Not only have I enjoyed it so much I've told countless friends about dropbox, it also auto invites your friends to join when you share a file with them. That's in part why they already had over 100,000 beta testers before even launching.
I've been using Syncplicity, which offers similar functionality, and that works too. Clearly, their PR isn't as good - it's been launched for some time.
That's awesome. I finally got the invite a week or so ago and I couldn't be happier. I already got 3 of my friends on it as well because it just WORKS. Beautiful
I've use jungledisk and MobileMe/iDisk, but on seeing this story this morning I thought I'd give dropbox a try, and I was blown away by how well it 'just worked'. Things like sharing, proper diffs, public folders all done properly and simply. Really need Mac Finder integration. I'm a convert!
Shame that someone else has the dropbox.com domain though ...
I have been using it for quite a few months and am officially impressed with the stability of the app. This is a good time to remember to backup - I will be saving some important photos immediately!
The only complaint I have is that it does not make explicitly clear (to me) what folders are public.
DropBox a winner? Xobni a winner? How did they do it?
The recipe is to not rush your product out there. I think most entrepreneurs do not understand "Release Early, Update Daily, Weekly, Monthly". Sometimes releasing early can work against you. Be patient.
I must say that while I was already impressed by the product, the blog post announcing the public launch was just as impressive. It is very well written and portrays the company as having great professionalism and aptitude. You don't see many startups doing this.
"It started in Boston’s South Station in November 2006 where one night, while waiting for the Chinatown bus to New York, I wrote the first lines of code of what eventually became Dropbox. I had forgotten my USB drive at home and was frustrated that I couldn’t get any 'real work' done."
I routinely forget I even have Dropbox because it gets out of my way so damn perfectly.
Amazing job. And thank you most of all for the "undo" feature. I'm not saying that one day Dan accidently deleted all of our files, but you know, hypothetically.
I'd like to emphasize how well Dropbox works as a collaborative tool. Never having to attach and download shared files from email is a great help in staying organized.
A co-worker can simply shoot you an IM or shout across the office that a document has been updated, and it's already on your machine ready to be opened.
I hope people don't get this confused with a source code repository though, as it definitely isn't optimal for working on shared source code. Stick with documents, images, and media, and you'll be fine.
I think if you're actually interested in encryption, your best bet is actually not to wait on us to help you with it. If we're cooperating with you to encrypt your data, it's by definition not secure. A number of security-conscious users use us combined with TrueCrypt volumes.
I see a couple ways you could introduce encryption securely.
1. At the very least, encrypt data being transfered using SSL, to prevent sniffing on WiFi and other public networks. Public key cryptography (like SSL) certainly can be secure, and does or doesn't require "cooperation" depending on your definition.
2. Your client could somehow integrate with something like TrueCrypt, but leave it up to the user to manage their keys.
Along these lines, I want to know what the catch is. Where/how are the files stored, how do they stop us from going past 2gb, is there anything in place for when the RIAA/MPAA come calling? More critical replies please, YC.
That's not Dropbox, that's the Nautilus integration. That is, you keep the essential parts proprietary and closed, and open the parts where you hope others to do work for you. It's not the oddest strategy, but it doesn't live up to the promise either.
On the other hand, if you freed the daemon too, you could get included in Linux distributions, and people would know what all Dropbox is doing on their computers.
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[ 4.1 ms ] story [ 142 ms ] threadJust kidding, I'm in love with their service and am a very happy user. They're backed by Sequoia and some other BSDs.
How the hell do you make something boring like file storage viral and cool? I don't know but Dropbox just did it.
I prefer Dropbox now (it's superior), but I never felt like this wasn't something I didn't have access to beforehand.
"...What you want to be able to say about technology is: it just works. How often do you say that now?" -- http://www.paulgraham.com/ideas.html
A damn good sign for Dropbox methinks.
You can't just say "Err" to the user of a stove.
They're just not as well connected or cross platform.
Shame that someone else has the dropbox.com domain though ...
The only complaint I have is that it does not make explicitly clear (to me) what folders are public.
eg http://digg.com/users/supersaucer
EDIT - PS, love dropbox guys, good work!
The recipe is to not rush your product out there. I think most entrepreneurs do not understand "Release Early, Update Daily, Weekly, Monthly". Sometimes releasing early can work against you. Be patient.
Finally, yay! for being an MIT startup :)
Ha, classic 'founder story' as discussed 7 days ago: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=294663
Amazing job. And thank you most of all for the "undo" feature. I'm not saying that one day Dan accidently deleted all of our files, but you know, hypothetically.
A co-worker can simply shoot you an IM or shout across the office that a document has been updated, and it's already on your machine ready to be opened.
I hope people don't get this confused with a source code repository though, as it definitely isn't optimal for working on shared source code. Stick with documents, images, and media, and you'll be fine.
1. At the very least, encrypt data being transfered using SSL, to prevent sniffing on WiFi and other public networks. Public key cryptography (like SSL) certainly can be secure, and does or doesn't require "cooperation" depending on your definition.
2. Your client could somehow integrate with something like TrueCrypt, but leave it up to the user to manage their keys.
And yeah, hopefully we can find a way to help users along the path of managing their own keys.
Digg: http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_GDrive_Killer_finally_launc...
Already at the top of digg!
Congrats on the launch!
It's here, it's open source, and it's free software! Dropbox for Linux is finally available and ready for your everyday use.
Further down the page:
-- dropboxd is a per-user closed-source daemon process that makes sure your $HOME/Dropbox directory is properly synchronized.
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/5143/nautilus-dropbox-packages/0....
On the other hand, if you freed the daemon too, you could get included in Linux distributions, and people would know what all Dropbox is doing on their computers.
Is a domain name change in the future? Drop the word get?