Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by American company Dropbox, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software. Dropbox was founded in 2007, by MIT students Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, as a startup company, with initial funding from seed accelerator Y Combinator.
Dropbox creates a special folder on the user's computer, the contents of which are then synchronized to Dropbox's servers and to other computers and devices that the user has installed Dropbox on, keeping the same files up-to-date on all devices. Dropbox uses a freemium business model, where users are offered a free account with a set storage size, with paid subscriptions available that offer more capacity and additional features. Dropbox Basic users are given 2 GB of free storage space. Dropbox Pro users are given 1 TB of storage space, as well as additional features, including advanced sharing controls, remote wipe, and an optional Extended Version History add-on. Dropbox offers computer apps for Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS, and Linux computers, and mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone smartphones and tablets. In March 2013, the company acquired Mailbox, a popular email app, and in April 2014, the company introduced Carousel, a photo and video gallery app. Both Mailbox and Carousel were shut down in December 2015, with key features from both apps implemented into the regular Dropbox service. In October 2015, it officially announced Dropbox Paper, its collaborative document editor, in a reported effort to expand its operations towards businesses. As of March 2016, Dropbox has 500 million users.
Dropbox has received praise, including the Crunchie Award in 2010 for Best Internet Application, and Macworld's 2009 Editor's Choice Award for Software. It has been ranked as one of the most valuable startups in the US and the world, with a valuation of over $10 billion, and it has been described as one of Y Combinator's most successful investments to date. However, Dropbox has also experienced criticism and generated controversy. Notable incidents include a June 2011 authentication issue where accounts could be accessed without passwords for four hours, a July 2011 Privacy Policy update that introduced language suggesting Dropbox had ownership of users' data, a July 2012 email spam issue that reoccurred in February 2013 and resulted in the August 2016 public leak of 68 million email addresses and passwords, leaked government documents suggesting Dropbox was being considered for inclusion in the United States PRISM surveillance program, and a January 2017 accidental restoration of years-old supposedly deleted user files.
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History
2007-2011
Dropbox founder Drew Houston conceived the Dropbox concept after repeatedly forgetting his USB flash drive while he was a student at MIT. In a 2009 "Meet the Team" post on the Dropbox blog, he wrote that existing services at the time "suffered problems with Internet latency, large files, bugs, or just made me think too much." He began making something for his personal use, but then realized that it could benefit others with the same problems. Houston founded Dropbox, Inc. in June 2007, and shortly thereafter secured seed funding from Y Combinator. Dropbox officially launched at 2008's TechCrunch Disrupt, an annual technology conference. Owing to trademark disputes between Proxy, Inc. and Evenflow (Dropbox's parent company), Dropbox's official domain name was "getdropbox.com" until October 2009, when it acquired its current domain, "dropbox.com".
In May 2010, Dropbox was blocked in China.
In May 2011, Dropbox struck deals with mobile carrier Softbank and then-named phone maker Sony Ericsson, with terms of the deal including that Dropbox's mobile app would come pre-installed on mobile phones in Asia and Europe.
In an interview with TechCrunch's "Founder Stories" in October 2011, Houston explained that a demo video was released during Dropbox's early days, with one viewer being Arash Ferdowsi. Ferdowsi was "so impressed" that they formed a partnership. In regards to competition, Houston stated that "It is easy for me to explain the idea, it is actually really hard to do it."
2012-2013
In April 2012, Dropbox announced an automatic photo uploading feature, allowing users to automatically upload photos or videos from cameras, tablets, SD cards, or smartphones to a dedicated "Camera Uploads" folder in their Dropbox. Users were given 500 megabytes extra space for uploading their first photo, and would be given up to 3 gigabytes extra space if users continued using the method for more photos.
In July 2012, Dropbox acquired TapEngage, a startup that "enables advertisers and publishers to collaborate on tablet-optimized advertising".
In September 2012, Facebook and Dropbox integrated to allow users in Facebook Groups to share files using Dropbox.
In December 2012, Dropbox acquired two companies; Audiogalaxy, a startup "allowing users to store their music files and playlists in the cloud then stream them to any device", and Snapjoy, a company that allowed users to "aggregate, archive and view all of their digital photos from their cameras, phones and popular apps like Flickr, Instagram and Picasa, and then view them online or via an iOS app".
