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Dropbox Now Limits Free Users To 3 Devices (venturebeat.com) 155

Dropbox has quietly removed unlimited device linking for free accounts, meaning that unless you upgrade to one of its paid plans, which start at $8.25 per month, you will be restricted to three devices for a single account. From a report: The change was rolled out earlier this month, though it's worth noting that those who had linked more than three devices prior to March 2019 won't be directly affected. However, anyone who already exceeds the new limit will be impacted at some point, as they won't be able to add any more devices to their account in the future, and if they upgrade to a new phone, tablet, or computer, the three device limit will catch up with them.
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Dropbox Now Limits Free Users To 3 Devices

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  • Bye bye (Score:5, Insightful)

    by enriquevagu ( 1026480 ) on Thursday March 14, 2019 @09:54AM (#58272350)

    That was the exact same point I stopped using Evernote. Time to find an alternative cloud storage.

    • I had already stopped using it for several reasons but this restriction is bonkers.

      • I stopped using Dropbox back when they got caught bahaving like malware on OS X - putting up a fake “system” pop up in order to grab broad system access they didn’t need to function.

        Either they were planning to be malicious, or their coders were incompetent, or both.

        I use Sync now - a security-focused company based in Canada. Unlike Dropbox, they offer encryption by default and have no direct access to my files.

        • by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

          I dropped Dropbox when they put Condi on the board of directors, which was pretty much the biggest "We're in bed with the Feds" canary I've ever seen.

        • Re:Bye bye (Score:4, Informative)

          by Richard_at_work ( 517087 ) on Thursday March 14, 2019 @02:26PM (#58273940)

          You do realise that they didn't do what you suggested, right? The original claim was that the security dialog was fake, but it was quickly proven to be a proper OS supplied one - the issue was rather that OSX had something like 10 different styles for the same dialog, and people made the assumption that the one Dropbox used was faked.

          • No, if you hit “cancel” on the first one (during the initial install request, which was a system pop up), then subsequently with every Dropbox restart you’d get another one with text along the lines of “Dropbox needs to fix permissions in order to function properly”. That was a Dropbox-generated pop up message styled to look like a system pop up.

            And Dropbox would still work just fine if you cancelled out that dialog each time, which is what I did while exploring alternatives.

            • Yeah, you are still misremembering - the original outrage was over Dropboxes use of the Accessibility APIs, which it needed for some of its functionality. When people bitched about that, and the level of access that gave apps, Apple hid them behind admin permissions, so Dropbox started requiring admin privileges to add itself to the Accessibility list.

              You may not have noticed it, but if you denied Dropbox the Accessibility rights, things did actually break - I can't remember exactly what it was as it was s

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • Between Google, Microsoft, and Apple, it's easy to find alternatives that offer free tiers with more storage than Dropbox. Alternatively, those of us around here should probably be switching to things like ownCloud [owncloud.org] or NextCloud [nextcloud.com]*.

      *Without stepping into the politics and history of what's gone on between the two, the short version is that NextCloud is a fork of ownCloud after ownCloud decided to switch to offering a free, open source version for personal use and a closed, paid version with more features for en

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by tepples ( 727027 )

        Between Google, Microsoft, and Apple, it's easy to find alternatives that offer free tiers with more storage

        Among these three, how many offer a GNU/Linux client? Or are GNU/Linux users instead expected to either A. lease a VPS on which to run NextCloud or B. pay the ISP to upgrade to a plan that allows forwarding ports and leave a PC at home turned on all the time?

        • by Anonymous Coward

          Why would you want some closed source client? You're running GNU/Linux, wouldn't you want to use something that's open source? Both Google and Microsoft supply API access.

          https://github.com/ncw/rclone/ [github.com]https://github.com/ncw/rclone Supports over 40 providers including things you can run yourself.

