What is Dropbox? Function, features, history and more

Any user, who has the need to store information, looks for options in the internet cloud, among which Dropbox can be mentioned. In this article we show you ¿what is dropbox?, its history, features, functions and more.

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What is Dropbox?

This is a digital storage service, one of the most popular. Basically, it ¿what is dropbox?, makes it stand out from the competition for its extraordinary ease of use and its incredibly intuitive interface.

If a user wants to store any type of information and no longer has space on their computer, a good alternative is virtual cloud storage and the best quality service is offered by Dropbox.

If you wonder ¿what is dropbox?, is a computer tool that allows the synchronization of files of any type through a virtual storage device or directory within the Internet.

The serious analogy, a portable storage device but hosted on the network, so that we can have data and all kinds of information that we need on the Internet and, in addition, available at all times from any computer around the world, it is only required to have network connection.

The interface with which it was developed is its main advertisement, it already has many tools in the form of a list, allowing it to perform various tasks in a simple way. The way to use Dropbox is so simple that just by dragging the file from the computer to Dropbox it begins to be saved on the server.

Another good thing that it presents is the large number of tools available to its users, they give the option of controlling and managing the files in different ways.

The security system offered by Dropbox is impressive, since it has the reputation of being one of the most secure virtual storage servers that exists, it works using an encrypted source code, which prevents the user from using the access code of the page to other profiles.

Benefits of using Dropbox

In this section, we want to show the benefits of Dropbox, if you need to use its storage service, especially if you are new to working with these services on the network.

Dropbox was developed for users who have a large amount of information and want to be able to access it in a simple way and have applications that do not overload with unnecessary tools that they did not use.

Another fundamental goodness is the space, when creating an account in Dropbox, the new user gets an amount of free space, which is up to 2Gb, and if the user wants to continue using their free account, Dropbox allows them to expand their storage capacity up to 18Gb for free, you only have to use a referral system that you can use.

If users require a much larger amount, Dropbox has the option of payment, with certain packages, allowing to have large amounts of space, up to Terabytes (Tb).

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History

With the management of information on the network, it began to be noticed, the imperative need to store data in places other than the hard drives of conventional computers, because this capacity is insufficient, with this approach, it was released on the market in 2007, Dropbox.

The developers of this service were Houston and Ferdowsi, they realized that people used personal email as an additional site to store and share documents, however, it did not have an alternative to synchronize information and less to store large amounts of it.

From the beginning, its concept was to store any type of document, with tools to share the stored data with several users and additionally, it had a mechanism to synchronize the information, where the data was automatically loaded from any device that is related to the user. .

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Presentation in the world market

Its creators, understood the concept of what they wanted, and presented the application, finding financing from the company “Y Combinator”, allowing it to enter the market with a web page called getdropbox.

In 2009, ¿what is dropbox?, expanded and obtained its own domain, remaining until today. And due to this decision, the company grew as a private service, managing to control 20% of the world market, due to its backup copies offered in 2011.

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Nowadays

Dropbox has grown to be one of the top storage web sites on the web. In 2018, it had an approximate of 150 million registered, and reaching a range of action of 170 countries in the world.

And although they have managed to grow exponentially, the company continues its partnership with its first investors, “Sequoia Capital” and “Y Combinator”.

Another change in the service is the versions of their languages, which have increased in variety and number over time. During its development, they are only available in English language, but currently it has more than 15 additional languages.

Key features 

This section presents the outstanding characteristics, which allows to understand what What is Dropbox ?:

  1. Store large amounts of information safely, both in terms of data transfer, as well as the guarding and custody of the platform's servers.

  2. Allow to generate backup copies on other or remote servers.

  3. Share any type of file with other users.

  4. Access saved files from any network connection and with all existing connection devices.

  5. Synchronize documents automatically to make the changes you want.

Basic functions

Among the basic functions offered by lo what is dropbox today, we have the following:

  • Have permanently available all the information stored in the cloud, wherever the user is, just by having an Internet connection.

  • Store image and video files on your Dropbox user.

  • Share image files or any type of documents with the people you want.

  • Store the attached documents from the configured email directly in Dropbox.

  • Make changes within the documents in a simple way on the platform.

Dropbox virtual operability

Dropbox is a virtual storage service that allows you to reserve or save any amount of data and files that up to a certain capacity is free, keeping the information in a private folder.

All the documents that are uploaded to the platform are synchronized with the program's server within the virtual cloud, allowing any type of device to have a link with the platform user who can access the saved information whenever they want.

To use this platform, you must install the program on the computer where later, we will enter our digital hard drive, linking to a defined user that was created on the official Dropbox website.

After installing the program, a folder is immediately generated on the computer, where you can place all the files you want to store, with a copy and you only have to paste said file and it will be synchronized with the virtual hard disk.

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Information security

When the information is being transmitted, Dropbox uses the "SSL" format, and when the files are being saved, they are encrypted in the "AE - 256" format. Dropbox currently has the best of security systems at the time of storage.

Dropbox ensures that not even virtual cloud workers can access user data, so leaking into this information is unlikely.

You may also be interested in reading about Computer Security Standards In the net.

More advanced uses

Although described above, what what is dropbox, is characterized by being simple in its use, since it has the best very intuitive storage interface.

However, he has a set of jobs that are very advanced and require prior knowledge. 

Charge the camera automatically

If this function is activated, every time we use the camera that is linked to the user in Dropbox, they will be automatically stored in the account. This utility is advanced, since, if we need to save images that have high resolution, the space we have in the camera could quickly run out.

On the other hand, the camera that is linked to Dropbox can be from any mobile device or from a professional camera that has the ability to upload images to the platform. It is important to remember that you must have a connection to access the Dropbox account from the camera.

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Screenshot

This function enables the screen capture on the user's computer to be used efficiently and dynamically. Capture is done just by pressing the "Print Screen" button on the keyboard, and it is automatically saved in the Dropbox account, and a link to the clipboard will also be generated.

This link can be shared to place the screenshots in URLs, which is useful for users who need to put notes or edits on it.

Selective timing

Generate a set of guidelines to comply with when the information is synchronized, so that no repetition of information is created and data that is not important will be eliminated. This function is complicated to use, but if you can understand how to use the synchronization you will master Dropbox to its greatest potential.

Dropbox glitches

Although the platform developers guarantee that they do not have any kind of access to the data, this is not entirely true. This is seen, because they can access personal data and stored information, since they guarantee the creation of backup copies of the data, so creating these copies must access them.

Another big failure they had was in 2011, when the security system had a failure, so anyone could access user accounts, and although Dropbox managed to solve the situation, this can happen again.

Another fault It is due to its data storage in the virtual cloud, which is stored in the servers in some part of the planet, in physical offices, and it is not known under what conditions this information is kept, nor the countries that have it.

Dropbox accounts

Any user who registers will start with a free account, however, they will be able to access paid account options in order to increase the storage space.

Free account

The free account offers a significant size of space and also does not charge for the maintenance of the platform, which is why users stay with this type of account.

You have the option of increasing the storage capacity with options to invite friends or contacts, and by friends or contacts who register they will give us additional space.

Paid account

One of the benefits that you get when paying for a Dropbox account is a huge amount of storage that can reach up to 1Tb.

Achieving work in groups and acquiring different users that are related to each other is one of the options that the paid account package has. If this option is used by a large workgroup, it significantly minimizes the cost of the accounts, and also being able to access the linked accounts is beneficial for companies that move a large amount of information.


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