Also in December 2012, Dropbox set up an office in Dublin, Ireland, its first office outside the United States.
In March 2013, Dropbox acquired Mailbox, a popular email app, with Mailbox CEO Gentry Underwood saying that "Rather than grow Mailbox on our own, we've decided to join forces with Dropbox and build it out together". Under the deal, the developers of Mailbox joined Dropbox, but kept Mailbox running as a stand-alone app. Mailbox CEO stated: "We are still struggling to keep up with the demand from those who want to use it", and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston said "We felt we could help Mailbox reach a much different audience much faster". The acquisition was reported to cost $100 million.
In July 2013, Dropbox acquired Endorse, a "mobile coupon startup".
In November 2013, Dropbox announced changes to "Dropbox for Business" that would enable users to connect both their personal Dropbox and their business Dropbox to the same device, with each of the folders being "properly labeled for personal or work, and come with its own password, contacts, settings, and files." Furthermore, Dropbox announced shared audit logs, remote wipe for business administrators, and account transfers, as new features of its Business offering. The same month, Dropbox also released a new version of its iPhone and iPad mobile app, that updated it with a new "whiter, more minimalistic user interface" designed for iOS 7, along with support for AirDrop (for sharing links and files wirelessly with nearby iOS devices), and a full-screen/split-screen interface toggle for the iPad.
2014-2017
Dropbox was unblocked in China in February 2014, although the reason for the block was still unclear.
In April 2014, Dropbox announced that Condoleezza Rice would be joining their board of directors, prompting criticism from some users who were concerned about her appointment due to her history as United States Secretary of State and revelations of "widespread wiretapping on US citizens during her time in office". RiceHadleyGates, a consultancy firm consisting of Rice, former US national security adviser Stephen Hadley, and former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, had previously advised Dropbox.
Also in April 2014, Dropbox introduced Carousel, a photo and video gallery that "combines the photos in your Dropbox with the photos on your phone, and automatically backs up new ones as you take them." Carousel sorted photos by event and date.
April 2014 also marked the acquisitions of photo-sharing company Loom (which would be shut down and integrated with the recently announced Carousel), and document-sharing startup Hackpad.
In May 2014, Dropbox acquired Bubbli, a startup that has "built some innovative ways of incorporating 3D technology into 2D views, and packaging it in a mobile app".
In September 2014, the release of iOS 8, Apple's new mobile operating system, created compatibility issues for Dropbox. The company announced that users had to update their apps to fix automatic photo uploads. However, this caused duplicate files of users' photos. Dropbox explained that "duplicates are backed up versions of thumbnails generated by Apple's iCloud My Photo Stream and are being recognized as unique images by Dropbox", and wrote that users needed to disable either the iCloud photo sync or Dropbox/Carousel in order to stop the duplication issue. Later, Dropbox announced that it had updated its mobile apps to prevent the duplication.
In June 2014, the block in China was reinstated.
In July 2014, Dropbox introduced "streaming sync" for its computer apps. Streaming sync was described as a new "supercharged" synchronization speed for large files that improves the upload or download time by up to 2 times.
In November 2014, Dropbox announced a partnership with Microsoft to integrate Dropbox and Microsoft Office applications on iOS, Android and the Office 365 applications on the web.
In January 2015, Dropbox acquired CloudOn, a company that provided mobile applications for document editing and creation. At the same time, Dropbox told TechCrunch that CloudOn's base in Herzliya would become the first Dropbox office in Israel.
In April 2015, Dropbox launched a Dropbox Notes collaborative note-taking service in beta testing phase, prompting speculation if Dropbox was planning to bring out a product to compete with Google Docs. TechCrunch noted that Dropbox Notes appeared to be a new version of "Project Composer", a previous iteration of the service with roots from the acquisition of Hackpad in April 2014.
In July 2015, Dropbox acquired Clementine, an enterprise communication service.
In August 2015, Dropbox announced the availability of "Universal 2nd Factor" USB security keys, providing two-factor authentication for logging in to its services.
