22 ms·
Free and Open Source Alternative to Airdrop
- appplication 3y agoCurious seeing this basically right next to the Airdrop for Android post. I guess today we’re doing airdrop studies.
- TechSquidTV 3y agoImo this is a direct response given the other post costs money.
- account-5 3y agoThat's what I thought too
- diffeomorphism 3y agoWho cares about money? Being free seems much more important.
- TechSquidTV 3y ago... those are equivalent statements
- linkdd 3y agoNo, free software is different than "does not cost money". You can pay for free software. For example the OS of my TV (not a smart TV but still) is free and opensource, yet I paid for it when I bought my TV.
- jrockway 3y agoWhy did you buy a non-smart TV with an OS?
- linkdd 3y agoI bought it 10 years ago, it cost me less than 50€. And every interactive device has an operating system, no matter how simple it is. Just to accept inputs from my remote and displaying menus to configure lightning/colors/volumes/etc., it needs an OS.
- GingerMidas 3y agoYou took the libre bait, rookie mistake.
- diffeomorphism 3y agoI am somewhat curious what you think "free speech" means.
- geor9e 3y agoIs this some sort of HN meme where we purposely use the wrong word sense of "free" in order to stir a semantic argument?
- diffeomorphism 3y agoNo. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_and_open-source_software
- geor9e 3y agoI hate this. That's not what free means to 99% of consumers. I refuse to use it that way.
- DueDilligence 3y ago[dead]
- Hnaomyiph 3y agoIf you need to send larger files via link, another hn user created https://www.relaysecret.com/ https://www.relaysecret.com/ I use the tunnel service for the most part at https://www.relaysecret.com/tunnel https://www.relaysecret.com/tunnel It’s open source and you can host your own instance of it! https://github.com/santrancisco/relaysecret https://github.com/santrancisco/relaysecret When Firefox send shut down I was looking for a good alternative and never really found sharedrop fit my needs.
- chasil 3y agoNitroshare is OK. Local network only. Encryption and more prompting would be nice. Automatic startup at boot is a bad idea. https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.nitroshare.android/ https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.nitroshare.android/ For third-party transfers: https://www.swisstransfer.com/ https://www.swisstransfer.com/ [up to 50mb] https://filetransfer.io/ https://filetransfer.io/ [much bigger limit]
- cmiller1 3y agoAll of these "alternatives to airdop" don't seem to actually do what airdrop does, which is create an ad-hoc wireless connection. Airdrop isn't just a nice UI for sending files between people, it allows a wi-fi speed transfer between two devices that aren't connected to an existing network of that speed.
- asadalt 3y agothis also gives you wifi speed actually. thanks for webrtc.
- menacingly 3y agoMany things give you wifi speed, if you're connected to wifi. With Airdrop, if you are on the moon and meet a stranger there who also has an iphone, you can perform the high-speed transfer of large files.
- checkyoursudo 3y agoWill an iPhone work in a vacuum?
- ascagnel_ 3y agoYou’re kidding, but a working phone was found on the ground after the panel blew out of the Boeing a few weeks ago. https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/8/24029806/boeing-737-max-9-iphone-found-working https://www.theverge.com/2024/1/8/24029806/boeing-737-max-9-... I don’t think there’s anything in a phone that’d stop its core functions in a vacuum. The human trying to use it, not so much.
- checkyoursudo 3y agoI was kind of kidding, but I was also kind of intrigued by the idea. My instinct is that it would work in a vacuum, but that is just a gut feeling. But I also could not think of why one could not.
- asadalt 3y agosimilar: I have been using https://snapdrop.net/ https://snapdrop.net/ for a few years now.
- 1B05H1N 3y agoDo you guys actually share this much locally? I have my local sync'd to my cloud storage and just pull it down if/when I need it. I'll just email/text people around me if they don't have airdrop compatibility.
- firtoz 3y agoI'm trying to learn how to use Tiktok (yes, I know, I'm sorry) and other social media and cross-posting isn't really great and some platforms pretty much force you to post from mobile devices or vice versa (Tiktok, Instagram for mobile, LinkedIn for desktop web), and I need to pass source videos from mobile to editors on PC and back and forth for posting on the different media.. It's a big of a mess, I'm kinda sure there are crossposting services out there already, but it works for me so /shrug!
