lucky find: dropbox

Dropbox appears to be solving a number of nagging problems for me. I've been looking for a place where I can put files that I would like to be available for download from this blog; I used to be able to use my free Verizon web space, but Verizon pulled the plug on that (they say security issues, but the space is available for people who pay extra for web space - perhaps they have research that shows that paying customers are less likely to be criminals).

I stumbled across an article on the CRN site about free web storage offerings. Several of the offer Linux clients (the computers I use most frequently at home all use Linux). I couldn't get my first choice, Zumodrive, to work (ymmv), so I decided to look at Dropbox, which I remembered some reference to in the past.

They have software for Linux, Mac, and Windows (in fact, Ubuntu has the client in the repo's). Users get 2GB free (I am all about the free stuff). Dropbox puts a folder on your local computers for the stuff to be saved to your account, and you can generate a link to stuff in my shared folder that you can use for downloadable files. But there's something else cool: files in your Dropbox folder are updated across all the computers on which you have a Dropbox folder. This means that stuff like my calendar and address book will be updated, and I won't have to worry about carrying a USB drive - and if I update when I'm offline, Dropbox will update again the next time I'm online. And, since I can add Dropbox to my work computer, I can use the same program there (my scheduler/contacts program is Essential PIM Free USB, which is written for Windows, but the free version works in Linux under wine; the gods at EPIM have decided not to provide a Linux version).

So I get:

1. Online backup of critical files, that is then
   
2. sync-ed across all the necessary computers, as well as
   
3. a place to host files I want to share,
   
4. for free.

I'm looking for the downside.