In October 2015, Dropbox announced the upcoming launch of Dropbox Paper, its collaborative document editor, noted by the media as the result of its development of a Dropbox Notes service earlier in April.
In December 2015, Dropbox announced the shut-down of two of its high-profile consumer services, Mailbox and Carousel. In a blog post, Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi explained that "We'll be taking key features from Carousel back to the place where your photos live - in the Dropbox app. We'll also be using what we've learned from Mailbox to build new ways to communicate and collaborate on Dropbox".
In August 2016, Dropbox ceased support for computers running Windows XP. In a post on its help pages, Dropbox explains that all linked computers were signed out on August 29, 2016, and users would need to update to Windows Vista or a later version of Windows in order to use Dropbox again.
Also in August 2016, Dropbox Paper entered open beta, allowing anyone to join and test the product. Mobile apps for Android and iOS were also released.
In October 2016, Aditya Agarwal, Dropbox's then-vice president of engineering, became chief technology officer.
In January 2017, Dropbox officially launched Dropbox Paper. Aimed for businesses, Dropbox Paper was described as "one part online document, one part collaboration, one part task management tool, one part content hub" by Rob Baesman, Dropbox's head of product, and allows for importing, editing, and collaboration on "a number of other file types from Google, Microsoft, and others".
In February 2017, Nicholas Jitkoff, the former lead on Google's Material Design team, joined Dropbox as its new Vice President of Design.
User growth
Dropbox has seen steady user growth since its inception. It surpassed the 1 million registered users milestone in April 2010, followed by 2 million in September, and 3 million in November. It passed 50 million users in October 2011, 100 million in November 2012, 200 million in November 2013, 400 million in June 2015, and 500 million in March 2016.
Drop Box Security Video
Platforms
Dropbox has computer apps for Microsoft Windows, Apple macOS, and Linux computers, and mobile apps for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone smartphones and tablets.
Financials
Dropbox received initial funding from seed accelerator Y Combinator. Dropbox also raised $1.2 million in Series A funding from Sequoia Capital in 2007, that "along with interest (on that amount) converted to equity as part of the Series A investment, which included a fresh slug of $6 million", bringing the total amount to $7.25 million, with the round closed in 2008 and documents filed in 2009.
A May 2010 report in The Wall Street Journal said that "since [founder Drew Houston] started reading Eric Ries' Lean startup blog about a year ago, the company has started trickling out new features when they are ready instead of waiting to launch a fully featured product. That helps test customer appetite, he says, dubbing the practice "minimum viable product."
TechCrunch reported in July 2011 that Dropbox had been looking to raise between $200 and $300 million, and had a valuation "to end up in the $5 billion to $10 billion range. [...] quite a step up from its previous funding rounds which have totalled a tiny $7.2 million." As noted in a Forbes article, Dropbox had "revenue on track to hit $240 million in 2011".
In April 2012, Dropbox announced that Bono and The Edge, two members of the Irish rock band U2, were individual investors in the company.
Business model
Dropbox uses a freemium business model, where users are offered a free account with a set storage size, with paid subscriptions available that offer more capacity and additional features.
Dropbox Basic users are given 2 GB of free storage space. This can be expanded through referrals; users recommend the service to other people, and if those people start using the service, the user is awarded with additional 500 MB storage space. Dropbox Basic users can earn up to 16 GB through the referral program.
Dropbox Pro users are given 1 TB of storage space, as well as additional features, including:
Advanced sharing controls: When sharing a link to a file or folder, users can set passwords and expiration limits.
Remote wipe: If a device is stolen or lost, users can remotely wipe the Dropbox folder from the device the next time it comes online.
"Extended Version History": An available add-on, it makes Dropbox keep deleted and previous versions of files for one year, a significant extension of the default 30-day recovery time.
Similarly to Dropbox Basic, Dropbox Pro users can also earn extra space through referrals. Pro users earn 1 GB per referral, up to 32 GB.
