparent information from a user's machine) should be outlawed.
Typo fix: I meant "apps you can'T block from doing this" of course.
Addition:
I also hate apps and gadgets using "clouds" for jobs which can perfectly be done locally.
E.g. I want a vitals tracking device to record my heart and sleep data but I am not buying any because they send that data to their servers, I want them to only send it to my PC where I would do the data science myself (and/or to my smartphone to a purely local app). I would pay a lot (up to e.g. what a beefiest new MacBook costs) for such a device if it were purely local and well-made (wouldn't break soon).
I also want a vacuum robot which would build and use my apartment map without sending it to any cloud but there are no such models no matter how much I am willing to pay (I know a solution[1] for vacuum robots - some can be hacked to run the server part on themselves but I don't really have time for this). And there have recently been a leak of pictures made by vacuum robots which proves my paranoia is legitimate.
Some genius has even invented a WC which analyzes your pee and stores your hormonal changes log in their cloud which is a great gift to conservative maniacs (I don't mean all conservatives are maniacs, some are awesome, there are many flavours of conservatism) which have just banned abortions and can now subpoena the company to find out you if you have secretly undergone an abortion in another state.
Surely insurance companies and banks will also find a way to get your data and make your insurance and loans prohibitively expensive as soon as they find some clues you might have health risks.
I am almost sure the problem of privacy negligence, every serious actor spying on people hoarding data, is going to become more and more serious up to a catastrophic point and hope it will get more and more attention soon.
I used to be called a paranoid loon by fellow students for covering my laptop camera a decade ago, now almost everybody does this and my new laptops (HP EliteBook and ProBook) even came with built-in curtains on the cams.
[+] [-] aunty_helen|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] popey|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] newaccount74|2 years ago|reply
I've also never had problems with CPU usage (Dropbox often caused high CPU usage in some cases)
The only downside is that background sync on iOS with Möbius Sync doesn't work reliably, but I think that is mainly because of how Apple cripples background processing. It does sync quickly if you manually start the app.
It's a bit challenging for new users (you need to understand machine keys, folder identifiers, ignore lists), but once it's set up it just works.
[+] [-] Pawka|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] eloisius|2 years ago|reply
I have a Pi with software RAID and two HDDs running Syncthing in my apartment. I rent a cheap Storage VPS from time4vps.com which is untrusted and set as an introducer--meaning, the data is encrypted before it reaches the VPS, and as an introducer it will announce devices to one another. My (former) laptop and an iMac where I do all my work are always in sync. If I need to add a new device, I only have to connect it to the VPS and suddenly all the other devices know of it.
[+] [-] dreamcompiler|2 years ago|reply
Edit: I should further qualify that I'm not interested in solutions that would lock me into Apple's walled garden or anybody else's.
[+] [-] qwezxcrty|2 years ago|reply
Although requested by many users throughout the years, the maintainers never considered it seriously.
[+] [-] geophile|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] epalm|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 1vuio0pswjnm7|2 years ago|reply
I confess I have never used it. I still rely on USB sticks for a variety of tasks, more than simply transferring files. Anyway, for me, this telemetry nonsense would be one reason I would avoid Dropbox.
Maybe there will someday be telemetry in USB sticks. We'll see. Meanwhile...
[+] [-] latexr|2 years ago|reply
No, it’s because it was useful and simple in a way that non-techies could and would set up and use. That’s why Dropbox got popular.
[+] [-] manigandham|2 years ago|reply
Of course you can use whatever you want.
[+] [-] abhibeckert|2 years ago|reply
Phew boy. You really should try dropbox or a competing service.*
Picture this:
1. Double click a file 2. Type some words 3. Save the file
That's it. There is no step 4. Your file is now synced to all your other computers and to any colleagues who also need that file.
Seriously you shouldn't be using USB sticks these days. Also - I'm guessing you haven't started the transition to USB-C yet? USB sticks are going to get really painful when you do.
(* I use a competing service - more than one actually, but I have used dropbox in the past and it worked well. I just didn't like the direction the company was taking it. This story is yet another example of that)
[+] [-] bayindirh|2 years ago|reply
Suddenly I have ripped myself out of a lot of stationary storage space, and access to a lot of files in the process. Moreover, this change was also compounded by lifestyle changes, which reduced my computer time at evenings a lot.
Then, I realized that I used these files a lot, and I needed them where I am, regardless of the device I have with me. After that, I understood what Dropbox is about. I have all my files, everywhere I need, anytime I need.
Moreover, many of the bookstores and merchants deliver things I buy directly into my Dropbox. That's great. Even updates to these items arrive automatically.
I backup the whole thing weekly via rclone to a disk, and I'm happy.
[+] [-] armchairhacker|2 years ago|reply
There was this "Dropbox" folder in your home folder, and anything put in there would show up in the home folder on your other computer or operating system or eventually even your phone. I also knew about Apple File Sharing and it was basically that but much more intuitive and worked on separate networks and on Windows (maybe Dropbox was inspired by AFS and the write-only "Drop Box"). Drop Box just worked, and to less tech-savvy younger me that was the only thing that mattered.
Now we have 300+ other programs which can do the same thing, and I use Git/Github for syncing and woof/AirDrop for individual files, so no Dropbox for me. And probably not for most technical users either.
But the average non tech-savvy user still needs a cross-platform service which "just works". And I'm sure their are alternatives which also "just work", but Dropbox is popular, and they don't care about the telemetry.
[+] [-] wanda|2 years ago|reply
I say *was because I cannot speak for how it is now, I do not have any data to judge how it is now.