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          If you're interested in alternatives, I've been really happy with this OneDrive client for Linux. It even supports syncing SharePoint Sites and Office 365 groups. https://github.com/abraunegg/o... [github.com]
          • by pnutjam ( 523990 )
            Been looking for one of those, thanks. If you want to host your own storage, you can't beat the price at time4vps. They have great storage vps's. I'm using a TB one as a backup server and running calibre on it as well.
        • Re:Bye bye (Score:4, Informative)

          by Voyager529 ( 1363959 ) <voyager529.yahoo@com> on Thursday March 14, 2019 @11:54AM (#58272972)

          Or are GNU/Linux users instead expected to either A. lease a VPS on which to run NextCloud or B. pay the ISP to upgrade to a plan that allows forwarding ports and leave a PC at home turned on all the time?

          Privacy comes at a cost. This shouldn't be news. That being said, while I can't speak for every ISP, the consumer ISPs in my area only block 80 and 25; 443 is open even on consumer connections. You should be able to get it working that way. If not, Nextcloud does work over a custom port; I can speak from personal experience on that one.

          As for leaving a storage server at home turned on, I mean...if it's that much of an imposition, both Synology and QNAP have appliances which can handle this, and either run Nextcloud or their own first party plugins and applications which have Dropbox-like functions. If that's still too much and you're willing to put up with a performance dip, Nextcloud works on a Raspberry Pi; the DietPi distro has an auto installer for it. Or, Resilio Sync is pretty good and simply requires devices to be on at the same time to replicate data.

          Or, you could simply pony up for a paid Dropbox subscription, or pick which three devices you actually-need to have syncing regularly and use the WebUI to download/upload on subsequent ones.

          Or, there's Seafile, Pydio, S3/Wasabi buckets with rsync, or for the price of the higher tier Dropbox individual plan, seedboxes.cc will do a one-click install of Nextcloud with 2TB of storage *and* a VPN *and*...y'know...a seedbox.

          This is a solved problem, in several ways. Don't sit there being pedantic about calling it "GNU/Linux" twice in a one-line post and then try to argue that web-based folder syncing is so hard to do that you're reliant on a free service to do it for you.

        • Re:Bye bye (Score:4, Informative)

          by Dragonslicer ( 991472 ) on Thursday March 14, 2019 @01:27PM (#58273568)

          Between Google, Microsoft, and Apple, it's easy to find alternatives that offer free tiers with more storage

          Among these three, how many offer a GNU/Linux client? Or are GNU/Linux users instead expected to either A. lease a VPS on which to run NextCloud or B. pay the ISP to upgrade to a plan that allows forwarding ports and leave a PC at home turned on all the time?

          I don't know if Google has a separate storage system besides Google Drive, but KDE's Dolphin file manager supports Google Drive.

    • That was the exact same point I stopped using Evernote.

      And nothing of value was lost (to Dropbox).

      I stopped using Evernote because it sucked, not because of how much I could mooch off them for free (or not).

      I think a limit of three devices for free cloud syncing is pretty reasonable, to get a sense of if dropbox will work for what you are trying to do.

      The device limits seems especially reasonable given than number of connections are almost worse than amount of data stored...

      The thing is, Dropbox works reall

    • They're not getting any money from you though. And presumably never will. I think it's a mutual separation.
    • That was the exact same point I stopped using Evernote. Time to find an alternative cloud storage.

      I'm sure they will be devastated to lose your ... er ... uh ... use of their resources without paying them anything?

      Was there something else they were supposed to be devastated about?

    • by kalpol ( 714519 )
      It's kinda hard to beat Crashplan Small Business. While the Linux client is a little buggy, I haven't found anything else yet that matches the functionality and storage space for the price.
      • by kalpol ( 714519 )
        for backups, that is. I don't know about collaboration or file syncing except Nextcloud which is awesome.
    • by Tom ( 822 )

      My first thought as well.

      Then my second thought was that that's the whole point. They don't want us freebooters on their services anymore.

    • by jwhyche ( 6192 )

      Yes, It's time to bail. If they don't want people to take advantage of their free services they shouldn't offer them for free. I'll be moving all my crap over to OneDrive, I guess, since I have 1 TB of space there.