Dropbox Business is Dropbox's solution for corporations, adding more business-centered functionality for teams, including collaboration tools, advanced security and control, unlimited file recovery, user management and granular permissions, and options for unlimited storage. For large organizations, Dropbox offers Dropbox Enterprise, the "highest tier" of its product offerings, adding domain management tools, an assigned Dropbox customer support member, and help from "expert advisors" on deployment and user training.
Technology
The Dropbox software enables users to drop any file into a designated folder. The file is then automatically uploaded to Dropbox's cloud-based service and made available to any other of the user's computers and devices that also have the Dropbox software installed, keeping the file up-to-date on all systems. When a file in a user's Dropbox folder is changed, Dropbox only uploads the pieces of the file that have been changed, whenever possible.
When a file or folder is deleted, users can recover it within 30 days. For Dropbox Pro users, this recovery time can be extended to one year, by purchasing an "Extended Version History" add-on.
Dropbox also offers a LAN sync feature, where, instead of receiving information and data from the Dropbox servers, computers on the local network can exchange files directly between each other, potentially significantly improving synchronization speeds.
Originally, the Dropbox servers and computer apps were written in Python. In July 2014, Dropbox began migrating its backend infrastructure to Go.
In September 2012, Dropbox's website codebase was rewritten from JavaScript to CoffeeScript.
Dropbox originally used Amazon's S3 storage system to store user files, but between 2014 and 2016 they gradually moved away from Amazon to use their own hardware.
Dropbox uses SSL transfers for synchronization and stores the data via AES-256 encryption.
The functionality of Dropbox can be integrated into third-party applications through an application programming interface (API).
Dropbox prevents sharing of copyrighted data, by checking the hash of files shared in public folders or between users against a blacklist of copyrighted material. This only applies to files or folders shared with other users or publicly, and not to files kept in an individual's Dropbox folder that are not shared.
User-created projects
Users have devised a number of uses for and mashups of the technology that expand Dropbox's functionality. These include: sending files to a Dropbox via Gmail; using Dropbox to sync instant messaging chat logs; BitTorrent management; password management; remote application launching and system monitoring; and as a free Web hosting service.
Reception
Dropbox has received several awards, including the Crunchie Award in 2010 for Best Internet Application, and Macworld's 2009 Editor's Choice Award for Software.
It was nominated for a 2010 Webby Award, and for the 2010 Mac Design Awards by Ars Technica.
In 2011, Business Insider named Dropbox the world's sixth most valuable startup, and in 2017, the publication ranked Dropbox as the eighth most valuable US startup, with a valuation of $10 billion. It has been described as one of Y Combinator's most successful investments to date.
Dropbox's mobile iPhone app release in 2010 was among the top 10 "best apps" selected by Alex Ahlund, former CEO of two websites focused on mobile apps, and the company's Android app was also selected as one of the top five "best apps" in a list compiled in 2010 by Jason Hiner for ZDNet.
Founders Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi were named among the top 30 under 30 entrepreneurs by Inc. in 2011.
In January 2012, Dropbox was named startup of the year by TechCrunch, and in 2016, the company was ranked #2 on the Forbes Cloud 100 list.
Privacy and security concerns
Dropbox has been criticized by the independent security researcher Derek Newton, who wrote in April 2011 that Dropbox stored user authentication information in a file on the computer that was "completely portable and is *not* tied to the system in any way". In explaining the issue, Newton wrote: "This means that if you gain access to a person's config.db file (or just the host_id), you gain complete access to the person's Dropbox until such time that the person removes the host from the list of linked devices via the Dropbox web interface." He updated his post in October 2011 to write that "Dropbox has release version 1.2.48 that utilizes an encrypted local database and reportedly puts in place security enhancements to prevent theft of the machine credentials." A report from The Next Web featured a comment from Dropbox, in which they disagreed with Newton that the topic was a security flaw, explaining that "The researcher is claiming that an attacker would be able to gain access to a user's Dropbox account if they are able to get physical access to the user's computer. In reality, at the point an attacker has physical access to a computer, the security battle is already lost. [...] this 'flaw' exists with any service that uses cookies for authentication (practically every web service)."
