Dropbox hack: get download stats for public files

300milligrams.posterous.com

22 points·markkofman··8 comments

This isn't really a hack: it's just a streamlined way to have shortlinks to you Dropbox-files with built-in statistics. What's next, an article by the bit.ly people saying they got a hack to get stats on links you post on Twitter?

Even then it's not streamlined. I can just use bit.ly to shorten a link to a file. No syncing, no need to share dropbox credentials.

before i would even think of touching this i'd need to know what sort of permissions im giving this app. And secondly, you care about stats on links that you intend to leave up for a long time as well as give to a lot of people. Im not sure I would trust an on the side project to keep up links that I distribute widely.

All that said, there was talk on the dropbox blog a while back about releasing analytics tools but we haven't heard anything since then.

No worries, even if app will disappear your link will be served by bit.ly.

How does this work?

with short-links redirecting to the file, it could be done with url shortener with stats, it's just more convenient generating them with this service I guess

correct. it was very inconvenient every time you need download stats to open bit.ly for that.

The Dropbox auth. page states: "This app will have access to your entire Dropbox. Please make sure you trust this app before proceeding."

Does this really need access to the entire Dropbox? Why should I trust the person who wrote this?

To get stats for bit.ly you can just add a '+' symbol on the end of the short link: http://bit.ly/owigAj+

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