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   Dropbox to Discontinue HTML Rendering, Breaking Hosted Sites

   Adam C. Engst

   For many years, if you needed to throw up a quick Web site, one of the
   easiest ways to do it was to put HTML-formatted text files and linked
   graphics in your Dropbox folder's Public folder. Control-click the
   index.html file for your site in the Finder, choose Copy Public Link to
   get the URL to the page, and you had a fully functional site to share.
   This worked because Dropbox automatically rendered HTML files instead
   of treating them as downloads. Dropbox hasn't been enthused about this
   feature for years, but the company allowed it to continue (see
   '[1]Dropbox Public Folder Leaves and Returns,' 14 July 2012).

   Unfortunately, as of 3 October 2016, Dropbox says it will no longer
   render HTML files loaded in a Web browser. The files themselves remain
   safe in Dropbox, but Dropbox will presumably give those who click the
   links the options of downloading the file or adding it to their own
   Dropbox folder, just as happens with non-Web file types now. Thanks to
   reader Vic Case for alerting us to this development; although Dropbox
   informed some users, neither I nor Joe Kissell, author of '[2]Take
   Control of Dropbox, Second Edition' received any such notification.

   [3][tn_Dropbox-ends-hosting.jpg]

   So, if you're hosting a simple Web site via Dropbox, you have a few
   weeks to find an alternative host and update any links to your site.
   You might think that you could simply switch to Google Drive, which
   also provided this sort of service. Alas, [4]Google Drive also
   discontinued hosting of Web pages as of 31 August 2016.

   Alternatives abound, but finding the one that is equivalently simple
   (and cheap, if you were using a free Dropbox account) could require
   some research. A year ago, Scott Murray, then an Assistant Professor of
   Design at the University of San Francisco, published a rundown of
   [5]services that offer cheap or free hosting of static Web sites to
   help graduating seniors keep their sites alive after their student
   accounts were deleted. It's obviously now somewhat out of date, with
   Dropbox and Google Drive gone, and some resources are appropriate only
   for students, but it's still a good start.

   I don't want to make any recommendations in this area since I have no
   experience with any of the choices. Instead, I'll open it up to readers
   ' if you're hosting a simple static Web site, where are you doing it,
   how much does it cost, and how happy are you with the service?

References

   1. http://tidbits.com/article/13117
   2. http://tid.bl.it/tco-dropbox-tidbits
   3. http://tidbits.com/resources/2016-09/Dropbox-ends-hosting.png
   4. https://support.google.com/drive/answer/2881970?hl=en
   5. http://alignedleft.com/resources/cheap-web-hosting

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