Dropbox Public Links Will Cease To Function After Mid-March.

As I read the notice below, .kmz files stored in my Dropbox Public Folder will no longer be downloadable into Google Earth. That means that my Links file will cease to function, as will the Non-Member Download Links I have inserted into many of my new Google Earth Community posts, as well as many of the files themselves, which download additional content ancillary to the file (in many cases, content that I did not wish to appear in the Google Earth Community Layer.



Can any of you wiser than I interpret the notice differently? I don't see how it would be possible to rescue content locked in the old Google Earth Community, but if I could find a different site to host the .kmz files, I may be able to find the energy to rewrite all of the links. Does anyone have any suggestions for a suitable place to host the files?

We’re always looking to improve the Dropbox sharing experience. The Public folder was the first sharing method we introduced, and since then, we’ve built even better ways for you to share securely and work together with your team.



As a result, we’ll soon be ending support for the Public folder. Dropbox Basic users will be able to use the Public folder until March 15, 2017. After that date the files in your Public folder will become private, and links to these files will be deactivated. Your files will remain safe in Dropbox.



If you’d like to keep sharing files in your Public folder, you can create new shared links. Just make sure to send the new URLs to your collaborators.

From what I can tell from their site, they now just want to force everyone to pay.

Have you thought of using Google Drive?

Barry Hunter gave a helpful response here.  I think he and TL are correct, you're going to have to pay if you want to hotlink, and even then, there's no guarantee of permanency.

Google Drive doesn't really work. Josh, one of the help forum top contributors, created a useful tool for getting working links: geteach. It works well for photos on Google Drive, but Drive changes the link when you edit the file, so that wouldn't work for washi.

I've used Google Sites in the past. You don't need to create a public site, you can attach files and get a working link, for example sites.google.com/site/noisettesplayground/imagetest.kmz (I have a feeling that link won't display, I may edit it afterwards). However, Google Sites is changing, and I don't know how attachments will be managed in the new version.

For the links in the now frozen GEC and GEC layer, there's no way to modify those I'm afraid.

There's a long thread here on the Dropbox forum. I haven't read it all, so I don't know if there's any extra information.

Bottom line: I don't know what the answer is

Thanks for your advice Noisette (in the GEC) and Barry Hunter (in the GE Help Forum).



I rewrote everything when Image Shack dumped me. I rewrote everything again Google dumped me. In this Age of Trump, this poor old man has no faith that, even if he had the energy to do it again, there is much hope of creating anything of lasting value and that wouldn't precede him in death.



I may post the download-prepared components on the new GEC, but I flatter myself little that much of anybody will notice.

" I flatter myself little that much of anybody will notice."

Your wrong, many will notice, as I do. Your posts are also searchable on Google.