In May 2011, a complaint was filed with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission alleging Dropbox misled users about the privacy and security of their files. At the heart of the complaint was the policy of data deduplication, where the system checks if a file has been uploaded before by any other user, and links to the existing copy if so; and the policy of using a single AES-256 key for every file on the system so Dropbox can (and does, for deduplication) look at encrypted files stored on the system, with the consequence that any intruder who gets the key (as well as potential Dropbox employees) could decrypt any file if they had access to Dropbox's backend storage infrastructure. In a response on its blog, Dropbox wrote that "Like most major online services, we have a small number of employees who must be able to access user data when legally required to do so. But that's the exception, not the rule. We have strict policy and technical access controls that prohibit employee access except in these rare circumstances. In addition, we employ a number of physical and electronic security measures to protect user information from unauthorized access." In response to the FTC complain, Dropbox spokeswoman Julie Supan told InformationWeek that "We believe this complaint is without merit, and raises issues that were addressed in our blog post on April 21."
On June 20, 2011, TechCrunch reported that all Dropbox accounts could be accessed without password for four hours. In a blog post, co-founder Arash Ferdowsi wrote that "Yesterday we made a code update at 1:54pm Pacific time that introduced a bug affecting our authentication mechanism. We discovered this at 5:41pm and a fix was live at 5:46pm. A very small number of users (much less than 1 percent) logged in during that period, some of whom could have logged into an account without the correct password. As a precaution, we ended all logged in sessions." He wrote that a "thorough investigation" was being conducted, and that "This should never have happened. We are scrutinizing our controls and we will be implementing additional safeguards to prevent this from happening again." Julianne Pepitone, writing for CNNMoney, wrote that "It's the security nightmare scenario: A website stuffed with sensitive documents leaves all of its customer data unprotected and exposed", and featured a comment from Dave Aitel, president and CEO of security firm Immunity Inc., saying "Any trust in the cloud is too much trust in the cloud -- it's as simple as that. [...] It's pretty much the standard among security professionals that you should put on the cloud only what you would be willing to give away."
In July 2011, Dropbox updated its Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, and Security Overview agreements. The new Privacy Policy sparked criticism, as noted by Christopher White in a Neowin post, in which he wrote that "They attempted to reduce some of the tedious legalese in order to make it easier for normal people to understand. It appears that they have succeeded in that mission and in the process have taken ownership of every file that uses their service". Citing a paragraph in the updated Privacy Policy that Dropbox needed user permission to "use, copy, distribute, prepare derivative works (such as translations or format conversions) of, perform, or publicly display" user's data, White wrote that "This broad terminology is frightening for end users because it clearly lets Dropbox take a person's work, whether it is photographs, works of fiction, or scientific research, and gives the company the right to do whatever they want with no recourse from the original owner". After users expressed concerns about the change, Dropbox once again updated its policy, adding "This license is solely to enable us to technically administer, display, and operate the Services." White concluded by writing that "While this is a step in the right direction, it still makes no sense as to why a product that is used to move files from one computer to another needs the ability to "prepare derivative works of" anyone's files."
In July 2012, Dropbox hired "outside experts" to figure out why some users were receiving e-mail spam from Dropbox. In a post on its blog, Dropbox employee Aditya Agarwal wrote that "usernames and passwords recently stolen from other websites were used to sign in to a small number of Dropbox accounts. We've contacted these users and have helped them protect their accounts." However, Agarwal also noted that "A stolen password was also used to access an employee Dropbox account containing a project document with user email addresses. We believe this improper access is what led to the spam. We're sorry about this, and have put additional controls in place to help make sure it doesn't happen again." One of the additional controls implemented was the introduction of two-factor authentication. In February 2013, users reported additional spam, with the company stating that "At this time, we have not seen anything to suggest this is a new issue", and blamed the earlier e-mail spam issue from the past July.
In June 2013, The Guardian and The Washington Post publicized confidential documents suggesting Dropbox was being considered for inclusion in the National Security Agency's classified PRISM program of Internet surveillance.
