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Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

briarproject.org

31–40 of 114 posts

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#31
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iPhone makes much of these concepts either impossible or extremely difficult. Namely, things cannot operate easily as a background service. Forcing the user to jump though many hoops to make it work. And since it is not an apple service. There is a single button "reset settings" that breaks all the users changes for these apps. On one hand it is generally more secure for iPhone users, on the other hand it greatly inh…

I understand. But it doesn't change the fact that other tools are available which do serve both and are thus much more practical.

There are no other tools that are as quite as paranoid as briar.

There is a severe usability and practicality hit as a result. But if you have friends who interested and paranoid then it is quite worth it.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#32
post #4

Peer to Peer data transfer via computing devices is something I wish was be more mainstream. It's not, because the commercial cloud storage mafia has invested heavily in telling people that your data has to traverse their toll roads first. I recently discovered Syncthing Fork which was customizable in a way Google Drive or alternatives were not. And it's entirely P2P, transmitting files between my laptop and my phone…

> Peer to Peer data transfer via computing devices is something I wish was be more mainstream. It's not, because the commercial cloud storage mafia has invested heavily in telling people that your data has to traverse their toll roads first. Been in software half my life never heard anyone saying anything like this. It's most of the time easier and more efficient to use cloud storage than to spin up and bootstrap a p…

Cloud providers going through your photos and data for incriminating evidence in an automated way is a fairly new thing though.

The more intrusive it gets the more likely the pendulum will swing.

Not many consumers will encrypt unless it’s at a product level. It’s too difficult.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#33
What I'd like to have is easy offline media files sharing across as many phone models as possible. Basically a free open-source alternative to ShareIt. Why it doesn't exist yet? Does ShareIt use some hidden and/or proprietary APIs?

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#34
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand. But it doesn't change the fact that other tools are available which do serve both and are thus much more practical.

There are no other tools that are as quite as paranoid as briar. There is a severe usability and practicality hit as a result. But if you have friends who interested and paranoid then it is quite worth it.

In other words, this is a very limited, niche market product.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Bluetooth when WiFi is a hundred times faster?

AFAIK there's still no standardized, non-proprietary, easy, out of the box way to share files between different phones brands/OS and/or PCs using WiFi as Android/Samsung/Apple each do their own thing here. You have to resort to setting up an ftp server and/or download extra apps on your phone for this, whereas Bluetooth file sharing is standardized and should work out of the box on any phone brand or OS (not sure on…

Just about every OS has built in ftp support except Android.

Material Files is an Android file manager that adds the missing ftp support.

Start/stop the ftp server with a single click. I have yet to find anything easier.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#37

What I'd like to have is easy offline media files sharing across as many phone models as possible. Basically a free open-source alternative to ShareIt. Why it doesn't exist yet? Does ShareIt use some hidden and/or proprietary APIs?

TrebleShot was similar but it is deprecated now.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AFAIK there's still no standardized, non-proprietary, easy, out of the box way to share files between different phones brands/OS and/or PCs using WiFi as Android/Samsung/Apple each do their own thing here. You have to resort to setting up an ftp server and/or download extra apps on your phone for this, whereas Bluetooth file sharing is standardized and should work out of the box on any phone brand or OS (not sure on…

Just about every OS has built in ftp support except Android. Material Files is an Android file manager that adds the missing ftp support. Start/stop the ftp server with a single click. I have yet to find anything easier.

I'm pretty sure my parents would have no idea how to setup an ftp service on their phones but they do know how to use Bluetooth.

Plus, non-iOS/Android feature phones don't have ftp support but they do have bluetooth so this cross-compatibility out of the box is another advantage.

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#39
post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no other tools that are as quite as paranoid as briar. There is a severe usability and practicality hit as a result. But if you have friends who interested and paranoid then it is quite worth it.

In other words, this is a very limited, niche market product.

But is it actually a product?

Don't think so: https://briarproject.org/about-us/

Re: Briar 1.4 – Offline sharing, message transfer via SD cards and USB sticks

#40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why Bluetooth when WiFi is a hundred times faster?

AFAIK there's still no standardized, non-proprietary, easy, out of the box way to share files between different phones brands/OS and/or PCs using WiFi as Android/Samsung/Apple each do their own thing here. You have to resort to setting up an ftp server and/or download extra apps on your phone for this, whereas Bluetooth file sharing is standardized and should work out of the box on any phone brand or OS (not sure on…

It can be done using WebRTC with something like snapdrop.net. Still requires both devices being able to connect to their signaling server, but at least it works on every device, doesn't require you to install something, it's peer to peer, and open source.
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