6 ms·

Show HN: SendRail - Easy P2P File Transfer From The Desktop

76 points by ritikm 14y ago

dfc 14y ago
Peer to peer? I guess I am getting old. I can remember when peer to peer meant that one host would communicate directly to the other host and not store the file transfer on a centralized system. Or that an application would not use a centraliozed third party for authentication.
- ritikm 14y ago
  We only store the file on our central server if the receiving end doesn't have our app. If they have the app, we create a direct connection between both parties and transfer the file(s) directly without them ever hitting our servers.
  - dfc 14y ago
    So you actually think this is a P2P architecture? On a related note how do you handle firewall piercing?
    - catch23 14y ago
      probably with port knocking? pretty standard I would think.
      - _sh 14y ago
        Port knocking makes no sense in this situation. I think it's something more like STUN (RFC3489). http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3489.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3489.txt
  - mapgrep 14y ago
    That's a little disappointing, because it means your claim to have no file size limits can't really be true. What is the real limit for sending a file to someone who doesn't have the app installed? Would a 100TB transfer really work? I don't mean to be snide; I honestly hoped what was going on was that your server was only brokering the transfer, not taking a full upload. In other words, only when the recipient began the file download would sendrail begin uploading the file from my computer. In this scenario, sendrail would merely be reflecting a stream, not storing anything. So tell me if I understand correctly: If I share a document with someone who DOESN'T have sendrail, they will get the version of the file at the moment I send it. But if I share a document with someone who DOES have sendrail, they will get the version of the file at the moment they download it? In other words - peer to peer downloads get any file changes since the file was sent, but non peer to peer do not?
  - spartango 14y ago
    Curiosity question: what happens if I disconnect my machine halfway through a direct transfer? Do you support continued download/upload (or multipart)? I guess in the case of a connection to your server, presumably the receiving party would never know that you sent them something (until a retry upload happened). It's just that in the case of a direct p2p transaction, it's quite likely that the downloading user's downstream bandwidth is low, such that the chance of a failure happening over the entire course of the longer transfer is higher.
- miles 14y ago
  Amen, brother! These were my assumptions as well when clicking the link. It would be more accurate to call this service peer-to-server-to-another-server-to-peer.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
kirillzubovsky 14y ago
Looks so simple, it's hard to believe it's really true. Good job! Can't wait to get my invite.
ericz 14y ago
I love seeing apps that replace what we misuse email for -- e.g. sending files to a friend -- and looks like you guys have that spot on. The biggest issue with other solutions is that they grow to a point where it's no longer easier than just emailing the file. Hopefully you guys don't outgrow the ease of use!
webwanderings 14y ago
"All our files are encrypted with top of the line 256-bit AES encryption. We use Facebook to validate your identity and send the download link directly to the recipient's Facebook message inbox. No one but the recipient will ever be able to access the file." No, thank you. Above is a turn off. First of all, the files can't be yours and you can't make people use Facebook to use your service.
miles 14y ago
We use Facebook to validate your identity and send the download link directly to the recipient's Facebook message inbox. You might want to consider offering a couple of different options; none of these file transfer services have a FB requirement: http://wetransfer.com http://wetransfer.com http://yousendit.com http://yousendit.com http://letscrate.com http://letscrate.com http://ge.tt http://ge.tt Or perhaps you want to position this as a FB-only service? It would certainly differentiate your service, but might also limit your user base unnecessarily.
- alagu 14y ago
  It would certainly differentiate your service, but might also limit your user base unnecessarily Limiting user base? I don't think it would hurt much. Half of internet users use Facebook. I think they have a good chance at giving better user experience by tying with Facebook.
  - aneth4 14y ago
    Half of internet users use Facebook. If half of those internet users friends use facebook, this limits Sendrail to 1/4 of potential matches. If half of those internet users' potential recipients of files are friends (colleagues, acquaintances, chat room contacts, etc may not be fb friends) that gets us to 1/8 of use cases as potentially solved with Sendrail, and Sendrail is only useful to Fb users 1/4 of the time. Most people won't want to use a service that's useful only 1/4 of the time for a particular task, so this is far worse than a 50% reduction in potential users. This is how you get no users.
  - miles 14y ago
    Limiting user base? I don't think it would hurt much. Half of internet users use Facebook. Even assuming that figure is true, why cut your potential user base in half right off the bat? And for those who are FB users, what do they do when they want to exchange files with non-FB users? The service will be unusable in such cases even for FB users, and sendrail ends up losing more transactions.
    - 14y ago
lixef 14y ago
Every time people think about a solution about this (to my mind) huge e-mail issue I'm really happy to be not the only one who is sick of the existing solutions out there. I used to use things like Dropbox or other syncing services and then share the link of a file, which is for me an okay solution. But not what makes me really happy. Your idea looks also interesting, but how do you want to manage things like the file storage time? Do you want to store them permanent? What will become also some interesting challenge is to make the "send file functionality" everywhere in the world fast, regarding up- and downstream. Really looking forward if other people will find an idea soon. I've been thinking for a while now about it and still never found the kick-ass idea. I wish you all the best for your product. Ps: on the bottom of your website is a "-->". Best, Felix