I stopped using it a long time ago – not because I disliked it, I just picked a different solution.
[+] [-] lotsofpulp|2 years ago|reply
I have had experiences where putting in a USB stick automatically installs malware on the computer.
[+] [-] tinus_hn|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidgerard|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] adrr|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alkonaut|2 years ago|reply
I mean Dropbox has the contents of my files should I find it creepy or unnecessary that they know my RAM amount or what the last exception was?
[+] [-] hunter2_|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] MereInterest|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kokanee|2 years ago|reply
- Is the service running locally?
- Do we trust/expect that the data is not used for marketing (i.e. would the user have complained if the domain was "error-reporting.dropbox.com")?
- Is the data anonymous (think twice, everyone who has IPs or user IDs in request logs)
- Did we agree to relevant ToS or privacy policies?
If we think carefully about this, I'd bet that most people here have used or even implemented some form of logging that has privacy problems.
[+] [-] doersino|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thijsvandien|2 years ago|reply
TIL it is possible from the command line, so perhaps I can make it work with Automator.
[+] [-] Pawka|2 years ago|reply
The first comment in thread is from 2020, the last - from 2021. Now where I live is 2023.
I don't have any relationship with Dropbox, but we should be precise that this information might be outdated.
[+] [-] Razengan|2 years ago|reply
How Dropbox Hacks Your Mac (1037 points on Sept 9, 2016, 423 comments): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12463338
Revealing Dropbox’s dirty little security hack: https://applehelpwriter.com/2016/07/28/revealing-dropboxs-di...
Dropbox Lied to Users About Data Security: https://www.wired.com/2011/05/dropbox-ftc/
[+] [-] chrisyeah|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] xpil|2 years ago|reply
However, their approach to Android is absolutely ridiculous. There is no files or folders synchronization - at least not at the OS level, like in Windows or Linux. If I need to access my Dropbox files on an Android device, the only way is to do it via the Dropbox app, and it is clunky. The biggest pain point is that I cannot use 3rd party apps to open a folder in my Dropbox storage - I can open a single file, fine, but for example Obsidian is out of reach as it requires opening an entire folder, which is currently not possible.
(I can create an offline copy of the folder on the device and open that one but it defies the purpose of having a sophisticated synchronization software).
So I think at some point I will start investigating alternatives.
[+] [-] trollied|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SheinhardtWigCo|2 years ago|reply
Nope, it was an ad for using Dropbox to scan my tax documents or some shit like that.
I contacted support to ask about disabling future fake notifications, and they tried to claim that malware could be responsible.
I suppose in a way, they're not wrong...
[+] [-] lightedman|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] smittywerben|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mtmail|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] willis936|2 years ago|reply
There's a market here. Idk how big. Apple seems to think there's a market here too. If they offered larger sizes I might be tempted to go all in on Apple.
[+] [-] suddenclarity|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aborsy|2 years ago|reply
It’s a good way to give back, and improve software that is often free. It’s presumably anonymized and safe. I don’t think we should be adversarial.
[+] [-] haswell|2 years ago|reply
I’ve been migrating things over to Synology Drive hosted in my closet, and the UX for this is a lot like Dropbox (in a good way).
Combined with Tailscale, I get all of the convenience without the ick, and a hell of a lot more storage for that matter.
[+] [-] mikae1|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mrjin|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] otikik|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thoma4s|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conjuredbytes|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] landmass|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philip1209|2 years ago|reply
People tend to think that "Tech Independence" [1] and "The Cloud" are at odds with each other. But, end-to-end encrypted services that sync via the cloud really are the best of both worlds - convenient and secure.
[1] https://sive.rs/ti
[+] [-] layer8|2 years ago|reply
(Of course that doesn’t solve the telemetry issue.)
[+] [-] qwerty456127|2 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwerty456127|2 years ago|reply
Addition:
I also hate apps and gadgets using "clouds" for jobs which can perfectly be done locally.
E.g. I want a vitals tracking device to record my heart and sleep data but I am not buying any because they send that data to their servers, I want them to only send it to my PC where I would do the data science myself (and/or to my smartphone to a purely local app). I would pay a lot (up to e.g. what a beefiest new MacBook costs) for such a device if it were purely local and well-made (wouldn't break soon).
I also want a vacuum robot which would build and use my apartment map without sending it to any cloud but there are no such models no matter how much I am willing to pay (I know a solution[1] for vacuum robots - some can be hacked to run the server part on themselves but I don't really have time for this). And there have recently been a leak of pictures made by vacuum robots which proves my paranoia is legitimate.
Some genius has even invented a WC which analyzes your pee and stores your hormonal changes log in their cloud which is a great gift to conservative maniacs (I don't mean all conservatives are maniacs, some are awesome, there are many flavours of conservatism) which have just banned abortions and can now subpoena the company to find out you if you have secretly undergone an abortion in another state.
Surely insurance companies and banks will also find a way to get your data and make your insurance and loans prohibitively expensive as soon as they find some clues you might have health risks.
I am almost sure the problem of privacy negligence, every serious actor spying on people hoarding data, is going to become more and more serious up to a catastrophic point and hope it will get more and more attention soon.
I used to be called a paranoid loon by fellow students for covering my laptop camera a decade ago, now almost everybody does this and my new laptops (HP EliteBook and ProBook) even came with built-in curtains on the cams.
[1] https://github.com/Hypfer/Valetudo
[+] [-] Xeamek|2 years ago|reply