If you are not familiar with DropBox, it was one of the earliest cloud storage companies. It has been around for several years, but now has heavy competition from Microsoft, Amazon, Google and even Apple. But their early entry into the cloud along with loyal users has saved them…possibly until now.
First, hackers claim to have broken into their computers and stolen 7 million passwords. The hackers have even published a sample of their stolen passwords on the Net and are demanding a ransom from DropBox. DropBox has denied it has been hacked, saying the passwords were stolen from third-party services.
Whatever the case, unless they are paid the ransom, the hackers will release files and photos onto the Net. This may get nasty…but it isn’t DropBox’s only problem.
Several DropBox users report having their files deleted from the Cloud. When users log into their accounts, the files also start disappearing from their computers. I know this, because it happened to me a few years ago. I was an early DropBox user and one day, about 90% of my files disappeared. There was no rhyme or reason to the deletions. It was just random file deletions, but it spread across my entire computer system including backups.
But, because I am such a backup freak, I had other copies that were not erased and I wound up restoring all the missing files. I immediately discontinued the service and have never returned. I am sure that several of their current clients will do the same. You can read all about these issues in our first two stories.
But there is more to DropBox’s problems than just the current issues. Mainly it’s the competition. DropBox currently offers on 2GB of free storage, while Microsoft’s OneDrive offers 15GB for free…same for Google Drive. Amazon also offers 15GB for free while Box users can get 10GB.
DropBox now offers 1TB of storage for $10 a month. That is good, except that same $10 with Microsoft will get you 1TB of storage AND a 5 user license for all Office 365 programs. That is a great deal and one I took advantage of. In fact, almost all cloud services offer better deals than DropBox. So all this is why I think the end of DropBox is near.
Anyway, its Patch Tuesday for Windows users and this one is a big one, so make sure you get patched. Thursday is the big Apple show for the new iPads and probably a whole lot more. The next edition will cover this in depth, so stay tuned. -JRC
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