mtgx 14y ago
I'll never use a service that requires a FB login exclusively.
- jorangreef 14y ago
  This is the first iteration, you may use it yet.
- rsamvit 14y ago
  We also support hooking into your address book on your Mac, and are working on integrating your online email address book and ActiveDirectory into it. We're trying to cover every single contact mechanism out there so you don't have to worry about "finding the right tool" to send a file to someone -- we hope to make SendRail work for every single use case you encounter.
icebraining 14y ago
How are you different from SoShare[1]? [1]: http://www.getshareapp.com/ http://www.getshareapp.com/
- lixef 14y ago
  Seriously, how are they going to make money in the future? Is it just free in the alpha?
- sturmeh 14y ago
  It's not an attempted Facebook clone used for uploading files? It has a desktop client? (Which is the whole point.)
  - icebraining 14y ago
    You may be confused at what Share is; it's a desktop application that uses the bittorrent protocol[1] to do P2P transfers between users. It integrates with Facebook for very much the same reasons as SendRail does. See https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-releases-new-share-application-120105/ https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-releases-new-share-appli... [1] It's actually developed by BitTorrent Inc, the same guys who write µTorrent.
fomojola 14y ago
Side note, but I'm curious: what do you use to send messages directly to the Facebook messages inbox? The standard FB dialog or is there some Graph API endpoint that will let you do that? My memory of the FB API is hazy, but a quick scan seems to indicate that you still can't post messages to the inbox without popping up the UI.
- ritikm 14y ago
  Great question - we're using the xmpp_login permission that Facebook Auth provides to get messaging permission from the user and we have an XMPP server running on Node.js that handles all the messaging.
simonmales 14y ago
Secure via HTTP? I think your URL is missing an 's'.
- ritikm 14y ago
  We host our files on a completely different server which is completely secure. Sorry for the confusion there and thanks for raising this point -- we'll add SSL to our main website too.
bencoder 14y ago
I use a flash based p2p file transfer service for this now: http://www.filesovermiles.com/ http://www.filesovermiles.com/ Can't really see how this could be more convenient to me.
dfield 14y ago
This is a problem I run into all the time. Really excited to try SendRail out!
- rsamvit 14y ago
  Thanks! We'll be sending out versions to our beta users really soon.
FSEA 14y ago
What exactly is P2P about this?
knes 14y ago
Great that other smart people are trying to make sending files easier! We at Dropdock ( http:/getdropdock.com/getstarted , check at the end for invite code ) are also working on this problem. We have developed a Cross platform application that send files to anyone, wether they are a dropdock user or online. Dropdock also work flawlessly over LAN. Our client auto detect other dropdock users on the LAN so you can send them larges files with ease. We have working on an Android & iOS app too so you can send all those photos and HD video to anyone in one big batch instead of uploading them to different services or sending multiples emails. We don't want to replace file attachement. If you want to send a simple spreadsheet to someone, you should sent it through email with explanation and not upload it somewhere and C/C the links. Finally, we though going the facebook route too, but it wasn't too user friendly since you can't auto detect other users base on their facebook account and it just didn't make sens for us to use Facebook messages for notifications. We are currently in private Beta ( Alpha-ish ) but are about to release a big update with a lot of fixes and new features. If you want to try it out, signup at http://getdropdock.com/signup http://getdropdock.com/signup with the invite code DROPDOCKBETAP1.
aprescott 14y ago
I literally just finished something today that attempts to solve a similar problem: http://copyfile.net/ http://copyfile.net/
- gillett 14y ago
  Cool concept. Is there not a way to streamline the process even more? Is it possible to generate a magnetized link that sets the file location for you?
  - aprescott 14y ago
    Unfortunately, for security reasons, browsers only give you the base of the filepath, so all you can pick up is the filename. Even if you had the full filepath, though, I don't think the format of a torrent file lets you specify the file location.
mintplant 14y ago
What if I have two friends with the same name?
latortuga 14y ago
Cool product and integration with OS X. Your video needs a lot of work - you're talking way too much about technical things like 'threads' 'asynchronous' and 'in the background' - no normal user cares about these things. Show me how I can click a file, press a shortcut, and have it show up on my friends computer. This is a killer feature and you need to HAMMER it.
tashmahalic 14y ago
how will you generate revenue?
alan_cx 14y ago
It may well be a great product, but sadly as soon as I see the word "facebook", my gut reaction is good bye privacy, there for Im automatically excluded. Shame.
slurgfest 14y ago
I am surprised that nobody mentioned Nitroshare, which is great for a number of use cases, and completely free
dools 14y ago
This seems almost identical to Sendoid which appears to have died completely. For asynch file sharing, we can use Dropbox, for synchronous file sharing, Skype. Is there a file size limit on Skype? I must say that when I've seen a very very similar product completely die as recently as Sendoid did, I get pretty sceptical about the viability of the idea.
bussetta 14y ago
you lost me at 'we use FB to validate your identity'
sokrates 14y ago
Epic Ketchup Prank.mkv :D

