Followed by...
Followed by: “Google buys Dropbox”
Then followed by: “Google kills Dropbox”
Dropbox and Google have announced they will integrate some of their services. As explained by Dropbox, the plan means its users "will be able to create, open, edit, save, and share Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides directly from Dropbox. And when you're working in Dropbox, you'll be able to save Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides …
"I don't like this.
Guess I'll have to move all my stuff over somewhere else.
Bah and humbug."
For all of the freaking out about how bad this is, I've read the Dropbox announcement on this feature, and all it appears that Dropbox is doing is storing links to GSuite docs in Dropbox. So Google isn't reaching into Dropbox, but Dropbox is reaching into Google. It looks like you need to be a GSuite customer, and then add your GSuite API key into Dropbox, so Dropbox can show the Google files. In fact, it is basically the opposite of what the headline says.
That DropBox will be removing dormant accounts. Perhaps they'll let their new masters pilfer them first?
anyway, my DropBox account was deleted about 10 minutes ago... unless it really isn't gone but pining for the love and attention of Google before being removed.
If only Dropbox keep Google out of user accounts which are NOT paralleled by Google Drive storage, that will be no problem. Once you opt-in to Googleshit you get what you deserve. But Google are apt to have a One Account to Rule Them All and In the Darkness Find Them approach to their services, so sign up to say Google Books and you could find your Dropbox scraped clean. Any assurances that won't happen?
We've been using dropbox for several years as the collection and distribution mechanism for our clients (our software creates encrypted customer backups and dumps them in the dropbox where we collect them and store them in 3 offline silos; we also use dropbox to distribute updates to our software)
Began to get nervous following the Snowden revelatations and started looking around for alternatives using owner controlled encryption. Eventually found Sync (sync.com). We're now using paid 1Tb accounts on both though we're gradually migrating it all across to Sync. So far very impressed with them. Did a reasonable amount of due diligence and the security seems to stack up, though I've not seem them peer reviewed by the crypto community.
Much better level of control over who gets to see what and one feature I particularly like is that while we pay for the Tb account, we can share ALL of that with users who only sign up for the free 5Gb account. And I mean share as in full read write access, not just links to files.
But what we're increasingly using it for is secure communications. Create the document somewhere in an unshared area of your Sync box and you can send "privacy enhanced links" to your contacts, specifyiing passwords, expiry dates and download limits - with (anon) notification on download. I've actually nagged sync into going one step further and offering the option of email verified one time passwords, with notification, which would then make it a very easy way to deal securely with confidential and private material, complete with proof of delivery. They've put it on their "to think aboout" list.
In part my motive for this spiel is to raise awareness among fellow readers that there are alternatives to Dropbox we can trust but also to nudge more people into using their communication features and adding their nags to mine!
sync.com looks interesting.
For the SoHo user it has the same issue as other free/paid subscription sites. Commented on in another thread.
There's a big gap between the free 5gb option and the lowest paid option.
https://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2018/02/23/dropbox_ipo_sec_filing/
5gb zero cost or 500gb for $50 a year. But all I would want is maybe 100gb, pro rata $10 p/a (£7ish)