End of support for OS X 10.4 and 10.5

Il est un argument discutable que la fiche a été tiré sur le soutien pour les anciens systèmes d'exploitation il ya plus de trois mois, avec je pourrais ajouter mois justes d'avertissement à l'avance.

Il est pas comme si Dropbox avait une réunion d'une journée et décidé que ce serait très amusant de bouleverser les utilisateurs OS X PPC. La raison pour cela est bien documenté et que la raison ne disparaît pas tout simplement parce que un petit sous-ensemble d'utilisateurs finaux veulent rester sur une plateforme morts.

The only file you really want is the Dropbox.app.zip file.

Here is a direct link:

[Link removed by moderator. Please refrain from posting unofficial or modified Dropbox clients on these pages. If you have come here looking for the modified client, remember that what you are trying to download was modified by a third-party and is not supported by Dropbox. Be careful of what you download.]

All the other files are being simply provided as a courtesy to anyone who knows how and wants to mess around with the code. The actual file I name above has been modified with those files already.

It tricks Dropbox into thinking you are using Snow Leopard.

Please do note that no one using Tiger has gotten it to run yet. The APIs in Leopard are still close enough to those in Snow Leopard that it works in Leopard however.

Finally, if you get an issue where Dropbox is 'updating' but nothing is happening, quit Dropbox then reopen it.

I might just add the following. The guy who did this has contacted Dropbox about doing the coding for them for PowerPC users. So far they have ignored him.

This workaround is volatile. Meaning that today it may work, but tomorrow it might not. Dropbox can change it's APIs or procedures at any time and since they have already dispensed with us officially they won't warn us. Dropbox could also decide that they just want to squash us anyway and do something to specifically target this workaround in order to kill it.

So, make no mistake…even though this works now we are on borrowed time.

Jean-françois: I appreciate your followup comments. I am also irate about selective abandonment of "older" hardware and operating systems by software companies who do not realize how important older technologies are to some people. They lure us in with the promise of dependable backups, but then cast us off when we fail to keep up with the maddening pace of technology. They do this after having supported them for many years with our money. There ought to be a law that protects our "investment" in a cloud storage company, protecting us from ever being abandoned like orphans. 

I am using the Dropbox hack by Czo on my Mac PPC G5. I hope you can use it. It works fine, except for needing to hold down Option key when I click on the Dropbox icon in the top menu. This Option-click brings up the older GUI window which allows me to select Dropbox Preferences. 

Here is the link again (posted in this forum thread several times):

[Link removed by moderator. Please refrain from posting unofficial or modified Dropbox clients on these pages. If you have come here looking for the modified client, remember that what you are trying to download was modified by a third-party and is not supported by Dropbox. Be careful of what you download.]

Erik Y.: Thanks for the help. Dropbox now works great on all 3 of my ppc machines!

Is this a Dropbox users community forum or a Dropbox technical support forum? I haven't seen anything supportive from Dropbox, so censorship of third party solutions is untenable. I was under the impression that this forum is much like Apple Discussions forum with users helping users. I will tell the world about Dropbox's censorship of a viable workaround for "the Mac PPC Desktop Client problem." Incredible that Dropbox thinks PPC Macs are obsolete. So wrong. 

Erik Y. - Thanks for the link to the TenFourFox addons and config tweaks. I use many of the same add-ons, but have a few differences:

Don’t have:
  Block Site
  google-no-tracking-url
  NoScript (I used to have this, but enough sites had trouble that I deleted it)
  QCLean
  RefControl
  RequestPolicy

Do have:
  HTML5 Everywhere! - asks sites to use HTML5 instead of Flash
  HTTPS-Everywhere - asks sites to load secure version if available
  QuickTime Enabler - enables playing many videos in QuickTime Player
  Restless Restart - adds File>Restart menu item
  Video DownloadHelper - helps download web videos

I'll take a look at the ones you have that I'm not using, and also at the config options.

Good luck.

- Winston

Please just discontinue support and do not kill the service for the PPC based machines. The thing that attracted me to Dropbox in the first place was the ability to share files across platforms and devices. This "update" is going to make things difficult for me. I have a G5 machine that cannot upgrade beyond OSX 10.5. I use it every day and need to be able to share files with my other devices.

We need to demonstrate that there is still a significant PowerPC (PPC) user base out there which uses Dropbox Desktop Client. Just because it's old doesn't mean it should go away. We still use AFP and PostScript, don't we? I still use Timbuktu (originally developed by WOS Datasystems/Farallon/Netopia...) for remote control. A portion of Dropbox's income should go toward continuing support of legacy hardware and software. Being backwardly compatible and cross platform should be an ideal, not a burden.

For Dropbox to decommission Dropbox Desktop Client for Mac OS X 10.5.8 messes up my workflow and backup strategy.

I have Dropbox syncing nicely on my new Synology DS 1513+ NAS using Synology CloudSync 1.0. Now do I have to live in fear that Dropbox will decommission syncing within CloudSync? The DiskStation Manager (DSM) web-based operating system, based on the Linux Kernel, runs on an INTEL Atom D2700 processor. I read that Synology's CloudSync uses Python and the Dropbox REST API which allow it to interact with Dropbox, in a similar way that the Dropbox client does for Windows, Linux and OSX.

There are Core API SDKs here: https://www.dropbox.com/developers/core/sdks/osx
And here: https://www.dropbox.com/developers/core/sdks/other

The ReadMe for Mac OS X SDK 1.3.13 (software development kit) says this:

"Getting Started Using the DropboxSDK for OSX:

Requirements:
1. You need Xcode version 5.1 or later.
2. You need to have registered your app at https://dropbox.com/developers/apps
You should have an app key and secret.

Note: The SDK is designed to work with OSX versions 10.7 and above."

There you have it. No more SDK support from Dropbox for Mac OS 10.5 and older. I'm not a programmer. Makes me dizzy thinking about a custom-programmed application to provide my studio with continuing desktop synchronization in Mac OS 10.5.8.

Regarding someone's question as to whether there is an FTP method for accessing Dropbox, the answer is currently "no". Here is a note from Dropbox's Help Center:

https://www.dropbox.com/en/help/62

"Do you offer WebDAV, Email Attachments, or FTP support?

WebDAV, email attachments, and FTP access is not on the current feature roadmap, and likely won't be for the foreseeable future.

No hard feelings. This isn't a "no it'll never happen." But we're currently working hard delivering other, equally exciting features."

I am curious as to which Open Source and Third-Party components are causing Dropbox to drop legacy PPC support and functionality for Dropbox Desktop Client. See http://bit.ly/DropboxDesktopClientforMacandLinuxOSThird‐PartySoftwareNotices
Screen shot of DDC 3.03 in service: http://www.schlettydesign.com/images/legacy-dropbox-support.png