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I have tried googledrive, skydrive and tonido extensively, and the fact is, drop box works, consistently where the others fail every time.

I find the pricing structure frustrating, I know you have to pay for quality, but 10 bucks a months sticks in the craw when the other services as ten times cheaper.

Dropbox is a very good service… it's a pity it's so expensive compared to others...

I love Dropbox and what it offers, but I do not how you can possibly describe it as evolving. The basic features of Dropbox have not changed in years, and now they are "in trouble" because other systems are coming along to challenge it.

I have recently started using Google Drive because our university has signed on to Google Apps and Google Mail, and have found it to be extremely nice. A very serious challenge to Dropbox. I am not sure if Garyi was referring to Googledocs or Google Drive, but I would agree that Googledocs was rough. Unbelievably so! Google Drive, however, is almost as slick a Dropbox with the exception that it lacks a dedicated mobile App. If, like me, you primarily use Goodreader, then even that is not a problem.

I would say that I still use Dropbox for my primary file sharing, but as Google Drive matures I will be looking carefully at moving over to that as my primary service. I certainly use Google Drive for sharing with people at work.

I have one main workflow grouch with Dropbox, and to the same extent Google Drive, and that is the inability to select my documents folder as my drop folder. My other grouch with Dropbox is their ridiculous pricing scheme. I do not need 100 GB for $20/month. If they offered 25GB for $5/month I would pay that, but I am not paying for 75GB I will not use. Dropbox users have complained about these two for years, and it has never been addressed beyond lipservice. Google is a little better in this respect because I was able to purchase 25GB of Google Docs for $5 per YEAR, and they are supposed to be honoring that in the transition to Google Drive. Otherwise they offer about 25 GB for $5/month.

I keep looking at Sugar Sync and it is a really nice service, primarily because it offers the ability to select any folder on your drive and has a 30GB for $50/year plan, but almost everyone I know has Dropbox and/or Google Drive. So, moving over to a new service requires a significant change, and I would still need to keep the others so I can work with the people I have invited to Dropbox.

This post has been edited by pcharles: 04 June 2012 - 05:10 AM

The Backblaze backup service also allows user encryption of backups.

pcharles, on 04 June 2012 - 05:02 AM, said:

I'm not sure how to answer that, since this review lists several new features, and changes in the service. They have tens of millions of customers. It's hard to define "in trouble" since they continue to add users, remain reliable, and improve the service. Google and Microsoft entering the space in a big or revised way is a different sort of challenge.

CharlesBrown, on 04 June 2012 - 05:45 AM, said:

From Backblaze's FAQ: "The user’s private key which is stored safely in our datacenter is protected by a password that is highly guarded. But for some users this is not good enough and we allow the user to secure this file with their own password. When this is done it is impossible to access the data without the user’s password. Unfortunately, this also means we can’t help the user if they ever forget this password so we don’t recommend it for most users."

That's not the same. Blackblaze retains the private key, and a password locking a private key may not be strong enough to prevent it from being broken. In the case of Crashplan and SpiderOak, the key is generated and stored only locally and never transmitted. For those who care enough to have their own protection, that's the only sensible method. (CrashPlan has an escrow model option, too, where the key is stored there with your password.)

Backblaze is also a backup-only service; Dropbox is a sync service that has backup as an incidental portion; SpiderOak is a backup service that has sync options that have improved over time.

LogMeIn has beta sync program called Cubby. The great advantage ofCubby is that it allows the syncing of files in place. There's no need to move a file to the apps sync folder. It's perfect for iTunes files like Mobile Apps and Books.

garyi, on 04 June 2012 - 04:30 AM, said:

I just don't (can't) buy that line. It's almost seems emotional... to state that Dropbox works every time, and, all the others fail 'every time'. If, that is the case... why does the service even bother to exist?

Frankly, my Google Drive works just fine. No problems, Oh, and, BTW, it does so 'every' time. The added advantage of Google Drive over Dropbox is, I can use Google Docs to process Microsoft Office-equivalent documents online, a feature clearly absent from Dropbox. So, both have their strengths and their weaknesses. But, to try and convince me that one works every time, and the other fails every time, is a shallow (and emotional) reactional analysis, and not taking into consideration what each service can, and can not do (assuming of course they don't 'fail' all the time).

Goodl luck with doing every thing in fabulous Dropbox.

garyi, on 04 June 2012 - 04:30 AM, said:

I completely agree with you! Pricing on dropbox sucks, but they've given you great ways to score free gigs which can be added for up to a total 16GB for free (giving you a total of 18GB) with referrals to 32 of your awesome friends that haven't been introduced to dropbox yet, and with each addition via the referral link, dropbox found here: https://www.dropbox.com/account/bonus and dropbox will give you 500MB for free.

I for the longest time was stuck with the 2GB and had to shuffle around files, but then I read this article: http://www.geek.com/...errals-2012044/ and dug-around to find me a free $100 gift card for Google Adwords, I setup my campaign and with-in 2-3 days I had my free 16GB added to my account. Now I'm never full

Good Luck!

A service called JungleDisk (now owned by RackSpace) beat Dropbox to market and has considerably more power, but Dropbox was easier to set up and had much better marketing.

One thing I especially like about JungleDisk is the ability to choose any individual folders for cloud syncing—you aren't limited to just a single folder like with Dropbox.

I am so frustrated that DropBox doesn't offer a WebDav "add on" to allow users to edit iWork files via dropbox on iPad.

Apple hasn't made this easy, and DropBox has said it is a problem they don't care to solve.

Any other service that offers WebDav is more likely to induce me to switch from Dropbox.

superjunaid, on 04 June 2012 - 08:12 AM, said:

I'll be blunt that it seems unethical to me to employ the method described in the article.

RobLewis, on 04 June 2012 - 09:13 AM, said:

I have no problem with Jungle Disk, except that its software is nearly incomprehensible. I do use Jungle Disk for server back ups, because it has terrific software and great pricing for that more complicated problem.