76 points by ritikm 14y ago

dfc 14y ago

Peer to peer? I guess I am getting old. I can remember when peer to peer meant that one host would communicate directly to the other host and not store the file transfer on a centralized system. Or that an application would not use a centraliozed third party for authentication.

ritikm 14y ago
We only store the file on our central server if the receiving end doesn't have our app. If they have the app, we create a direct connection between both parties and transfer the file(s) directly without them ever hitting our servers.
- dfc 14y ago
  So you actually think this is a P2P architecture? On a related note how do you handle firewall piercing?
  - catch23 14y ago
    probably with port knocking? pretty standard I would think.
    - _sh 14y ago
      Port knocking makes no sense in this situation. I think it's something more like STUN (RFC3489). http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3489.txt http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3489.txt
- mapgrep 14y ago
  That's a little disappointing, because it means your claim to have no file size limits can't really be true. What is the real limit for sending a file to someone who doesn't have the app installed? Would a 100TB transfer really work? I don't mean to be snide; I honestly hoped what was going on was that your server was only brokering the transfer, not taking a full upload. In other words, only when the recipient began the file download would sendrail begin uploading the file from my computer. In this scenario, sendrail would merely be reflecting a stream, not storing anything. So tell me if I understand correctly: If I share a document with someone who DOESN'T have sendrail, they will get the version of the file at the moment I send it. But if I share a document with someone who DOES have sendrail, they will get the version of the file at the moment they download it? In other words - peer to peer downloads get any file changes since the file was sent, but non peer to peer do not?
- spartango 14y ago
  Curiosity question: what happens if I disconnect my machine halfway through a direct transfer? Do you support continued download/upload (or multipart)? I guess in the case of a connection to your server, presumably the receiving party would never know that you sent them something (until a retry upload happened). It's just that in the case of a direct p2p transaction, it's quite likely that the downloading user's downstream bandwidth is low, such that the chance of a failure happening over the entire course of the longer transfer is higher.
miles 14y ago
Amen, brother! These were my assumptions as well when clicking the link. It would be more accurate to call this service peer-to-server-to-another-server-to-peer.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]

kirillzubovsky 14y ago

Looks so simple, it's hard to believe it's really true. Good job! Can't wait to get my invite.

