
Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi, MIT students, founded Dropbox in 2007. Dropbox is an American company based in San Francisco. For the past 10 years, the company has been developing an online storage service on the cloud. Like Amazon, Dropbox is a pioneer in the field of cloud storage. In total, the service now brings together more than 500 million users.
In the past, computer data and files could only be stored on physical media such as hard disks, SD cards or floppy disks. For just over a decade, however, cloud storage has been increasingly used.
What is Dropbox? Cloud Storage Service Overview
Created in 2007 by MIT students, Dropbox is originally a personal cloud storage service. It can also be considered as an online backup service. The Dropbox application is compatible with Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Ubuntu PC OSes. The mobile app is also available on iPhone, iPad, Android, and BlackBerry.
The files saved in the Dropbox folder can be accessed from anywhere via a simple internet connection. Users have to log into his account to download and share data. Sharing a file is possible by generating a URL from the Dropbox website and send it to contacts so that they can access the file.
Dropbox Business: document storage and sharing service used by many companies
Dropbox’s synchronization system also facilitates sharing and collaboration, as different users can access the files from their respective computers and mobile devices. Dropbox Business, the version of the service for professionals, is used by more than 200,000 companies including National Geographic, Hyatt and News Corp. Its administration and security features make it a reliable and efficient working tool.
The data stored on Dropbox is protected by SSL/TLS and AES 256-bit encryption, making it very difficult for hackers and other malicious people to access it. Besides, it is possible to recover old versions of deleted files or files for 30 days for the free version, and up to 120 days for paid packages. For companies, since October 2015, Dropbox has been offering Dropbox Paper, a collaborative document editing tool.
Dropbox at the heart of a data privacy controversy
Despite its many qualities, Dropbox is not immune to controversy. Among the most significant accidents in its history, we can mention an authentication problem that occurred in June 2011. For 4 hours, many accounts were accessible without passwords. In another register, in July 2011, the terms of use a