Dropbox finally launches to the public (YC summer 07)

Dropbox is the first and only sync / storage solution of its kind that ACTUALLY WORKS. Tremendous job, and I love using Dropbox every day.

I find this misleading at best: <a href="http://www.getdropbox.com/install?os=linux" rel="nofollow">http://www.getdropbox.com/install?os=linux</a><p><i>It's here, it's open source, and it's free software! Dropbox for Linux is finally available and ready for your everyday use.</i><p>Further down the page:<p>-- <i>dropboxd is a per-user closed-source daemon process that makes sure your $HOME/Dropbox directory is properly synchronized.</i>

"It started in Boston’s South Station in November 2006 where one night, while waiting for the Chinatown bus to New York, I wrote the first lines of code of what eventually became Dropbox. I had forgotten my USB drive at home and was frustrated that I couldn’t get any 'real work' done."<p>Ha, classic 'founder story' as discussed 7 days ago: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=294663" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=294663</a>

DropBox a winner? Xobni a winner? How did they do it?<p>The recipe is to not rush your product out there. I think most entrepreneurs do not understand "Release Early, Update Daily, Weekly, Monthly". Sometimes releasing early can work against you. Be patient.

I routinely forget I even have Dropbox because it gets out of my way so damn perfectly.<p>Amazing job. And thank you most of all for the "undo" feature. I'm not saying that one day Dan accidently deleted all of our files, but you know, hypothetically.

Makes me giggle when I remember Joel's rant (<a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html</a>):<p>"<i>Since 1988 many prominent architecture astronauts have been convinced that the biggest problem to solve is synchronization.<p>[...]<p>When did the first sync web sites start coming out? 1999? There were a million versions. xdrive, mydrive, idrive, youdrive, wealldrive for ice cream. Nobody cared then and nobody cares now, because synchronizing files is just not a killer application. I'm sorry. It seems like it should be. But it's not.<p>[...]<p>this so called synchronization problem is just not an actual problem, it's a fun programming exercise that you're doing because it's just hard enough to be interesting but not so hard that you can't figure it out.</i>"<p>You show him!

You should add a link to your main site on your blog. I arrived on the blog from the HN link having no idea what Dropbox is or what it does. I had to manually edit the url to get to the main page to find out what it does. Lots of users would be too lazy to do that.

I'd like to emphasize how well Dropbox works as a collaborative tool. Never having to attach and download shared files from email is a great help in staying organized.<p>A co-worker can simply shoot you an IM or shout across the office that a document has been updated, and it's already on your machine ready to be opened.<p>I hope people don't get this confused with a source code repository though, as it definitely isn't optimal for working on shared source code. Stick with documents, images, and media, and you'll be fine.

Reddit: <a href="http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/70yy8/dropbox_gdrive_killer_finally_launches_plus" rel="nofollow">http://www.reddit.com/r/reddit.com/comments/70yy8/dropbox_gd...</a><p>Digg: <a href="http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_GDrive_Killer_finally_launches_plus_Linux_iPhone" rel="nofollow">http://digg.com/software/Dropbox_GDrive_Killer_finally_launc...</a><p>Already at the top of digg!

I have been using it for quite a few months and am officially impressed with the stability of the app. This is a good time to remember to backup - I will be saving some important photos immediately!<p>The only complaint I have is that it does not make explicitly clear (to me) what folders are public.

Is there an API such that an automated service could detect that someone shared a folder with it? Failing that, is there a Linux command-line client?

First impressions: Very positive<p>Dropbox will probably take over gmail as my primary file storage on the go... ;)<p>Now, one question though, is Dropbox smart enough to only access network when I am actually doing anything with it(ie transfering files from/to Dropbox), or will it occasionally do weird sync type of things even when I am not using it(but have Dropbox folder open on desktop)?

Weird issue with the website: On this page: <a href="http://www.getdropbox.com/install?os=linux" rel="nofollow">http://www.getdropbox.com/install?os=linux</a> if I move my mousewheel while the cursor is over that ascii dropbox on the right my cpu usage jumps to 100% and Firefox hangs for a few seconds. Using Firefox 3.0.1 on Ubuntu 8.04.

I can't wait to sign up... but would really like to see encryption. Is this on the todo shortlist? (third time asking!)

I must say that while I was already impressed by the product, the blog post announcing the public launch was just as impressive. It is very well written and portrays the company as having great professionalism and aptitude. You don't see many startups doing this.<p>Finally, yay! for being an MIT startup :)

There seems to be an explosion of these online storage services. They will become much more useful when/if there is a standardized API with per-app isolation and access control. The closest I've seen to that is Openomy:<p><a href="http://api.openomy.com/2.0" rel="nofollow">http://api.openomy.com/2.0</a>

This story has already been Dugg, and interesting to note there seems to be people signing up to Digg just to badmouth dropbox and plug sugarsync.<p>eg <a href="http://digg.com/users/supersaucer" rel="nofollow">http://digg.com/users/supersaucer</a><p>EDIT - PS, love dropbox guys, good work!

Is this an intended use: <a href="http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/09/11b.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/09/11b.html</a> ?<p>BTW, he's right about the URL. Wonder how much the squatters want for it?

That's awesome. I finally got the invite a week or so ago and I couldn't be happier. I already got 3 of my friends on it as well because it just WORKS. Beautiful

Congrats on the release! Just got an invite yesterday and believe this is a truly great product that provides end-users a beautiful experience.

Fantastic! Now if I could only get the Linux app to work with my Aspire One I'll be in heaven (libgio-2.0.so.0 is a missing dependency).

Looks pretty cool. I'm looking forward to using it. They're presentation at TC50 didn't go so hot though. I feel bad for the guy.

Great job guys! Dropbox is certainly one of the best products I have used, and you guys are definitely making it better...

What about privacy ? Data is stored in clear text ? Where is it stored ?<p>How about making it possible to setup a private server ?

I will use it only if it has a command that will mount the dropbox somewhere in my filesystem, no nautilus.

W00t, congrats guys, and you're gonna make me regret that I didn't join back last February. :-)

Congrats! I'll pass the word around and see if I can't get some more people to sign up.

Highly recommended -- Dropbox provides an extremely rare, zen-like experience.

Does DropBox encrypt your files? I couldn't find anything on their site.

The tutorial video is great. One of the files was named TPS Report.doc.

"Sometimes you need your files on the run, and we were amazed that no one had made it easy"<p>What? Never heard of offline files, briefcases, SSH/FTP/SFTP/Web/WebDAV servers, Sharepoint, Groove...? (or any of millions of online file repositories?)

congrats (again) drew!

Congrats and dugg!<p>Is a domain name change in the future? Drop the word get?

This is awesome; exactly what I've been looking for.<p>Congrats on the launch!

I liked this :<p><i>Now with lots of AJAX!</i>

this seems like an easy backup solution for a small business.

Love it.