Dropbox Review and Invites

Dropbox is a file hosting solution with a few nice features that make it stick out of the masses of file hosters. It provides its users with a client for Windows and Macintosh computers which can be used to upload files to Dropbox. The transfer of those files works in the background while the user moves the files into an Explorer like window.

Several computers can be authorized to access an account at Dropbox making it an effective way to work with files between those registered computers. Files can be downloaded at anytime and it is even possible to look at Revisions of those files. The so called Drop Box works much like the Windows Explorer. Files and folders can be added, deleted, renamed which will be automatically synced with the online interface of Dropbox.

Files can be recovered or purged in the web interface if they have been deleted on a registered computer. This is excellent if a file has been deleted by accident.

A public folder is available that can make files available for the public which basically means that the user can copy an url that gives access to the file or files in that folder.

Shared folders on the other hand are useful for project and team work. Every member that gets added to that folder can perform all file and folder operations which, in combination with the revision system, provides an easy to use way of handling project files.

Dropbox is definitely easy to use. There is no irritating progress bar or window during file uploads, everything is handled in the background. The current beta accounts can use 2 Gigabytes of free storage, it would be nice to see a feature where users who share folders can add part of their own storage to that shared folder. A Linux client is currently tested internally and will be available to all Beta testers pretty soon.

Plans are that the 2 Gigabyte account will remain free for all users and that Dropbox will earn their money with accounts that demand additional storage space and premium features.

I would like to thank Dark Kosmos for sending me the invite. I have ten invites of my own right now and would like to give them away here. Just post a comment and I will draw the lucky ten after a while.

Update:

Jon from Dropbox contacted me and promised to supply more invites for his website. I therefor invited the first nine users who left a comment for now and will invite the others once I receive additional invites!

Update: Dropbox has improved a lot ever since our first review. We have recently published an updated review of Dropbox which you should read if you want an overview of what the Dropbox of today has to offer.

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