Ending support of public folder

[ae2rigc]

Just heard from dropbox that support for the public folder is ending.

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As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Pro users will be able to use the Public folder until
September 1, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.

If you’d like to keep sharing files in your Public folder, you can create new shared links. Just make sure to send the new URLs to your collaborators.

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It is one of the most useful features of the service for me as I use it to get links to single files that I can send to people without setting up shared folders and requiring them to have dropbox accounts.

(Save file to my public folder locally, syncs, right click, get publick link, paste. Doesn't get any easier than that.)

It's also useful for bb style forum posts where you can link to images with an easy tag.

With the public folder support being removed, is there going to be an alternative solution to allow easy public sharing of single files?

[yeswap]

This change does not " improve the Dropbox sharing experience" as Dropbox claims. It creates hours of unnecessary work for users like me who have used the shared folder to post images, apps and other files all over the web.

I now have to track down every place on the web where I have shared a file from my public folder and replace the link with a new one, if possible. Most forums do not allow posts to be edited after a day or two and many blogs do not allow comments to be edited at all. That means this change will create large numbers of broken Dropbox links all over the web. Broken links hurt the web experience for everyone. Broken dropbox.com links send the message that Dropbox is not a reliable place to share files.

A cardinal rule of web design is to not break links. Dropbox, please reconsider this decision and allow existing Public folder links to continue to work.

[SirPsp]

The only reason I use Dropbox over other cloud services is because I can create direct links.

I helped my girlfriend set up a Dropbox account a while back and found out that feature had been removed for new users, instead of a direct link it goes to a dropbox page. I then stopped recommending Dropbox to people.

Now it is being removed completely... does anyone know of another service which allows sharing direct links?
I've shared so many images on forums that will now be removed.

[public-folder]

What would be the point for anyone to recommend using Dropbox to friends or colleagues now?

I certainly can't think of any, and my nearly maxxed-out sharing bonuses (I have a free account, but it is 14gb strong) suggests that I have brought you more than my share of new users - quite a few of those are paying. 

I only use it for the public folder on forums, for hosting small images or videos as part of tutorials and assistance to people working on thier cars. I make nothing from this other than good karma. Thanks for spoiling it for everyone. 

FYI: For the free users, we get booted 6 months earlier than the paying users. So you don't get a whole lot for that big sack you are paying.

[fliptop]

I have 30,662 Files (pdf) in 7,844 Folders all linked in my public folder to my blog https://PTAB.US   I just switched to google drive, so will be porting these over between now and September 16. 2017.  I have been with dropbox since 2012.  so long... 

signed,

unhappy pro user

[jigglywiggly j.]

So stupid, I have lots of images linked into forum posts with Dropbox using the public links. Now they're all going to 404. Not to mention a lot of obscure files I had left for download on forums like a custom gtx 970 bios, or a custom motherboard bios. It's impractical to find where I've made all those posts.

The one feature I liked most about Dropbox is going, I think Spideroak at least lets you still link direct files.

[Matthew T.27]

Of course, another poor decision made by Dropbox executives with an astonishingly poor lack of communication and absolutely no consultation with those paying for the service who are directly impacted by it.

I can't think of a single impressive thing Dropbox has done over the past few years. Let's list some

1. Getting rid of HTML rendering in public links
2. Nagging paying personal users to upgrade to business
3. Refusing to implement highly popular ideas with virtually no Dropbox staff engaging with the community. Rather, we only see these  unpaid "super users" insistant on playing devil's advocate and justifying objectively terrible decisions.
4. Getting rid of Mailbox
5. Hiring highly unpopular executives
6. Forcefully requesting users sign up to download public files, likely in order to inflate user numbers to hide the exodus of users.
7. Killing the public folder

There's probably more on this list.

Dropbox has become a joke. And to think you've got Guido working for you...

[andipandi]

This is a horrible decision. Breaking links all over the web, and the file sharing is horrible. I don't need Dropbox to be Basecamp, with a comment interface on my files... i just want a link to my files. That's it.

[Jacquerel]

I understand that public image hosting is not a terribly profitable business, but the public folder was literally the sole purpose I and also almost everyone else I know who uses Dropbox chose the service. This news means that they will cancel their subscriptions and now have to go and investigate this service's competitors to see if any provide the feature you are now dropping, as well as having to put a great deal of work in to now transfer all of their previous hyperlinks to new addresses. 

I would deeply urge the owners of Dropbox to reconsider. This sidelines the product from one of great utility to one only particularly suitable for creating backups of important documents, something I would get almost the same utility from if I just bought a cheap external hard drive and carried it around with me.

[Jacquerel]

I understand that public image hosting is not a terribly profitable business, but the public folder was literally the sole purpose I and also almost everyone else I know who uses Dropbox chose the service. This news means that they will cancel their subscriptions and now have to go and investigate this service's competitors to see if any provide the feature you are now dropping, as well as having to put a great deal of work in to now transfer all of their previous hyperlinks to new addresses. 

I would deeply urge the owners of Dropbox to reconsider. This sidelines the product from one of great utility to one only particularly suitable for creating backups of important documents, something I would get almost the same utility from if I just bought a cheap external hard drive and carried it around with me.

[andipandi]

Dropbox - public folder = ftp site with no access, less functionality, no sharing. The new share page is useless. Who asked for that?

Broken links all over the web.

I can move most of my files elsewhere, except 1Password key. Not sure where I can move that securely.