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Dropbox Cracks Down On Illegitimate Users Taking Advantage of HTC Promo

16

A few weeks ago, it was announced that Dropbox would be teaming up with HTC to once again, offer HTC customers loads of bonus storage — 23 extra GB’s of online storage to be exact — simply for buying any one of the upcoming HTC One line of devices. A generous offer, indeed. Looking a gift horse straight in the mouth, some crafty devs over on XDA managed to crack the app, spoofing the HTC One X on any Android device under the sun. This means you could have a Samsung Galaxy S II, and still receive this promotional offer. Sneaky.

Well, it didn’t take long for Dropbox to catch wind of these efforts and a few days ago they released this statement in their forums:

The official Dropbox 23GB HTC promotion will not start until sometime early this month, when the devices are released. To earn the extra 23GB of extra Dropbox space you will need to link your HTC Sense 4.0 device to your Dropbox account and complete “Get Started.”

The method to earn 23GB that is being circulated on the XDA Developers forum and on other blogs and forums is illegitimate. We plan to remove any space received using this method.

Downloading apps from unknown sources is not a good idea, as they might have been modified to include malicious code. We strongly recommend that you only install the Android Dropbox app via Google Play (formerly known as the the Android Market) or from official download links on Dropbox.com.

I hope this helps.

best,
Sean

Dropbox wasn’t too clear on their exact methods for catching all the perpetrators, but for all those who took advantage of this cracked app, just know that your days are numbered. And shame on you. Shaaaaame…

[Dropbox | Via Electronista]

Chris Chavez
I've been obsessed with consumer technology for about as long as I can remember, be it video games, photography, or mobile devices. If you can plug it in, I have to own it. Preparing for the day when Android finally becomes self-aware and I get to welcome our new robot overlords.

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16 Comments

  1. Fun while it lasted…
    Also, I realized because of this, I would probably never fill up that 23GB of space anyway.

  2. the box.com promo was way better

    1. In general, yes, but the limited upload size (100MB?) can make the service useless for some users.

      1. I learned that the other day when trying to share a video with the fam =/

        1. I tried uploading some episodes to my Box account to watch while at work so I didn’t have to lug my external hard drive around, and was really disappointed with the file size cap. I resolved to putting the files on my phone.

    2. yea i got it too, but dropbox are much easier to use. 

    3. Yeah, but Dropbox offers folder syncing with your desktop. That alone makes it impossible for me to switch (although I still love and use Box)

      1. There’s a third-party program called “Social Folders”. I’m using it as a desktop sync for box. It doesn’t slow things down like FTP either. I use my 50GBs of box for music only since there’s still a file size limit.

        You should give it a try. Easy to set up and use like dropbox sync.

  3. Storage in the cloud is never a good idea as a replacement for the physical. Although in this case HTC is right to remove any space gained by the illegitimate method, it still is a reminder that when you store stuff in the cloud, at the end of the day you are at the mercy of who ever owns those servers. 

    This is why I rather have a microSD slot. No worries of not being able to access my data for whatever the reason may be.

    1. ^This This and This

    2.  E X A C T L Y.

      If no SD Card at least enough room on my phone. After seeing how everything had to get wiped on the G Nex when I unlocked the bootloader…..I will probably always pick sd card over removable battery. If I had to choose

      1. That was my dilemma when upgrading to a new device back in Dec between the G-Nexus and D-Razr. I went with the G-Nexus for the removable battery and I got the extended battery for it. I don’t trust the OEMs when they say that the battery will last you an X amount of time. I saw a lot of people complaining about the D-Razr not making it through out the day. My OG Droid wasn’t 4G and it wouldn’t last an entire day. The battery for the D-Razr is bigger then the one in the OG Droid but it also has a bigger screen and an LTE radio which everyone is blaming for the battery drain on the 4G phones.
        I had an 8GB sd card on my OG Droid and I was only using about 3.5GB. The G-Nexus has 32GB and I think that’s more then enough at least for me. If I had to choose I would prefer a removable battery and an sd card on the device.

  4. “Downloading apps from unknown sources is not a good idea, as they might have been modified to include malicious code.”
    I don’t know why that makes me laugh.

    I feel like most devs at xda and other forums built up their reputation already.
    Heck, I trust these devs more than I trust some companies (or I won’t be sporting their custom ROMs)

  5. I thought of checking out some new tools for cloud storage since the
    security concern is always around it. Had come across this tool called
    CollateBox http://www.collatebox.com/ which is creating a lot of buzz in
    the market, but now I guess I’ll stick on to Dropbox for their amazing
    integration and features.

  6. Dropbox’s synch is enough to keep this small business owner. I can link all my customer files and spreadsheets and they will update each other. Box.net is o.k. for general storage but there us no synching. I too would not give up my sd card storage. This is another reason I chose the Sensation 4G.

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