PSA: Regarding Mods and Resources Hosted on Dropbox

[Kinsie]

As of March 15 2017, Dropbox will be ceasing support for Public Folders for free users. If you use a Public folder, it'll automatically be turned into a standard, private folder on that date. If you use the Public folder to host your mods, your link will break at that time. Which might suck!

You can create a share link to a file in a private folder and it will still work, so this isn't the end of the world. It does, however, add a few additional, annoying steps to using Dropbox to share your work here. You might also consider alternate file hosting, but keep in mind: you get what you pay for...

[Yholl]

gyaaaaa

Thanks for the heads up Kinsie! That would've been... fun to run into.

[Nevander]

Dropbox will be ceasing support for Public Folders for free users

Fixing what ain't broken. Nice one Dropbox.

[Arctangent]

Dropbox will be ceasing support for Public Folders for free users

Fixing what ain't broken. Nice one Dropbox.

yes, how dare they, a business, help cut down on internet usage by cutting a feature for their non-paying users

... also how is this "fixing" in any case of the word, anyway? I highly doubt that was a bug.

[Nevander]

Free service becomes paid = free users stop using it, and would probably never pay anyway. They lose users.

[Rachael]

Free service becomes paid = free users stop using it, and would probably never pay anyway. They lose users.

That's probably the point. They probably couldn't sustain the users they had.

Just because you're a business doesn't mean you want 100% popularity - what you want is income, bottom line.

Could there have been a better way to handle this? Probably. But as has already been noted, you can still share public links, anyway, so it's not like it's going to be a huge significant drop.

[Jimmy]

Oh for fuck's sake that's where all my MIDIs are hosted. Time to change a bunch of URLs on my website.

God damn it.

[Arctangent]

Free service becomes paid = free users stop using it, and would probably never pay anyway. They lose users.

... Which means they have less of their storage and server usage ... well, used, while not losing any of their profit.

That's a bad thing, how?

[Dr_Cosmobyte]

I just hope Mediafire doesn't do something similar... *knock knock knock*

[Caligari87]

Google Drive works really well as a file locker.

[Big C]

I just hope Mediafire doesn't do something similar... *knock knock knock*

Honestly given some of the other problems I've had with them just as a downloader it would only be insult to injury at this point.

[Josh771]

... Which means they have less of their storage and server usage ... well, used, while not losing any of their profit.

That's a bad thing, how?

Actually, wouldn't they only be freeing up storage in the case of angry users taking down their accounts? I imagine a great many of us are going to continue to store the files from our public folders in Dropbox even after the folder's been converted to private, if for no other reason than laziness... *points at self*

If I recall correctly, Dropbox turned the public folder option into a paid feature and simply grandfathered in those of us who already had accounts before then. I don't see this choice being much more than a postponed renege on that whole "grandfathering" thing - although I imagine even during the first decision to make public folders paid they had written up the legalese equivalent of "Don't expect this service to remain unpaid indefinitely if you got lucky and have free public folders."

Still, all my mods are hosted through Dropbox. Anyone recommend a good alternative? I imagine Mediafire does free hosting?

[zrrion the insect]

They do. I think its 10 gb for free users. I signed up ages ago when they were doing 50 gb and they are great. I haven't had too many problems with the site, uploading or downloading, but the desktop synching thing they've got can be finicky sometimes so don't work from the sync folder and you'll be fine.

[Caligari87]

Google Drive is 15GB for free users and doesn't mind if you make links/folders public. Also works for image hosting, and google Sites is viable if you want to build a website for your project.

[wildweasel]

They do. I think its 10 gb for free users. I signed up ages ago when they were doing 50 gb and they are great. I haven't had too many problems with the site, uploading or downloading, but the desktop synching thing they've got can be finicky sometimes so don't work from the sync folder and you'll be fine.

While I'm able to download from Mediafire, they often redirect the page to an obnoxious full-page ad that blocks attempts to close or go back with "Are you sure you want to leave?" boxes and screws with the page history. I don't like that.