Free 18GB Dropbox account now possible through referrals | Hacker News Reader

Free 18GB Dropbox account now possible through referrals

geek.com

20 pointsukdm22 comments

I have 24GB of free Dropbox space:

https://www.dropbox.com/gs https://www.dropbox.com/free https://www.dropbox.com/edu https://www.dropbox.com/referrals

I also have the newest version where they implemented the camera import feature which gave you extra space.

One thing I'm a bit uncomfortable with on the Dropbox referal system is that once you refer someone you get their email address (https://www.dropbox.com/account/referrals). I'm not sure if that's really right as all our referrals come from clicks on a link on one of our tutorials and they will not be aware I now have their email address. It's a pretty good phishing opportunity (eg, thanks for installing DropBox yesterday at 1.30pm, please login here for extra free space!).

I emailed DropBox about this a month or so ago but didn't get a reply.

DropBox should be especially sensitive to opportunities for phishers in my opinion!

I found that very weird too. I've used Dropbox referral links a couple of times in blog posts. When somebody clicks them and proceeds to sign up, Dropbox tells me their email address.

That's clearly not ok. They shouldn't need to be told this. It should be obvious.

Even better, it looks like it was retroactive (I just got a notice the my free space has increased)

Or just create set up some Google Ads to do the hard-work for you, for a couple bucks (or free if you can get some AdWord vouchers): http://lifehacker.com/5854955/how-to-max-out-your-dropbox-re...

If I were DropBox, I wouldn't mind this one bit, they're basically getting the public to pay for their ads. Genius on both fronts :)

There was an article posted to HN a while ago that said some people had problems with their Google AdWords account getting banned for doing that.

A warning about that (someone who claims to have been banned from adwords as a result): http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3575868

Ah crazy, didn't know that was against the AdWords T&Cs...

Mechanical Turk works just fine for this with no risk of bans. Maxed out my referrals in a day for about $10, and I was probably too generous.

Unfortunately, this only works for people with a US address.

Just recently did this for about $20 - I targeted dropbox OSX as my keyword to get only those downloading the software and it worked really well. Sitting at 24gb/mo free.

Wonder if the plan to also double the space you get on https://www.dropbox.com/edu

I was also wondering that... it'd be nice if they did, and made it retroactive. I didn't know about the Google Ads link that JonoW posted, I'll have to look into that!

You just get double the space per referral, but you can not exceed the 18GB limit. That means you can get to 18GB faster, with fewer referrals.

But I don't know if it works retroactively for refs you already have.

This is right before Google releases the Google Drive and there'll be a mass exodus to Google Drive.. Coincidence? I think not.

The simple reason I love Dropbox has less to do with space, but ease of use on ALL my devices. Currently syncs my files on my Ipod touch,Nexus S,Linux boxes, and Android transformer prime tablet. I even use it as a trigger to kick off a reverse ssh tunnel from my VPS nodes, (since I allow Openssh to only listen on localhost). The way it seamlessly co-exists with my exiting setup and not get in the way is grand.

Or you could get a real job and earn some money, so that you could just pay for storage with money rather than with tedious recommendation work.

Exactly.

How much of your time is $10 worth? You can get 50gb a month for that.

If I spend half an hour maxing my free space and use Dropbox for a year that's $120 I didn't spend, which values my time at $240/hr.

It's all relative.

I got 19gb, for very little work. Our software has a backup option as a feature so we simply wrote a tutorial on how to use DropBox in conjunction with the backup feature with our referral link inside it.

- Good for us because we get enough space to back up everything

- Good for customers as they have a good tutorial on how to backup their games

- Good for DropBox as they get more users

It's actually interesting psychology. People will go to great lengths for a perceived bargain.

For me it's just not worth the money. I pay for Jungle Disk, but I'm still going to max out my free DropBox so I can send crap files to my friends.

Jungle Disk is hipaa compliant where dropbox is not. JD can also be less expensive and more secure.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com