I’m sitting on 1TB of Google Drive storage and have 40GB going unused on OneDrive. And yet it’s Dropbox, with my massive 2.5GB allowance, that I rely on daily.
Why? Because it’s cross-platform, a reason that will only strengthen my love of it when it (along with other cloud storage providers) gains native Chrome OS file manager support next year.
And so, naturally, this week’s new stable release of Dropbox for the desktop caught my attention. The official changelog touts a “new UI” written in Qt, a new setup wizard, new splash screens and HiDPI support.
Dropbox 3.0.3 for Linux
The “problem” with new releases of Dropbox is that most are virtually identical to the last. While good in that no senseless changes arrive solely for change’s sake, it’s bad in that it makes for very droll “news” coverage!
Thankfully this release does have a bit more meat on its free range bones. As we showed you back in July, the UI changes in Dropbox 3.0.x are noticeable — and not just because the blue panel icon is now white! ;)
Another change making the jump from the July preview is the all-new setup wizard. Nothing too fancy here, but a big reduction in the number of hoops one jumps through on a fresh install.
There’s also the usual unspecified “improved performance,” and fixes for “a large number of issues/ glitches”. New file identifiers should (emphasis mine) detect which files are moved or renamed and deal with/update accordingly.
For Windows users there’s new system tray icons, support for paths longer than 260 characters and HiDPI support. Mac OS X ‘Yosemite’ users get support for ‘dark mode’ and new Finder emblems.
A few Linux users are reporting that the latest iterative update to the 3.0.x series, version 3.0.3, suffers from a memory leak. I haven’t noticed any issue on my *nix boxes, but you’ll know what service to check first if you notice a drop in overall system performance after upgrading.
Download Dropbox for Linux
Dropbox 3.0.3 is a free download for Windows, Mac and Linux. Deb installers make installation on Ubuntu painless.
Commenting Notes
I know, I know. You want to stop reading and get on with posting some “NSA!! EVUL!! SNOWDEN SAY NO!!” comments already. Before you have at it try to play fair: freedom also includes the freedom to choose, even if the options aren’t the most savory.
Spirited debate about the snooping, Condoleezza Rice’s involvement and Snowden’s suggestion that we all boycott the service are fine, but let’s have less of the ‘I love freedom.. but only when picking from a set of choices approved by my opinion’ spiel, and more informed, intelligent and reasoned debate, yeah?
Lastly, Spideroak/Box/Copy/etc. users, I don’t mind you posting affiliate links to try and coyly earn a few extra MBs of space but do try to keep the spam to the comment thread set up.