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0 pointsTeMPOraL9y ago0 comments

The core benefit of Dropbox is being "a folder that syncs". They've pretty much nailed it at the very start, and all the recent changes seem to be only step backwards. Lack of ability to link directly to files (instead of their heavy and useless web UI with "download" button) is something that makes their product worse, from user's POV.

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jpalomaki9y ago

Smart sync was a giant leap forward. This one actually makes the sync usable on business accounts as well (fairly small laptop SSD and 15 people storing stuff was a difficult combination).

ovao9y ago

Although it involves a redirect, so it's not, per se, direct, appending ?dl=1 to a Dropbox link does at least trigger a file download.

the_af9y ago

This is not useful for hotlinking pictures, for example for embedding them in a forum.

mos_basik9y ago

last I tried, which was a couple months ago, replacing the "www" with a "dl" in a public link made it work for hotlinking. so, starting with

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2s31p57eod49dva/1371724997329.png?...

and navigating to this

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/2s31p57eod49dva/1371724997329.png?d...

results in a redirect to this

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/2s31p57eod49dva/13717249...

which can be hotlinked. What this means in a specific sense, I haven't yet learned. I'm particularly interested to know the behavior of any of these links if the file is moved/renamed. I have not tested it, but my intuition is the dropbox.com link would survive a move and the dropboxusercontent.com link would not.

ovao9y ago

I believe that's an intentional limitation.

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jpalomaki9y ago

Smart sync was a giant leap forward. This one actually makes the sync usable on business accounts as well (fairly small laptop SSD and 15 people storing stuff was a difficult combination).

ovao9y ago

Although it involves a redirect, so it's not, per se, direct, appending ?dl=1 to a Dropbox link does at least trigger a file download.

the_af9y ago

This is not useful for hotlinking pictures, for example for embedding them in a forum.

mos_basik9y ago

last I tried, which was a couple months ago, replacing the "www" with a "dl" in a public link made it work for hotlinking. so, starting with

https://www.dropbox.com/s/2s31p57eod49dva/1371724997329.png?...

and navigating to this

https://dl.dropbox.com/s/2s31p57eod49dva/1371724997329.png?d...

results in a redirect to this

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/2s31p57eod49dva/13717249...

ovao9y ago

I believe that's an intentional limitation.

1 more reply

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse