Dbinbox: Enable anonymous uploads to your Dropbox

Dropbox is one of the most popular file synchronization and cloud hosting services on today's Internet. While that is the case, it is missing some features that would make it even better. I'm not talking about streaming media support here, or better photo viewing options, but core features like an option to enable anonymous uploads.
If you want to upload files to your Dropbox account, you need to sign in to do so or use a local client for it. But what if you are working on a public computer or untrustworthy one? Should you sign in to your account on the Dropbox website, or would you prefer a safer way of transferring files to your account?
The same is true if someone else wants to share files with you. While shared folders can be used for that, they too require the third party to sign in to Dropbox or use the local or mobile client to make those files available.
Dbinbox is a third party open source service that enables anonymous uploads on Dropbox. What is meant by that is that you can use their web service afterwards - without signing in if you want - to upload files to your Dropbox account.
Before you can do so, you need to link the service once to your Dropbox account. Let me walk you through the steps to make this happen.
Anonymous Dropbox uploads
- Visit the Dbinbox website and select a username that you want to use on the site. Once you have selected the username, click on the "link with your Dropbox" button to start the linking process.
- You are redirected to the Dropbox website. Here you need to sign in first and then accept the request of the Dbinbox service.
- A new folder named dbinbox will be created in the apps folder which will be used for all public uploads.
The default setup enables access to the upload script to anyone who knows or guesses the username that you have selected. You need to set an access code if you want to limit access to yourself, or maybe a couple of colleagues and friends. This is like a password that you set for the account that needs to be entered before the upload page is opened.
To do so, click on the settings link at the top of the screen. Note that you can only access settings during a session. To access the settings again, you need to click on the sign in button. This loads the authorization dialog that you need to allow (again) to sign in.
Besides sending files, it is also possible to send messages. The messages are saved to plain text files automatically so that they can be loaded just like any other text file on Dropbox.
Here are some use cases where the service may come in handy:
- You want to upload files to your Dropbox from a third party computer and do not want to sign in or cannot because you do not have your username and password with you.
- A friend wants to send you a large file that cannot be added as an email attachment.
- You run a website and want users to submit files to you this way.
Enabling public anonymous uploads can have negative side-effects. Say, someone uploads files with illegal contents to your Dropbox, or files that violate Dropbox's terms of service. Even if you check the folder regularly, you may find yourself on the receiving end.
Verdict
Dbinbox is a system that you can set up in a matter of minutes. It enables public uploads to your Dropbox account that you can restrict to anyone with the proper access code or all users who know the selected username.
You can access the source code of dbinbox on GitHub.
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Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.