Dropbox updates silently to add Lion support
updated 07:40 pm EDT, Fri August 19, 2011
Fix makes public URL generation work again
Popular file-sharing service Dropbox is in the process of rolling out a "silent upgrade" that will offer full compatibility with Lion, according to a post on the company's support forum. While the basic service has continued to work, the contextual menu that allowed users to copy a public URL for sharing their file was absent.
As is normal for Dropbox upgrades, there is no notification or timeframe for all users to be upgraded, but a manual upgrade file for OS X (and other OSes) is available for those who need to upgrade immediately. Users can find out what version they are currently running by selecting Dropbox from the menu bar, choosing the preferences and then selecting "Account." The new Lion-compatible version is 1.1.40.
Users who are working with a later version for beta testing (the company is experimenting with encryption in its beta 1.2.x builds) will see their database rebuilt if they downgrade to 1.1.40. The service offers users 2GB of free cloud storage space in order to share files that would normally be too big to email (or to backup important data), with an option to sign up for more space if needed.
Dropbox works across platforms and syncs automatically as well as keeping a local copy for fast access. Users have described it as a more intuitive alternative to Apple's own iDisk (which offered up to 20GB of storage) under its paid service Mobile Me, but iDisk will be discontinued next year in favor of the unified iCloud service, which offers users a free allotment of 5GB of storage space, not counting iTunes purchases and certain other items.