On January 11, 2014, Dropbox experienced an outage. A hacker group called The 1775 Sec posted on Twitter that it had compromised Dropbox's site "in honor of Internet activist and computer programmer Aaron Swartz, who committed suicide a year ago". However, Dropbox itself posted on Twitter that "Dropbox site is back up! Claims of leaked user info are a hoax. The outage was caused during internal maintenance. Thanks for your patience!" In a blog post detailing the issue, Dropbox's Akhil Gupta wrote that "On Friday at 5:30 PM PT, we had a planned maintenance scheduled to upgrade the OS on some of our machines. During this process, the upgrade script checks to make sure there is no active data on the machine before installing the new OS. A subtle bug in the script caused the command to reinstall a small number of active machines. Unfortunately, some master-replica pairs were impacted which resulted in the site going down." Gupta also noted that "Your files were never at risk during the outage".
In May 2014, Dropbox temporarily disabled shared links. In a blog post, the company detailed a web vulnerability scenario where sharing documents containing hyperlinks would cause the original shared Dropbox link to become accessible to the website owner if a user clicked on the hyperlink found in the document. Some types of shared links remained disabled over the next few weeks until Dropbox eventually made changes to the functionality.
In a July 2014 interview, former NSA contractor Edward Snowden called Dropbox "hostile to privacy" because its encryption model enables the company to surrender user data to government agencies, and recommended using the competing service SpiderOak instead. In response, a Dropbox spokeswoman stated that "Safeguarding our users' information is a top priority at Dropbox. We've made a commitment in our privacy policy to resist broad government requests, and are fighting to change laws so that fundamental privacy protections are in place for users around the world".
In October 2014, an anonymous user on Pastebin claimed to have compromised "almost seven million" Dropbox usernames and passwords, gradually posting the info. However, in a blog post, Dropbox stated "Recent news articles claiming that Dropbox was hacked aren't true. Your stuff is safe. The usernames and passwords referenced in these articles were stolen from unrelated services, not Dropbox. [...] A subsequent list of usernames and passwords has been posted online. We've checked and these are not associated with Dropbox accounts."
In August 2016, email addresses and passwords for 68 million Dropbox accounts were published online, with the information originating from the 2012 email spam issue. Independent security researcher Troy Hunt checked the database against his data leak website, and verified the data by discovering that both the accounts belonging to him and his wife had been disclosed. Hunt commented that "There is no doubt whatsoever that the data breach contains legitimate Dropbox passwords, you simply can't fabricate this sort of thing". In a blog post, Dropbox stated: "The list of email addresses with hashed and salted passwords is real, however we have no indication that Dropbox user accounts have been improperly accessed. We're very sorry this happened and would like to clear up what's going on." The company outlined details that the information was "likely obtained in 2012", with the company first hearing about the list two weeks earlier, at which time they immediately started an investigation. "We then emailed all users we believed were affected and completed a password reset for anyone who hadn't updated their password since mid-2012. This reset ensures that even if these passwords are cracked, they can't be used to access Dropbox accounts."
In January 2017, Dropbox restored years-old supposedly deleted files and folders in user accounts. In one example, a user reported that folders from 2011 and 2012 returned. In explaining the issue, a Dropbox employee wrote on its forum that "A bug was preventing some files and folders from being fully deleted off our servers, even after users had deleted them from their Dropbox accounts. While fixing the bug, we inadvertently restored the impacted files and folders to those users' accounts. This was our mistake; it wasn't due to a third party and you weren't hacked. Typically, we permanently remove files and folders from our servers within 60 days of a user deleting them. However, the deleted files and folders impacted by this bug had metadata inconsistencies. So we quarantined and excluded them from the permanent deletion process until the metadata could be fixed".
Offices
The Dropbox headquarters were located at 760 Market Street in San Francisco, until moving to larger premises in July 2011.
From that date Dropbox's corporate headquarters are at Suite 400 on the fourth floor of the China Basin Landing building in San Francisco. The company occupies the fourth floor of the 1991 section of the facility, with 85,600 square feet (7,950 m2) of space, and an option to take more space.
Dropbox expanded into their second U.S. office in Austin, Texas in February 2014. The State of Texas and City of Austin provided a $1.7 million performance-based incentives package to Dropbox in exchange for locating their office in Austin with up to 170 new jobs with a $59,000 average annual wage.
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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