Business Opportunities Weblog

Dropbox: Backup Online for Free

By on March 20, 2010 in Featured

I’ve recently discovered Dropbox and I love it.

For free, Dropbox allows me to easily backup my most important files and access my home computer files from anywhere. Dropbox acts like an external disk drive only it lives somewhere else on the internet — and won’t be destroyed if my house catches on fire.

Install the software onto your Mac or PC and then drag files form your computer to the Dropbox and they’ll instantly sycn into your online Dropbox. With your normal programs on your computer, you can open and modify files in your Dropbox and after you save them, they’ll immediately transfer back out to your Dropbox.

You can access your Dropbox from any computer where you have the Dropbox software installed, or if you’re on a public computer, you can log into your Dropbox account from a web browser. There is also a Dropbox iPhone app so you can access your files from an iPhone or iPod Touch.

Dropbox offers 2GB of secured online storage for free. If you need more space than that, they have an account with 50GB of storage for $9.99 per month and another with 100GB of storage for $19.99 per month. The video below explains Dropbox in plain english.

Some of Dropbox’s security and privacy features are after the jump:

  • All transmission of file data and metadata occurs over an encrypted channel (SSL).
  • All files stored on Dropbox servers are encrypted (AES-256) and are inaccessible without your account password.
  • Dropbox website and client software have been hardened against attacks from hackers.
  • Dropbox employees are not able to view any user’s files.

This is NOT a sponsored post. I just love Dropbox.

software

Business Opportunities Weblog editor and publisher Dane Carlson lives in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, just 15 miles from Yosemite National Park. He accidentally became a professional blogger in 2001. He has added 12,203 posts to the site.

Another Idea: How to Start a Computer Software Sales Business

  • Jude

    I’ve been using Dropbox for about a month on two different computers. I’m always up for trying something new, but so far I really dislike it. Since it’s the only new program I’ve added in that time, I assume it’s the reason my computer start-up time now takes an additional 10 minutes. As soon as I remember to get all my files off of it and back onto the correct respective computer, I’ll be deleting Dropbox from my computer.

  • http://www.thecomputerpeeps.com Dean Casey & Cara Bronico

    Dropbox is a fantastic application. I first came across it after working for a consignment software company that utilized Amazon’s Web Services S3 storage for online storage. Dropbox is one of the first applications to utilize Amazon’s “storage buckets” for storing in the cloud.

    Consignment software end-users track consignment data – e.g. consignors, customers, sales, inventory, etc. – via desktop applications. The applications store the store’s data in a database. Databases should be backed up daily, weekly and monthly. While each software vendor has a preferred/included backup solution, redundancy is key.

    Dropbox provides such a simple way for end-users to store an additional copy of a database in secure, encrypted, off-site solution.

    Dropbox is also a great way for those who aren’t familiar with FTP, to share files back and forth with friends and family. Just took 5,000 pictures while on vacation? Just drag and drop them into the “My Dropbox” folder and the pictures are automatically synchronized with your online storage bucket. Friends and family you share your bucket with, will have near-immediate access to the files!

    Dean
    –
    The Computer Peeps, LLC
    http://thecomputerpeeps.com
    http://facebook.com/thecomputerpeeps
    http://twitter.com/computerpeeps

  • http://www.unitrends.com Mark Campbell

    I use it and I typically HATE online backup – of course, this isn’t online backup but instead is cloud-based storage. I actually use it because I can use my on-premise backup appliance to backup my local PC and I have cloud-based storage – the best of both worlds.

  • http://www.callingallgeeks.org Harsh Agrawal

    Dropbox has become one of my fav software for sharing file…
    After dropping few referral I have almost 4.5 Gb of space..Most of the time I use it to share files and folders with my friendly quickly…

  • http://www.thecomputerpeeps.com Dean Casey

    Dropbox is a fantastic application. I first came across it after working for a consignment software company that utilized Amazon’s Web Services S3 storage for online storage. Dropbox is one of the first applications to utilize Amazon’s “storage buckets” for storing in the cloud.

    Consignment software end-users track consignment data – e.g. consignors, customers, sales, inventory, etc. – via desktop applications. The applications store the store’s data in a database. Databases should be backed up daily, weekly and monthly. While each software vendor has a preferred/included backup solution, redundancy is key.

    Dropbox provides such a simple way for end-users to store an additional copy of a database in secure, encrypted, off-site solution.

    Dropbox is also a great way for those who aren’t familiar with FTP, to share files back and forth with friends and family. Just took 5,000 pictures while on vacation? Just drag and drop them into the “My Dropbox” folder and the pictures are automatically synchronized with your online storage bucket. Friends and family you share your bucket with, will have near-immediate access to the files!
    –
    The Computer Peeps, LLC
    http://thecomputerpeeps.com
    http://facebook.com/thecomputerpeeps
    http://twitter.com/computerpeeps

  • http://www.seo-smo.net/ Bilal Ahmad

    Dropbox is one of my favorite backup software, i tried lot of more backup applications but found this one great.

  • http://www.careeroutlook.in Career Outlook

    very useful application. data is the most important thing :D

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