New limits on free Dropbox accounts are a problem if you have more than three devices
Dropbox has quietly started to apply limits to the number of devices that could be connected to a basic account to encourage upgrades to the paid version, with users of the free tier now only able to access the cloud storage service on a maximum of three devices.
Dropbox has not previously applied a limitation to devices allowed per free account, but the change now means users will have to take care to link only the devices they want to use the service through. While this may seem fine for users who have only one Mac, iPad, and iPhone to add all of their personal hardware, the change mostly affects those who have more elaborate computing needs.
Spotted by Liliputing, the change to the support page advises "Basic users have a three device limit as of March 2019," whereas Plus and Professional users can link unlimited devices. Business users can also link unlimited devices, but Advanced and Enterprise Dropbox Business administrators can limit the number of devices for a team if required.
For users who already have more than three devices linked to an account before the change in policy Dropbox advises the hardware will still be linked to the account, but additional devices cannot be added until a free slot is opened up by removing existing listings.
Paid accounts for Dropbox start from $10 per month for Plus, which provides 1 terabyte of capacity, or $20 for the 2-terabyte Professional version which also includes Smart Sync, Showcase, and priority chat support.
Dropbox has not previously applied a limitation to devices allowed per free account, but the change now means users will have to take care to link only the devices they want to use the service through. While this may seem fine for users who have only one Mac, iPad, and iPhone to add all of their personal hardware, the change mostly affects those who have more elaborate computing needs.
Spotted by Liliputing, the change to the support page advises "Basic users have a three device limit as of March 2019," whereas Plus and Professional users can link unlimited devices. Business users can also link unlimited devices, but Advanced and Enterprise Dropbox Business administrators can limit the number of devices for a team if required.
For users who already have more than three devices linked to an account before the change in policy Dropbox advises the hardware will still be linked to the account, but additional devices cannot be added until a free slot is opened up by removing existing listings.
Paid accounts for Dropbox start from $10 per month for Plus, which provides 1 terabyte of capacity, or $20 for the 2-terabyte Professional version which also includes Smart Sync, Showcase, and priority chat support.
Comments
I have never paid for my personal account, but I am directly responsible for quite a few business accounts. Think I might look more closely into Google's offerings now.
I got off the Dropbox train back when they added a war criminal to their board of directors, but have had to maintain a free account for occasional client back-and-forth'ing. Maybe it's time to finally set up a personal cloud on macminicolo.net…
[edit] or maybe an "OwnCloud" on DigitalOcean, anyone here play around with these?
even now tightened the screws but first tier of product is $10us per month.
Anyway, I was on the verge of paying when they started to push people to sign up for dropbox instead of just downloading the file when they click on links i've generated, and I didn't like that. Not to mention giving up on public folders.
I've signed up for pCloud, which seems to work about the same and is based in Switzerland, which should mean a lot more privacy, especially as an EU citizen. If they stick around I'll probably end up paying too.
I switched to DB years ago when Apple dropped Mobile Me and I needed a reliable file syncing solution. There weren’t many options at that time and DB was the best one. For a long time they were the most commonly integrated service used by third party applications, and in many cases the only option. As other platforms ahve become more common and as iOS has developed that’s finally started to change.
iCloud is doing better now and has more sharing options, so it may be time for me to re-evaluate and move everything over to icloud.
One suggestion to those concerned with security - I started using an app called BoxCryptor a few years ago. It encrypts everything on the server, decrypting it locally with a locally-stored key, so the Dropbox servers get hacked, the files are useless. There are other apps out there as well that do similar things.
But where is the widespread moral outrage that DB is turning the screws on users to increase its services revenue?
I would cheerfully pay $3 per month, with a much lower storage limit (I never used 5 GB, much less 1 TB) and a higher limit on devices. Surprise: I need at least four: iPhone, iPad, Laptop, Desktop, and maybe 5: macOS Server. I might consider $5. $10 per month or $99 per year is right out; these things add up (to more than a disk drive per year). So they do not want me to use their service any more? It's not that I don't want to pay for service, it's just they want more money than their service is worth to me. No moral outrage here, just sadness that they do not have a tier that I'd consider affordable.
I've finished migrating to iCloud everything except for folders that others have shared with me. Mildly inconvenient, one time. With only the shared folders, I do not depend on being able to access from every device. I believe that the people who have shared folders with me may be paying for their accounts, and I'm good with that. Free access to that, while it lasts, is like Adobe Reader being free and the authoring software not. They get paid for both their storage and other added value.
I started using Dropbox mainly before iCloud, or at least before I pretty much stopped using operating systems too old to use iCloud Drive. I never used Dropbox from my (Debian) Linux servers. I am looking into running NextCloud on one of the Linux servers and pulling my files from iCloud into my own private cloud, possibly at a colocated server far from home, with backups to repository at home.
pCloud Drive, creates a secure virtual drive on your computer. The only difference from your physical drive is that pCloud does not take space on your computer. Files uploaded in the drive will be kept safe in the cloud.I love that it creates a drive on my PC and that I can access my files just as if they were stored on my computer.
I switched over from Dropbox almost 2 years aho ago. The experience so far has been flawless.Some of the positives. 1. very responsive support. proactive, trying hard to help. I really appreciate that. Dropbox, on the other hand, is terrible at this. 2. simple and easy to use. pCloud is very similar to Dropbox, which I used before, so the transition is smooth.
- Raw speed: in my experience pCloud is super fast and tends to be limited only by my broadband - I've hit 50Mb/s down and 15 Mb/s up, which is definitely a restriction at my end.
- Small updates to existing files transfer *really* fast: this is because they support block-level file transfer, which means only the block of the file that was changed is sent up or down. Not unique, but not at all common either - I believe Dropbox does this, while Google doesn't.
So...
pCloud Drive, creates a secure virtual drive on your computer. The only difference from your physical drive is that pCloud does not take space on your computer. Files uploaded in the drive will be kept safe in the cloud.I love that it creates a drive on my PC and that I can access my files just as if they were stored on my computer.
I switched over from Dropbox almost 2 years aho ago. The experience so far has been flawless.Some of the positives. 1. very responsive support. proactive, trying hard to help. I really appreciate that. Dropbox, on the other hand, is terrible at this. 2. simple and easy to use. pCloud is very similar to Dropbox, which I used before, so the transition is smooth.
- Raw speed: in my experience pCloud is super fast and tends to be limited only by my broadband - I've hit 50Mb/s down and 15 Mb/s up, which is definitely a restriction at my end.
- Small updates to existing files transfer *really* fast: this is because they support block-level file transfer, which means only the block of the file that was changed is sent up or down. Not unique, but not at all common either - I believe Dropbox does this, while Google doesn't.
So...