Dropbox: No-Nonsense Online Storage - Concluding Thoughts
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We've arrived at the end of this brief Dropbox review. We all need to understand that Dropbox is quite new and developers are working every day trying to improve this service, adding new features, enhancing its overall functionality, troubleshooting bottlenecks, fixing bugs, and all that. Lots of people have already requested lots of features.
Summing these up, Dropbox certainly is a promising service. Therefore, I consider this service a 4.5 on a scale from 1 to 5. It has a few shortcomings that we're going to point out in a moment, but the simplicity and elegance of Dropbox is mind-blowing. It integrates seamlessly and does what it promises. Its interface is VERY straightforward. I am sure that nobody will ever complain of becoming frustrated figuring something out.
Nevertheless, one of the most important shortcomings of Dropbox is the fact that it is just another local folder on your computers. That means if you have 1GB of data in your dropbox, then on all of your synched rigs, that 1GB of data is stored. This is all fine and dandy, but chances are that you have copied data from other folders into your dropbox in the first place. That means you have mirrored (duplicated) your data!
It is rumored that Dropbox developers are working towards finding a solution to avoid this. It isn't unlikely that by the time you read this review the issue will already be fixed; let's hope so. However, the source of this problem is caused by the very fact that you cannot select distinctive directories in order to share and/or synch them. It is an absolute necessity that the data must be placed in your Dropbox folder (another copy).
All in all, I am curious about the new features that Dropbox developers will add, as well as whether they find a solution to eliminate the need to "keep everything in your dropbox" when in essence it means mirroring your data. Oh, and yes, we're definitely curious to find out their plans on premium accounts (pricing, offers, etc.) along with the free options, of course.
The conclusion, therefore, is that we should keep our eyes on Dropbox. It is a really promising service that right at the moment already is pretty fantastic and damn amazing but there are a few to-be-fixed shortcomings. Let's just be patient and wait for the final release. Until then, you can join our online community of professional experts and enthusiasts at "Dev Hardware Forums" to share your thoughts or ask questions.
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