I use https://blip.net which is like a cross-platform AirDrop, but also works over the internet in addition to LAN. Probably the fastest one I found.
Hey, our team made Blip! Glad you like the speed :)
Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
181–190 of 272 posts
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#182I came across this recently while looking at cosmopolitan lib stuff https://bob.osau.re/
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#183"It's peer-to-peer, trust me bro!" The problem is that you are still using a website provided by a third-party to serve you the JavaScript program that initiates the transfer. It's easy to replace that JavaScript by something that just transfers a copy to the third-party itself. To be sure that the transfer is actually peer-to-peer, either the sender or receiver should run their own fillepizza server (and have verified that the source code does not contain any backdoors or phone-home code). But if you do that, you actually don't need a peer-to-peer solution anymore, it's turned into a client-server problem.
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#184The thing that usually annoys me about these services is they tend to give you an intractably complex URL to share with the recipient. This poses a problem because every time I need such a P2P transfer, I’m communicating with someone over the phone and they need the file on a computer (which may not even be their own, so email is also cumbersome). https://file.pizza does this better than most, as the URL consists of…
https://rdrop.link gives you six characters. It's IMHO "telephoneable".
That’s a lot of red! I didn’t know about this one, thank you for the share. I suspect I still won’t use it over PairDrop because the web page is too busy, the “Check out my other projects” completely draws the eyes, and I want something that’s clean and not distracting for the receiving end.
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#185The thing that usually annoys me about these services is they tend to give you an intractably complex URL to share with the recipient. This poses a problem because every time I need such a P2P transfer, I’m communicating with someone over the phone and they need the file on a computer (which may not even be their own, so email is also cumbersome). https://file.pizza does this better than most, as the URL consists of…
One tricky constraint is that a "simple URL" isn't big enough to hold a full-entropy encryption key. So your security must either come from PAKE (like magic-wormhole and friends), or from the good behavior of some intermediary. And PAKE requires a peer who knows the plaintext and will only execute the protocol once, which means it really needs to be the person you're connecting with and not an intermediate webserver.…
> a "simple URL" isn't big enough to hold a full-entropy encryption key.
I don’t care about that most of the time. When I do I’m unlikely to trust some random web service anyway (how do I know the author didn’t turn rogue the day before and decided to send a copy of every file to their own server?).
The service could offer a choice, where picking the short link comes with a big red warning. That could even be hidden under some setting on the page, since it’s the sender who needs to understand the implications.
> the usability gains of the recipient not needing a CLI tool installed might be worth the tradeoff for some folks.
That’s exactly what I’m looking for. Whenever I need one of these services, there is 0% chance the person on the other side would know how (or have the patience) to install a command-line tool.
> I'm the author of magic-wormhole
Thank you for taking the time to expand so thoroughly from experience.
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#186The thing that usually annoys me about these services is they tend to give you an intractably complex URL to share with the recipient. This poses a problem because every time I need such a P2P transfer, I’m communicating with someone over the phone and they need the file on a computer (which may not even be their own, so email is also cumbersome). https://file.pizza does this better than most, as the URL consists of…
> There are services which allow you to upload via CLI and download via web browser, but they host your file so you have to wait for the full upload to finish before sharing the link.
There are exceptions to this; I've been making copyparty[1], an httpd which lets you start downloading a file that is still being uploaded[2]. If you catch up with the uploader, it'll throttle the speed so the browser doesn't drop the connection. Uploads and downloads can be done through browser and/or cli.
I recall there was at least one other alternative with similar functionality somewhere on the awesome-selfhosted list, but I'm failing to find them right now... It was prominently mentioned in the project's readme, but maybe that's no longer the case.
[1] https://github.com/9001/copyparty
[2] https://a.ocv.me/pub/g/nerd-stuff/cpp/2024-0418-race-the-bea...
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#187Earlier quoted context omitted.
Vivaldi is roughly 1000 times slower. You need a pretty good computer to run that UI. It also lacks extremely basic features Opera had; like working LRU tab switching. I liked the idea, but it's impossible to recommend.
Is that true? I remember having to change a setting to switch the behavior of tab switching because it was LRU by default and I prefer it in visible order.
It used to work and broke maybe 2 years ago. This tells me that no one is actually using the browser and that no one is really working on it either. It receives chromium updates and then some money-making features here and there.
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#188Didn't work here.
The downloader connects, status becomes Ready, then nothing happens.
Tried on both Firefox and Chromium.
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#189Earlier quoted context omitted.
We did not decide it. Google decided to kill it. In countries where Opera had major share Google ran aggressive and deceptive (something something faster) campaign with billboards, radio and tv ads. Chrome ads were also everywhere on their homepages (google.com, youtube.com). But more nefariously, Google kept blocking features and apps based on the UA agent alone. Add lots of tech demos with their custom extensions.
They did that in pretty much every (developed) country not just those where opera has major share.
Good point, I missed a word or two there to make it clear I didn't mean it was only there.
Re: Peer-to-peer file transfers in the browser
#190The thing that usually annoys me about these services is they tend to give you an intractably complex URL to share with the recipient. This poses a problem because every time I need such a P2P transfer, I’m communicating with someone over the phone and they need the file on a computer (which may not even be their own, so email is also cumbersome). https://file.pizza does this better than most, as the URL consists of…
> There are services which allow you to upload via CLI and download via web browser, but they host your file so you have to wait for the full upload to finish before sharing the link. There are exceptions to this; I've been making copyparty[1], an httpd which lets you start downloading a file that is still being uploaded[2]. If you catch up with the uploader, it'll throttle the speed so the browser doesn't drop the c…
> copyparty
Great name!
Unfortunately this seems like it’s something I’d need to host myself, and that’s something I specifically don’t want to do. I only need to share on occasion, and always want to do it with the least hassle possible.