- dewey 3y agoSounds much more painful than dropping them in iCloud / Google Drive / Dropbox, as you have to send, accept, save, switch to app, upload instead of just going to the app, select file from cloud storage, upload. Especially when you might want to upload from multiple devices.
- firtoz 3y agoI haven't figured out the full workflow yet so will consider your way too, thanks for mentioning it!
- rainbowzootsuit 3y agoDo consider Syncthing particularly if you are using Android. If using apple iOS you'd need the möbius sync client. https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/ https://www.mobiussync.com/ https://www.mobiussync.com/ One thing that it beats the cloud / centralized sync on is because the connection is direct between devices when the initial transfer is completed the file is completely there on the other device. With a cloud type of sync you do the transfer twice. I've seen stack up on large media or with the structure of cloud services pricing making it expensive depending on how your workflow is setup with inside and outside parties. For example, Dropbox deduction from all parties' storage limits not just the sharer. You can also point Syncthing at a local sync of Dropbox or Google drive and then forward the files to other recipients from that for some purposes.
- thrillgore 3y ago"We're really sorry, but your browser is not supported. Please use the latest desktop or Android version of Chrome, Opera or Firefox." I am using the latest Firefox though
- thepbone 3y agoI ran into the same error. Works after re-enabling WebRTC in Firefox.
- bluish29 3y agoI would recommend pairdrop [1] which works even in situations when you have Apple Private Relay or a VPN. [1] https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/PairDrop https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/PairDrop
- tomasff 3y agoIf you already use Tailscale, Taildrop [1] works great. [1] https://tailscale.com/kb/1106/taildrop https://tailscale.com/kb/1106/taildrop
- escanda 3y agoTailscale looks nice. I acknowledge there is a lot of room for NAT traversal and alike tools. I am quite curious how do you manage network settings across your network. This could have served me well 10 yrs ago.
- ahmedfromtunis 3y agoI wanted to use this, but reading the documentation, my understanding was that with tailscale data goes through a server. Am I understanding it correctly? EDIT > This makes it a great solution for sending sensitive or large files without third-party servers in the middle. It clearly says the opposite. I don't know where I got that idea from.
- maronato 3y agoIt sends the data using wireguard, so it’s p2p. There is a coordination server that sets up the initial connection, but after that both devices are connected directly to each other.
- raihansaputra 3y agoAt the very worse case (NAT hell or something else) they may use a DERP relay. But if you have a cooperative connection or plain local connection it works fine. There's encryption overhead though, I can't saturate a 1Gbps over Tailscale on M1, while direct connection works (iperf3).
- HungSu 3y agoFrom that doc: > Taildrop is currently limited to sending files between your own personal devices. You cannot send files to devices owned by other users even on the same Tailscale network.
- wccrawford 3y agoI'm not a big fan of having to pay once for every computer I want to use something on. I'm just 1 person. Also, making it free for Android but not PC seems... Wrong.
- hk__2 3y agoWhat are you talking about? This tool is free for everyone.
- wccrawford 3y agoI somehow managed to reply to the wrong one. Ubidrop is the one I meant to reply to.
- Phenomenit 3y agoSharing files is great but what I’m looking for is simple QR code ephemeral chat. Like if a want to copy a link or password between my phone and some device. Tried a bunch of different ones that I’ve found on search but they’re clunky and kind of work.
- talkingtab 3y agoInteresting idea. The QR code part is good I think. I would be interested in what you tried, why it was clunky, ideas of how to make it usable. thanks!
- ahmedfromtunis 3y agoI should check the code first, but my guess is that this is built using webrtc which was primarily created for realtime communication (including audio and video). So my guess is that such feature can be easily added. By the way, if you're using chrome, you can take share text directly via the clipboard. So that you can share from your phone, and immediately paste it in your computer, or vice versa. By using kdeconnect (it has an Android app and a gnome extension), you have this done automatically. This means that you can copy a text in your phone, and paste it in your computer, as well as the other way around.