      The best option would be to set up my own cloud storage system. I think Window 10 has something like that built in but I think I would be better off going with something that runs on a penguin. Any suggestions?

      • Hilariously, Onedrive seems to be easier to use with Linux as the client than Google Drive, too.

        That's... funny?

  • Now I have asymmetric internet speeds I'll be moving off a few cloud services.
  • Why use dropbox? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by fred6666 ( 4718031 ) on Thursday March 14, 2019 @10:02AM (#58272394)

    I understand it was one of the first of its kind (certainly not bringing any new feature to us being used to having our own FTP server for years). But why would someone use dropbox today?
    If I choose Google, I get the integration with Email and Google Docs/Sheets which allow easy editing of documents by multiple different people, and pictures get hosted for free on google photos. And the basic storage of 15 GB is much more than dropbox 2GB.
    If I choose Microsoft, I get the integration with Windows, office 365, and the 5TB plan cost less than dropbox' 2TB.

    Dropbox doesn't integrate well with anything, so it's one more account to manage, plus the pricing isn't very interesting.

    What's the advantage of Dropbox? Why are people still using it?

    • Support for any file type.

      • Shouldn't a cloud storage just support any type of binary blob?

      • Is there any competitor which doesn't support any file type?

        • by Mal-2 ( 675116 )

          Yes. Box.com, for example, will not allow the sharing of .exe files. You can easily roll them into an archive and post them that way, but you can't post raw executables. at least ones the system is designed to flag.

    • I mostly use it for legacy reasons and personal storage, as my “real” Microsoft and google accounts are for work.

      But, I will be migrating off of them now as they add no real value to me, and I currently have 7-8 devices linked up with occasional use on most.

      At current price points, it seems like a pretty dumb move.

    • by tepples ( 727027 ) <tepples.gmail@com> on Thursday March 14, 2019 @10:18AM (#58272466) Homepage Journal

      Dropbox doesn't integrate well with anything

      Dropbox integrates with GNU/Linux bettter than Google Drive and OneDrive do. Consider what happens when I visit each of three major cloud storage services' sync client download page using Firefox on Linux:

      Dropbox
      Success. The site offers a .deb file to install.
      Google Drive
      Failure. "There is no Drive app for Linux at this time. Please use Drive on the web and on your mobile devices."
      Microsoft OneDrive
      Failure. Firefox begins to download a Windows executable, and the program's page on AppDB [winehq.org] rates it "Garbage".
      • by paulatz ( 744216 )
        Dropbox used to integrate well with Linux, but now it refuses to sync if the filesystem isn't unencrypted ext4, which is not even the ubuntu's default.For google drive there are third-party solutions which work quite reliably, some are not free, but still cheaper than Dropbox if you arre happy with 10-100GB storage
        • by tepples ( 727027 )

          Dropbox works with disk-level encryption, just not file-level encryption.

          Is rclone the best third-party Google Drive solution that isn't paywalled?

      • Yet on the system I'm typing this from, I can open a terminal and type "dnf install onedrive" and a nice, simple open source client will download and install.

        https://www.maketecheasier.com... [maketecheasier.com]

        Fedora 29, file comes from the base distro repo, not even an add on.

      • Of the three of those, Dropbox is the only one you won't be able to use on any filesystem except ext4.

        Why, Dropbox???

    • I pay for them because their client works on desktop linux.
    • If I choose Google, I get the integration with Email and Google Docs/Sheets which allow easy editing of documents by multiple different people, and pictures get hosted for free on google photos.

      Well obviously, the primal answer is FUCK GOOGLE.

      To clarify further I have heard about Google locking people out of files they deem "bad", like either copyright infringement or porn (ask a cosplayer). So what happens to documents I have synced on Googles doc cloud...

      Not to mention, what if I have some photos I want

      • I get that you hate Google, but other than that, I don't see the difference with the competition, even with what you explained. Are you saying Gdrive doesn'T sync well? Or that One drive doesn't allow you to share files with outsiders?

