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?

[cdgoin]

RIVER..

We understand our sharing options and the changes to the link formatting. That is not the issue. 

The issue is you want us to go back and update millions of links.

DropBox is acting like we bookmark every post we ever made, or even have access to anymore. Then we can "JUST" go fix the posts with new links.. THAT IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. 

THIS CAN NOT HAPPEN EVEN IF WE WANTED TOO,

IN MANY CASES WE NO LONGER HAVE ACCESS TO THE OLD POSTS TO EVEN EDIT THE LINKS.

Then even if we do have access to the post to edit it, we simply do not have time to hunt down 5 years worth of posts to fix them all. 

So, from car forums, home schooling forums, knitting forums, rescue squad forums, you name it, valuable data will be essentially destroyed. Understand from hobbies to work related issues, these forums cover the gambit of social media. All of them will now lose years of valuable information and "value" themselves, they will all look at Dropbox as the one that has destroyed their information and will leave for other services. This ends up with fewer end users for you and all of them speaking bad about your business, that is not a way to increase your value. It IS a way to lose value and respect across the internet.

Some of us have contributed to thousands of posts scattered across these multiple forums using dropbox to host the images and information in them. One other thing to consider is many forum contributors in many of these same forums over the last 5 years have passed. They are the only ones that know these links exist and are the only ones that had some of the information they shared. You will be eliminating their contributions as well. 

This move is very similar to moves at MySpace.com, MP3.com, Geocities, Homestead, etc.. that ruined the value of a known service. They all lost their userbase and their value virtually overnight thanks to self-inflicted damage. All are now much smaller and worth much less, or got bought by competition for pennies on the dollar and shut down.

Yes change the system., make it more secure. Make people use the new more secure generated links. BUT DO NOT KILL ALL THE OLD ONES.. Thats what we are asking you too do. We don't need to know how to learn to create new links, we get how to do that. We DONT want to have to create NEW links for MILLIONS of OLD ones. 

Most of us can adjust to not having dropbox host the files like they used too and adjust to having to use new code for embedded files.

What we CAN NOT DO is fix all the OLD links to the OLD files that are scattered all over the internet.    

[Giangi H.]

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River ha scritto:

In many cases, our newer sharing features are an alternative for the Public folder links. You can ‘create a shared link’ for any file or folder in your Dropbox. Creating a shared link is similar to using Public folder links, with one key difference: links are not automatically generated.

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The error here is the words "In many cases", actually you must write "In no cases" because your new sharing will never let us post an image without all your bells and whistles around it.

[cdgoin]

Wierdly DropBox seemed to have been canceling and rejected posts and deleting links to this thread. 

But now they are all back... ( Thus my duplicates ).

I guess River / DropBox didn't like being put to task.. 

[Chris R.]

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@River wrote:

Thank you all for the comments and questions about the Public folder. We understand this decision impacts many of your workflows, and requires time to update the links for your shared content.

In many cases, our newer sharing features are an alternative for the Public folder links. You can ‘create a shared link’ for any file or folder in your Dropbox. Creating a shared link is similar to using Public folder links, with one key difference: links are not automatically generated.

We recognize that this change may cause frustration. We want to help you understand your sharing options.

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You just don't get it, do you? AS HAS ALREADY BEEN SAID - IF IT WAS JUST ABOUT ENDING SUPPORT FOR THE 'PUBLIC FOLDER' YOU WOULDN'T BE GETTING A FRACTION OF THIS GRIEF.

It's because you have not given one tiny reason why you're prepared to 'break' large sections of the internet, millions of links that are going to become dead, when it would only take a small bit of code to prevent this.

WHY? Tell us why you are going ahead with this Trump-like megalomania, and making enemies of a large section of your users?

WHY? We just want to know why. The longer you go on not telling us, the more we think everything you do and say is just so much BS.

[Chris R.]

Right. Here is one solution to the problem.

1. First, admit that there IS a problem for many of your users, and for future consumers of content originally posted to forums using the direct links in Public folders
2. Give your users notice - a few weeks should be enough - that their Public folders are to become 'read only'. That should give most of us time to clear out of the folder anything we don't want to keep as a live link
3. On the due date, when everyone's Public folder is 'read only', grandfather all the links that have been generated from those folders, so that parts of the internet don't just "die" as you are currently prepared to see happen
4. From that time onwards, the only links that can be generated will be the type of 'shared link' you want everyone to use.

Now, can you please give us ONE SINGLE GOOD REASON why this should not work?

YOU get what YOU want.

WE get the best of a bad job.

It's win-(almost) win ... instead of the anti-social unbusinesslike chaos you seem happy to visit on the world. 

[narikaa]

Well FINALY a reply from DB support:


Thank you for your patience and for contacting Dropbox support.

As we continue to create new features that help you administer your team, we need to deprecate older features that function alongside our newer features. The Public folder is now a deprecated feature, and moving forward I'd recommend using shared links instead. Shared links provide similar functionality but can be used with any folder in your Dropbox. You can find more info here:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/167

You can also force shared links to download automatically, just like Public links. Check out this Help Center article for steps on how to do so:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/201

If you have further questions about this, feel free to reach back out to us and we will be happy to investigate further.

Regards,
Ciara

We have just launched a brand new Dropbox community! You can find immediate answers 24/7. Check it out http://dropboxforum.com



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Reply:

I see your answer (canned response?)

It DOESNT address the issue raised

Web forum software, when using the [img]....[/img] codes , accepts the "https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com......." format of current public folder links , but rejects the "https://www.dropbox.com......" format of current links from any other folder.

Tinkering about with the '=1' / '=0' at the end of the link does nothing to resolve this dilemma
Are you folks not cognisant of the workings of your rivals who have the ability to simply supply 'forum friendly' [img]....[/img] url links at the click of a mouse?

[kiaz h.]

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@narikaa wrote:

You can also force shared links to download automatically, just like Public links. Check out this Help Center article for steps on how to do so:

https://www.dropbox.com/help/201

Nice! At least direct download is possible with this, so it solves half of my problems. But the other thing is still a problem, that my app dowloaded from public ~750 files... and a full folder can't be shared, and also the relative paths are not visible, so the app don't know where to search for the files...

[narikaa]

Hardly solves most peoples problems!
Forum software wont countenance that format
& the small matter of millions of moribund existing links

[Oskar_M]

After thinking about it many times, I will change all the links used by Dropbox shared folders.

I will create a new folder structure and move my files there. I think I have to create new links to be able to insert my photos in other websites or forums.

Until now I used links of this type:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/26644606/viajeros/provenza/_MG_6325.jpg

With the changes that will make Dropbox, is it enough to change the links so that they are as follows?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ve7mv7pimvjoaqc/_MG_6325.jpg?raw=1

I would like someone to confirm it to me since I have to modify about 1,400 links ...

Thank you very much in advance.

[narikaa]

The litmus test is in your hands ...take a "www.dropbox.com/...." type link and see if the forum will take it. (I doubt it as none have in my experience, and this is the problem, apart from killing all existing links Dropbox Management are inflicting a future format THAT DOES NOT WORK onto its customers)