- Cupprum 3y agoI am still missing why people are so crazy about airdrop. Sure, it seems nice, and is nice to interact with, but all my stuff is already in the cloud and i don't seem to need to share it very often with people around me. What are some of the use-cases you personally use airdrop for?
- Angostura 3y agoPerson A takes group Photo. Person B "could I have that"? Two people touch phones and hit accept.
- Cupprum 3y agoBut neither of these implementations are going to provide this functionality, because of lack of development kits, right? So in the end people would just send it over some messaging app, which scales nicer, or create a shared album, which also scales nicer. Because smashing phones in group of 10 people might get tedious.
- zevon 3y agoThe functionality described by the person you are replying to is part of all Apple devices. It also works without being on the same messengig app and without having the recipient in your contacts in the first place. Another example for AirDrop use cases is transferring large media files to another device. People use that all the time for moving recordings to their editing computer, for example. Even if you have all your stuff in the cloud (which not everyone does) - it‘s much faster to do a local transfer than uploading and downloading something like a high res raw video from a modern phone.
- dagmx 3y agoYou don’t need to implement airdrop as separate functionality. If you are capable of sharing a resource in a message or album, it is also automatically shareable via airdrop. iOS treats them all the same via the share sheet.
- windowsrookie 3y ago
- gpchelkin 3y agoI've tried a lot of similar tools for sending files between devices in local area network and found that https://localsend.org https://localsend.org works best. Yes, it requires an application installation, but the transfers are much more faster and reliable when browser is not involved. And its Android application works nicely on Google TV/Android TV, so I can send files there easily.
- SushiHippie 3y agoFor receiving you don't need to download an application. Localsend can act as an http server, where everyone can just access it through their browser.
- codethief 3y agoHow does localsend work exactly? I've read both their website and Github README as well as part of their protocol docs but I still have no idea. How does the initial device discovery work? For file transfer does it use the local wifi, some external server, …?
- nsagent 3y agoIt looks like they implement something similar to Bonjour [1] using multicast DNS [2]. Not sure if it's basically a reimplementation like Avahi [3] or if it's a slightly different protocol (only skimmed the code [4] briefly). [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software) [2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast_DNS https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast_DNS [3]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avahi_(software) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avahi_(software) [4]: https://github.com/localsend/localsend/tree/main/app/lib/provider/network https://github.com/localsend/localsend/tree/main/app/lib/pro...
- wazoox 3y agoI'm using KDE Connect on my phone, tablet and PCs. It works great to transfer files across devices, and adds some other benefits (clipboard sharing, using the phone as a trackpad or a presentation remote, reading SMS on the PC, etc).
- ahmedfromtunis 3y agoFör some reason it never managed to send more than 2 files from the computer to the phone. And I was never able to fix it. On my tablet, however, it works flawlessly.
- leumon 3y agoWould be cool if we sometime would get https://github.com/seemoo-lab/opendrop https://github.com/seemoo-lab/opendrop as an android app (but it would only work with rooted devices). This would allow to send and recieve files to iPhones from android via Apples Airdrop protocol.
- Flex247A 3y agoAlso check: https://localsend.org/ https://localsend.org/ Apps are available for all platforms, and it's possible to achieve transfer over a LAN connection.
- kleiba 3y agoGenius name, for sure!
- AnonHP 3y agoMy need is actually when I’m out somewhere fairly remote where there’s no WiFi Internet connection, but there’s either 4G or 5G data, the phones are running iOS and Android and are in close physical proximity with each other. Is there something that works for this device-to-device to send raw data with minimal friction and maximum security (don’t want the app to be sending the data elsewhere)?
- augusto-moura 3y agoPretty slow, but you can still use Bluetooth transfers. Other ways are to have an WiFi hotspot on one of the devices and use one of these alternative apps. Some apps out there are even capable of opening a small HTTP server, so you can technically serve files on tether.
- dang 3y agoRelated ongoing thread: Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39067040 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39067040 - Jan 2024 (97 comments)
- xyst 3y agoKind of cool. UX not as smooth as p2p file sharing with airdrop on Apple devices, but it works well enough. I couldn’t get the “local network” feature to work though despite devices on both networks. Probably missing something. Had to send the link to myself.
- theLastOfCats 3y agoTaildrop?