    • by Moskit ( 32486 )

      Dropbox was integrated as "remote/cloud drive" with Android phones. Samsung had promotions on extra storage. A number of applications support this integration (like KeyPass). It was used as a file-sharing service, not colaboration, while FTP could be great there, it doesn't handle gracefully variants of blocked ports and NAT (and no easy interface for shared file permissions). Short: people used it and got used to it.

      A (probably) more important reason would be that Dropbox is a single service company. Unlik

      • Dropbox was integrated as "remote/cloud drive" with Android phones. Samsung had promotions on extra storage. A number of applications support this integration (like KeyPass). It was used as a file-sharing service, not colaboration, while FTP could be great there, it doesn't handle gracefully variants of blocked ports and NAT (and no easy interface for shared file permissions). Short: people used it and got used to it.

        Well Google Drive integrates with Android phones as well. I get that you had a promotion for temporary storage, so perhaps you have more than 2GB. But it still doesn't explain why a new user would choose Dropbox today. Or why won't you switch out of Dropbox after your promo expires.
        Especially with the new restrictions on the number of devices, it seems they are pushing users away.

        A (probably) more important reason would be that Dropbox is a single service company. Unlike Google or Microsoft they will not be able to easily corelate EVERYTHING you do with the additional file sharing/coediting activities, especially between users (as opposed to between devices of the same user).

        I bet 99% of Dropbox users either don't care about that and/or also use Google and/or Microsoft services all the time.

        The 0.01% o

    • Let me get this straight... Dropbox already offers only about 10% of the free storage of the other competing services like Google Drive or Onedrive, and now they are trying to restrict you to just 3 devices for synching? Wow.

      It seems like they've basically given up on getting new users with the free tier that might migrate to the paid tier later.

    • by AntEater ( 16627 )

      Dropbox doesn't integrate well with anything,

      I use it precisely because it doesn't drag along integration with anyone else's cloud services.

      • So you prefer not being able to collaborate on a document using Google Docs? You prefer having to create 2 accounts instead of one for email and cloud storage?

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      Dropbox doesn't integrate well with anything,

      Yes, it does. It integrates well with all operating systems I'm running plus has a web interface. It doesn't try to be more than a cloud file storage, and that's wonderful. It does its job and does it well, but I guess we are again regressing backwards in development and the Unix philosophy of actually doing your fucking job instead of trying to be a kitchen sink isn't trendy anymore.

      I'll be setting up my own cloud service now, because using Dropbox was just the most convenient way, but damn it was convenie

    • Dropbox integrates very well with several applications. I use it to share my Scrivener documents across platforms, including Linux/Wine, Windows, iOS and MacOS. Support is built into Scrivener to handle this seamlessly and with minimal fuss.

      I also have several document viewers for iOS and Android which hook right into Dropbox to view documents of various kinds. Very handy for manuals and reference documents.

      That, and the fact that it has excellent selective syncing allowing me to get the files I need onto m

      • Dropbox integrates very well with several applications. I use it to share my Scrivener documents across platforms, including Linux/Wine, Windows, iOS and MacOS. Support is built into Scrivener to handle this seamlessly and with minimal fuss.

        Sounds to me this is the wrong way of doing it. The integration should be at the OS/Virtual filesystem level. This way, any application could save a document to your cloud storage. You wouldn't need all your applications to integrate support for all cloud storage providers. Your document application shouldn't even need Internet access to begin with.

        I also have several document viewers for iOS and Android which hook right into Dropbox to view documents of various kinds. Very handy for manuals and reference documents.

        you mean as opposed to launching your cloud storage application and clicking the document you want to view, which will launch the associated viewer (in this case

        • My document application of choice (Scrivener) only needs Internet access to synchronize documents I have decided to share between my various systems. Editing is done completely offline. It works very well, and Scrivener documents are very complex, so relying on the OS to handle syncing is not reliable (yes, it's been tested, and it causes endless problems; Scrivener managing syncing is the only way to get reliable functionality).

          And this is the point of having Dropbox. I keep the data synced, offline. I can

          • Scrivener managing syncing is the only way to get reliable functionality

            I doubt this claim. The OS could manage having the file off line plus syncing it reliably.

    • by msevior ( 145103 )

      I understand it was one of the first of its kind (certainly not bringing any new feature to us being used to having our own FTP server for years). But why would someone use dropbox today?
      If I choose Google, I get the integration with Email and Google Docs/Sheets which allow easy editing of documents by multiple different people, and pictures get hosted for free on google photos. And the basic storage of 15 GB is much more than dropbox 2GB.
      If I choose Microsoft, I get the integration with Windows, office 365, and the 5TB plan cost less than dropbox' 2TB.

      Dropbox doesn't integrate well with anything, so it's one more account to manage, plus the pricing isn't very interesting.

      What's the advantage of Dropbox? Why are people still using it?

      Dropbox has really nice gnome integration. I drop files in on one machine or on my phone and I get them on my desktop at work, my laptop and my phone. I'm happy to pay Dropbox $100 per year for 1 TB of cloud storage.

      • It seems since Gnome 3.18 they support various cloud providers equally (at least google drive).

        From what I understand you could either save money or get more storage with Google.

  • Looks like I finished setting up my personal Nextcloud instance just in time.

    • Yes, I have to pay a provider for the storage, but I can control who can see my data. Guests do not need to have a dropbox account or get logged etc.And the data is stored in the EU which makes it compliant with local law.

  • I really only use Dropbox to share files with other people and I'm very interested in Mozilla's new file sharing service: https://send.firefox.com/ [firefox.com]
    • I agree it's interesting but it's not the same use case.
      There were many file transfer services similar to firefox send, such as wetransfer. But I agree I'd trust mozilla more than some random people.

  • Like others have mentioned, I basically gave up on Dropbox a long time ago. One of the main reasons for me was that they don't encrypt the files. I have an account with Box that offers me 50GB of storage for free. I get around the encryption issue by creating a Veracrypt container in Box and adding my files to the container. I consider it more like archival storage just in case my local backups get corrupted.

    For day to day file sharing I use a combination of OneDrive and OneNote. Mostly work related stuff s

    • by tepples ( 727027 )

      I have an account with Box that offers me 50GB of storage for free. I get around the encryption issue by creating a Veracrypt container in Box and adding my files to the container.

      How do you get around the requirement of Windows or macOS to run Box Sync? (source [box.com])

      • I use a script I run periodically to comb through my Documents folder and write it to a password protected 7-zip compressed file and write that file to the Box Sync folder. That file is what gets written to the Box cloud drive. Yes, I do have to run Box Sync to keep it all together though.

  • I don't want to say it's a dumb move by DropBox, because ultimately why should they - from a business point of view - care about free users? If people want to walk away instead of upgrading to the paid plans, they aren't really losing out.

    But avoiding the three device limit isn't enough to get people to jump from £0 to £8/month. Certainly not if they were happy with 2GB and don't need 1TB.

    If they want to retain users, with the prospect of them upgrading to the higher plans later, then they reall

    • My guess is they could keep the fee tier as-is, but add a cheap paid tier just above it, and then improve features in the tier above with a slight price increase.

      Say what you will, but I've been very happy with Dropbox as a paying customer. It's worked extremely reliably for me.

  • I already have Owncloud running on a leased vps, and it does a "backup" of my dropbox, along with "dropbox" style use by the family. I use Dropbox between my home workstation and my laptop and phone, so I guess I'm cool (for now).

  • Been using that and prefer it to Dropbox, however my team at work insists on using it even though we have a "bottomless" One Drive. Maybe this will get the team and, therefore, me away from it.

  • by bradley13 ( 1118935 ) on Thursday March 14, 2019 @12:33PM (#58273232) Homepage

    I moved to OwnCloud when Dropbox screwed up their Linux support last Fall.

    Owncloud is not difficult to set up on your own server. Tedious, maybe, but not difficult. The worst of it is that you will probably need a dynamic DNS solution. Then you have your data on your own hardware - not someone else's. Combine with a sensible backup plan, and you're all set.

If you have to ask how much it is, you can't afford it.

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