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0 pointsthreeseed13y ago0 comments

Question. Do you actually use Dropbox ? Because for me it is one of the most overrated services I use. They haven't actually done anything new to the product since the beginning and the CPU load when syncing is still ridiculously high.

IMHO The only reason Dropbox is successful because the alternatives e.g. SkyDrive, Google Drive are so much worse.

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10 comments · 5 top-level

oblique6313y ago· 4 in thread

If you don't mind me asking, how is Drive much worse? I agree about Dropbox, but I don't think Drive is any worse. If anything the experience I've had with it has been more positive for the simple fact that it integrates with the existing google services I use a lot better (i.e. attachments in gmail). But I don't think it would be fair for me to hold that against Dropbox. Additionally, I haven't had much time with the OSX Drive client, as I work mostly in windows currently, but that seems to work fine as well.

The biggest gripe I've had with anything Drive-related, has been Google's 'Keep' losing some data from notes I made on my phone while I had a tab open with Keep on my laptop. Apparently my phone didn't get a chance to sync properly before I touched my computer again, so it just totally discarded everything I did on my phone. That was annoying, but it's not really something I associate with Drive specifically, since it still seems like an experimental side project they could potentially kill off at any point.

DigitalTurk13y ago

Some time ago I replaced my HDD with an SSD. I copied all my data over (including metadata). Everything pretty much worked as before, although I had to log into Dropbox and Google Drive again.

Dropbox then continued to index all my files and verify that my Dropbox folder was properly synchronized with the server side of things.

Google Drive, however, told me to delete my Google Drive folder and download all my files again.

Since I had a lot of files in there I proceeded by deleting Google Drive and canceling my paid storage instead.

threeseedOP13y ago

As I mentioned below Google Drive loses data and is unacceptably buggy. Just see the product forums for the countless examples of it happening.

I see no reason why you wouldn't go with Dropbox. Even just for the fact that you shouldn't rely on anything from Google that doesn't have or is related to advertising.

oblique6313y ago

Does it really matter that it isn't tied to Google's ad ecosystem if it has its own revenue stream (paid plans for increased storage)? I know everyone's been a bit shaken up with google's flurry of closures, but this isn't like reader, it's actually being monetized. Not to mention that Google recently consolidated Gmail and Picasa/G+ photo storage into Drive accounts -- this hints that google's long-term plan might be to treat Drive like a sort of unified storage system. This makes sense given google's recent push to unify everything, and should ensure it some stability. If anything, it's more likely that they'll kill off Chrome OS/Chromebooks (which heavily rely on Drive) before they kill off Drive[1], so I feel relatively safe with it. I would go so far as to say that Dropbox feels just as safe because Google isn't exactly a competitor that should be underestimated (despite their many flops).

Either way, I use Docs way too much, to the point where I always have a tab with it open, and Drive really ties everything in quite smoothly for me. I also like the Drive app a bit more than the Dropbox app on my android phone, so not really a strong incentive for me to switch back. I actually never made much of a conscious decision to switch to Drive in the first place, it just kind of happened automatically due to convenience, and now I use it almost exclusively.

The only thing that does bug me is the data-loss. I haven't had it happen in Drive proper, but it happening in the short time I've used Keep certainly lends credibility to it being a wider-spread problem. We'll see...

[1] Not that I feel ChromeOS is 'safe' from the killswitch, but it's still a bit too early to tell what their plan is for that exactly

berberous13y ago

The Drive client on my Mac would constantly hang. I actually just uninstalled it.

ceejayoz13y ago· 1 in thread

It's overrated, but all the other competing services are much worse? I'm confused.

bulatb13y ago

Those aren't conflicting statements. If SkyDrive is 5 points worth of good, and Dropbox is widely rated 30 but "actually" a 10, then it's overrated but still better than the competition.

smsm4213y ago

I use Dropbox every day. It just works. I don't need anything new from them, I'm perfectly fine with product that just works. Contrary to popular opinion, most people aren't 5-year-olds with short attention span, that constantly need something new to not get bored. They are busy people with little time to spare, and once they found something that works for them, they'd rather it keep working than search for something "new" that may or may not be useful for them.

pvnick13y ago

Yes I use it and love it.

>IMHO The only reason Dropbox is successful because the alternatives e.g. SkyDrive, Google Drive are so much worse.

Thank you for partially restating what I wrote in my comment.

Steko13y ago

They do seem to be adding lots to Dropbox but I don't get the worship myself. Sugarsync offered me exactly what I wanted that Dropbox didn't and I never looked back.

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