ericz 14y ago

I love seeing apps that replace what we misuse email for -- e.g. sending files to a friend -- and looks like you guys have that spot on. The biggest issue with other solutions is that they grow to a point where it's no longer easier than just emailing the file. Hopefully you guys don't outgrow the ease of use!

webwanderings 14y ago

"All our files are encrypted with top of the line 256-bit AES encryption. We use Facebook to validate your identity and send the download link directly to the recipient's Facebook message inbox. No one but the recipient will ever be able to access the file." No, thank you. Above is a turn off. First of all, the files can't be yours and you can't make people use Facebook to use your service.

miles 14y ago

We use Facebook to validate your identity and send the download link directly to the recipient's Facebook message inbox. You might want to consider offering a couple of different options; none of these file transfer services have a FB requirement: http://wetransfer.com http://wetransfer.com http://yousendit.com http://yousendit.com http://letscrate.com http://letscrate.com http://ge.tt http://ge.tt Or perhaps you want to position this as a FB-only service? It would certainly differentiate your service, but might also limit your user base unnecessarily.

alagu 14y ago
It would certainly differentiate your service, but might also limit your user base unnecessarily Limiting user base? I don't think it would hurt much. Half of internet users use Facebook. I think they have a good chance at giving better user experience by tying with Facebook.
- aneth4 14y ago
  Half of internet users use Facebook. If half of those internet users friends use facebook, this limits Sendrail to 1/4 of potential matches. If half of those internet users' potential recipients of files are friends (colleagues, acquaintances, chat room contacts, etc may not be fb friends) that gets us to 1/8 of use cases as potentially solved with Sendrail, and Sendrail is only useful to Fb users 1/4 of the time. Most people won't want to use a service that's useful only 1/4 of the time for a particular task, so this is far worse than a 50% reduction in potential users. This is how you get no users.
- miles 14y ago
  Limiting user base? I don't think it would hurt much. Half of internet users use Facebook. Even assuming that figure is true, why cut your potential user base in half right off the bat? And for those who are FB users, what do they do when they want to exchange files with non-FB users? The service will be unusable in such cases even for FB users, and sendrail ends up losing more transactions.
  - 14y ago

lixef 14y ago

Every time people think about a solution about this (to my mind) huge e-mail issue I'm really happy to be not the only one who is sick of the existing solutions out there. I used to use things like Dropbox or other syncing services and then share the link of a file, which is for me an okay solution. But not what makes me really happy. Your idea looks also interesting, but how do you want to manage things like the file storage time? Do you want to store them permanent? What will become also some interesting challenge is to make the "send file functionality" everywhere in the world fast, regarding up- and downstream. Really looking forward if other people will find an idea soon. I've been thinking for a while now about it and still never found the kick-ass idea. I wish you all the best for your product. Ps: on the bottom of your website is a "-->". Best, Felix

mtgx 14y ago

I'll never use a service that requires a FB login exclusively.

jorangreef 14y ago
This is the first iteration, you may use it yet.
rsamvit 14y ago
We also support hooking into your address book on your Mac, and are working on integrating your online email address book and ActiveDirectory into it. We're trying to cover every single contact mechanism out there so you don't have to worry about "finding the right tool" to send a file to someone -- we hope to make SendRail work for every single use case you encounter.

icebraining 14y ago

How are you different from SoShare[1]? [1]: http://www.getshareapp.com/ http://www.getshareapp.com/

lixef 14y ago
Seriously, how are they going to make money in the future? Is it just free in the alpha?
sturmeh 14y ago
It's not an attempted Facebook clone used for uploading files? It has a desktop client? (Which is the whole point.)
- icebraining 14y ago
  You may be confused at what Share is; it's a desktop application that uses the bittorrent protocol[1] to do P2P transfers between users. It integrates with Facebook for very much the same reasons as SendRail does. See https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-releases-new-share-application-120105/ https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-releases-new-share-appli... [1] It's actually developed by BitTorrent Inc, the same guys who write µTorrent.

