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Discontinuing rendering of HTML content

Got email notice from dropbox that they are discontinuing HTML rendering. This is going to cause major issues for my wife since she uses this to distribute info and files to her students. We are running a basic account and would be willing to upgrade to a paid account to retain this feature, but this policy seems to be across all account levels.

Any advice on alternatives?

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David R.16

I am in exactly the same boat. Trying to find an alternative now. Exams coming up soon too

Richard P.

Use a proper web host - Amazon AWS, Azure, Dreamhost, Discount Hosting etc etc etc.

R K

The notice I got says that this change will be effective a year from now: "Please note that this change will take effect for your account on September 1, 2017".

By the way, what is the reason for this change? Security concerns?

Richard P.

Basic users will see this feature discontinued in October this year, while Pro and Business users have more of a grace period, September 2017.

The change was made because the feature was being abused (malware etc) significantly more than it was being legitimately used.

Perry P.

I am a basic user so it is one month notice. While moving to a dedicated web host is an option, it is not as easily to implement for a novice user as Dropbox is/was. While I understand there could be abuses, making this part of a paid tier makes more sense to me than just discontinuing it. I am sure I am not the only one who took advantage of this feature.

I rather pay for Dropbox (upgraded service) and retain the simple benefits of publishing to a shared folder than paying for a web host that requires either ftp or web based file uploads.

R K

Richard P.:

Your response indicates that Dropbox is able to determine who is using this feature for malware and who is not. If that is true, why not issue a warning to bad actors and then disable it for those that don't comply and let legitimate users continue to use this feature? You're changing an important feature that has been very helpful to many legitimate users.

Mark

why not issue a warning to bad actors and then disable it for those that don't comply and let legitimate users continue to use this feature

Because people can set up infinite accounts in seconds - quicker than they can be removed.

R K

By this do you mean that they can set up infinite Dropbox free accounts? If so, why not keep this feature for paid Dropbox accounts?

Mark

Nobody here can answer that I'm afraid Rich - we are all users like you

George E.

Pro user here. This will cause major headaches for me. I have a blog on github that gets its photos from dropbox and AWS (yes I can use AWS but it's a lot less friendly than DB). Gonna break a lot of posts. Of course, no one will probably look....

Say, if DB identifies someone spreading malware, can't they just put a malware file on their computer? Just sayin

R K

George E, If the photos are not stored as HTML files on Dropbox, then it doesn't sound like this change will cause a problem.

Rich

If the photos are not stored as HTML files on Dropbox, then it doesn't sound like this change will cause a problem.

Correct. At this time this seems to be affecting HTML files only. The display of other file types (images, etc.) should continue to work. For how long, who knows...

Sandy N.2

The only reason I pay for a pro account is for the bandwidth needed to serve up my site. If they go through with this I will revert to basic (free) take the $100/month I am paying for this and move my site somewhere else. How many other pro users will go elsewhere for this? If there are a lot, maybe dropbox can reconsider this for pro users...

Mark

If there are a lot, maybe dropbox can reconsider this for pro users...

As with the XP changes they will have already factored this in.

Sorry

Anoop G.

I am in the same situation -- use dropbox to host a static site. Did some research and already moved to bitballoon. Had to change all the links pointing to files in dropbox from relative to absolute ones.

Here are a couple of sites (somewhat dated) that folks here may find useful:

http://alignedleft.com/resources/cheap-web-hosting

http://designrope.com/toolbox/static-web-hosting/

So far, I have not been able to find anything as easy as dropbox [not true, see update below], but bitballoon is as close as it gets. However, I have already encountered errors uploading files (although the pages work fine despite the error message) and help is hard to come by.

I may have to learn git and instead host the pages on github pages.

One of the solutions mentioned in the links above is updog.co. I'm trying to find out if that will continue to work after this change by emailing the owner of that service.

Update: I heard back from Jesse, the owner/creator of updog:

>>>

Updog is not affected by this update, because it uses the DropBox API.

If you send viewers this link - https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/<jekyll's page id>/index.html They will see raw unrendered HTML.

If you send viewers and updog link, like - https://jekyll.updog.co/ They will see the rendered HTML with all the styling.

Thanks for using updog and let me know if you have any other questions.

>>>

So it looks like this is the easiest alternative for those of us that have been using dropbox. All I had to do was move the files in my Dropbox public directory, ~/Dropbox/Public/*, under ~/Dropbox/apps/updog/<my site name>, and now users can access it at <my site name>.updog.co.

Dave C.21

Sadly, updog is not working for me...not sure why...

My original site...https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2758377/lummux/index.html

Copied to updog...https://lummux.updog.co/

Anoop G.

^ Novice here but perhaps updog doesn't like something in your html file?

When I run it through the html validator, I get a bunch of errors:

https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=http%3A%2F%2Flummux.updog.co%2F

Dave C.21

Maybe, I'm a novice too. But it works in normal dropbox public folder, this is just a copy of all the files...point is, it looks like it's not as simple as you hoped.

Anoop G.

True. I think fixing the very first error will help.

Try putting this at the very top of every html file. You could just try with the index.html first.

<!DOCTYPE html>

Richard P.

The sub pages loaded into your frames (which you really really should not use by the way) are not being served with a valid content type, so the browser is interpreting them as text files.

index.html:

list.htm:

Try renaming your .htm files to .html (remembering to update the index.html frames definition).

Jim I.3

So far, updog is working for me, simply copying files and folders from my dropbox Public folder into my updog folder. My web pages are all very simple, just text and images and links.

Anoop G.

^ same here.

Dave C.21

That got it, thanks! I have some changes to make, but it looks a lot better now.

You'll note that I made this website about fouteen years ago...just keeping it for nostalgia reasons now, band isn't even current anymore

Thanks again!

Anoop G.

Dave, Glad you were able to get it to work!

David R.16

What's updog?

Dave C.21

Not much dog, what's up wit chu?

Bob J.

I think Pro has a bit longer before html rendering stops, but i am unclear what this stoppage will mean for html-like files?.

I store .kml and .kmz files on DropBox for Google Earth rendering and these call in .jpg images via html statements in the inline html in balloons. i.e.:

<img src="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/xxx/Images/D38.jpg" />

Will these be affected?

BobJ

Rik H.1

Also very dissapointed to see this change. And yes, I already have a real web hosting account. This was a very convenient feature for quick temporary pages that require https. I still love Dropbox, but this will greatly reduce my need for it.

Adam L.5

In the same boat and I'd totally pay to keep the html hosting. In an exhausting(ive) search for a replacement, I think I'm going with Github Pages as it's free and supports static html & css. Worth a look if you're balking at Weebly/GoogleSites/etc

https://pages.github.com/

Bob J.

I have made the call and have upgraded to Pro.

This gives me protection till September next year and seems a small price to pay for peace of mind.

However i do assume that my clients will be allowed to render the html that i offer them within my account without also upgrading.

can anyone confirm this?

Bob J.