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Comment by eps | Hacker News Reader

This is NOT about keeping everyone updated and reducing the pool of older clients. This can be done by simply denying service to outdated versions. It worked very well for AOL Messenger 20 years ago, no reason why it won't work just as well today.

This is strictly about being able to install anything on users' machines at will and having a formal consent to do that.

The fact that Chrome and others do that doesn't make it any less _unacceptable_. You are losing control over what exactly and when you allow to run on your machine.

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You do realise that would probably increase the amount of customer support cases raised, from confused/angry users - which is the exactly the opposite effect that Dropbox wants.

For the majority of typical users of Dropbox (and HN certainly doesn't count as typical), this is a net win in every way. They get the latest bugfixes, and they don't need to worry about all this downloading installers rubbish that seems so last decade.

Also - if you were deathly worried about Dropbox and what they could do - firstly, why would you install their client to begin with, considering it's entirely closed-source? Secondly, why would you use a cloud storage provider like them to begin with?

You talk about "losing control" - why not spin your own Dropbox? (I suspect many people, nerds included, underestimate the sheer amount of engineering and technical man years that go into something like this). However, for the Stallman's among it, it may make sense.

They get the latest bugfixes, and they don't need to worry about all this downloading installers rubbish that seems so last decade.

They could also distribute Dropbox through the Mac App Store, then they wouldn't have to sneak in SUID binaries and run background processes with launchd. As an added bonus, Dropbox would be sandboxed.

Before someone says it can't be done: the OneDrive app is installed via the Mac App Store, is sandboxed and provides Finder integration. (Yes, the Office badge would probably be a problem, but that is a hack now anyway.)

Edit: that sounded too negative. I agree that this benefits a lot of users, I just wanted to point out that an App Store version would be even better.

"You talk about "losing control" - why not spin your own Dropbox?"

I agree that auto update is a net positive and most people will be fine with the arrangement. But your line of argument is flawed . by this logic anyone who wants to enquire and wantto have an informed discussion on health he /she should go study medicine ? Right !

Well, if you haven't done some form of studying, formal or informal, you can't really claim to be informed.

>You do realise that would probably increase the amount of customer support cases raised, from confused/angry users

No, it won't.

It's an urban legend.

For every support request that cannot be answered from a stock pile of answers, the first reply is "update to the latest version and then come back." and not once did I see anyone ever complain about it (leave alone become angry) in my 20+ years in IT business. Never. Not a single complaint. Those who can upgrade will upgrade when asked.

That depends on the industry. I have worked with support for about as long as you, and many clients wants to find a solution that they can use until they upgrade (since the upgrade process can take quite some time if you have lots of dependent software that needs validating).

Sure, there are clients like that and those who can't upgrade due to internal policies, QA restrictions, etc.

Point being is that the extra load from having to deal with clients on outdated versions is insubstantial and it certainly does not justify force-shoveling updates down everyone's throats.

Well, I like staying current, but I DON'T like auto updates. I can't count how many times Windows broke because of auto updates. I would so much rather have a notification than just to have something update in the background and break. Nothing ever breaks at a convenient time.

I'm sure my Dropbox has been updating itself already for years.

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