fomojola 14y ago

Side note, but I'm curious: what do you use to send messages directly to the Facebook messages inbox? The standard FB dialog or is there some Graph API endpoint that will let you do that? My memory of the FB API is hazy, but a quick scan seems to indicate that you still can't post messages to the inbox without popping up the UI.

ritikm 14y ago
Great question - we're using the xmpp_login permission that Facebook Auth provides to get messaging permission from the user and we have an XMPP server running on Node.js that handles all the messaging.

simonmales 14y ago

Secure via HTTP? I think your URL is missing an 's'.

ritikm 14y ago
We host our files on a completely different server which is completely secure. Sorry for the confusion there and thanks for raising this point -- we'll add SSL to our main website too.

bencoder 14y ago

I use a flash based p2p file transfer service for this now: http://www.filesovermiles.com/ http://www.filesovermiles.com/ Can't really see how this could be more convenient to me.

dfield 14y ago

This is a problem I run into all the time. Really excited to try SendRail out!

rsamvit 14y ago
Thanks! We'll be sending out versions to our beta users really soon.

FSEA 14y ago

What exactly is P2P about this?

knes 14y ago

Great that other smart people are trying to make sending files easier! We at Dropdock ( http:/getdropdock.com/getstarted , check at the end for invite code ) are also working on this problem. We have developed a Cross platform application that send files to anyone, wether they are a dropdock user or online. Dropdock also work flawlessly over LAN. Our client auto detect other dropdock users on the LAN so you can send them larges files with ease. We have working on an Android & iOS app too so you can send all those photos and HD video to anyone in one big batch instead of uploading them to different services or sending multiples emails. We don't want to replace file attachement. If you want to send a simple spreadsheet to someone, you should sent it through email with explanation and not upload it somewhere and C/C the links. Finally, we though going the facebook route too, but it wasn't too user friendly since you can't auto detect other users base on their facebook account and it just didn't make sens for us to use Facebook messages for notifications. We are currently in private Beta ( Alpha-ish ) but are about to release a big update with a lot of fixes and new features. If you want to try it out, signup at http://getdropdock.com/signup http://getdropdock.com/signup with the invite code DROPDOCKBETAP1.

aprescott 14y ago

I literally just finished something today that attempts to solve a similar problem: http://copyfile.net/ http://copyfile.net/

gillett 14y ago
Cool concept. Is there not a way to streamline the process even more? Is it possible to generate a magnetized link that sets the file location for you?
- aprescott 14y ago
  Unfortunately, for security reasons, browsers only give you the base of the filepath, so all you can pick up is the filename. Even if you had the full filepath, though, I don't think the format of a torrent file lets you specify the file location.

mintplant 14y ago

What if I have two friends with the same name?

latortuga 14y ago

Cool product and integration with OS X. Your video needs a lot of work - you're talking way too much about technical things like 'threads' 'asynchronous' and 'in the background' - no normal user cares about these things. Show me how I can click a file, press a shortcut, and have it show up on my friends computer. This is a killer feature and you need to HAMMER it.

tashmahalic 14y ago

how will you generate revenue?

alan_cx 14y ago

It may well be a great product, but sadly as soon as I see the word "facebook", my gut reaction is good bye privacy, there for Im automatically excluded. Shame.

slurgfest 14y ago

I am surprised that nobody mentioned Nitroshare, which is great for a number of use cases, and completely free

dools 14y ago

This seems almost identical to Sendoid which appears to have died completely. For asynch file sharing, we can use Dropbox, for synchronous file sharing, Skype. Is there a file size limit on Skype? I must say that when I've seen a very very similar product completely die as recently as Sendoid did, I get pretty sceptical about the viability of the idea.

bussetta 14y ago

you lost me at 'we use FB to validate your identity'

sokrates 14y ago

Epic Ketchup Prank.mkv :D