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OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

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Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#101

Post by skrowl »

staticvoidmaine wrote: post #91
mxuribe wrote: post #81

It is 2019, and it is quite surprising - and disappointing - that we STILL haven't universally solved the means to easily, securely, and (yes, I'll use this term again) universally share files. I wish we could share files in a peer-to-peer fashion securely without hindrance of mobile platform, nor blockage of network MiTM, etc.

Rather than the google solution suggested by a sibling comment, I’d suggest a look at send.firefox.com.

Send.firefox.com sends files over the internet, not peer-to-peer.

If you're somewhere with poor (or no) network connectivity you can still use Google Files or AirDrop (I believe, not 100% sure on AirDrop).

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#102

Post by lucideer »

skrowl wrote: post #89
mxuribe wrote: post #81

It is 2019, and it is quite surprising - and disappointing - that we STILL haven't universally solved the means to easily, securely, and (yes, I'll use this term again) universally share files. I wish we could share files in a peer-to-peer fashion securely without hindrance of mobile platform, nor blockage of network MiTM, etc.

https://files.google.com/ is a standard and it works on the vast majority of phone sold this year, by every manufacturer except Apple. Checks all 3 of peer-to-peer, secure, no MiTM network blockage. It's only 11MB. Many popular file manager apps on android have peer-to-peer xfers as well, via WiFi direct, etc. EDIT - As people are pointing out this isn't universal because it doesn't work on Apple devices or desktops…

There are numerous problems with this suggestion.

- "is a standard"? What does this mean? Google Files is not a standard of any kind.

- others have mentioned that this is very far from universal. Whatever about Apple devices, you're also discounting all non-mobile devices. Transferring files easily from computer to phone is probably the most common use-case. Yes, you can use Google Drive for that, but that's neither p2p nor seamless.

- the above commenter mentioned wanting a "secure" solution. That's a bit of a subjective term, but I would guess, at least on HN, the typical one would be e2e encrypted, and private. Google Files is neither of these things.

- the p2p function is severely limited in that it requires both a Google account, and location services to be enabled. Neither of which are necessary to initiate a p2p file transfer.

(as another commenter has mentioned), if we're just looking for "the closest thing", I would suggest https://send.firefox.com/ It isn't p2p, but it is secure and universal, so it ticks a lot more boxes overall.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#103

Post by untog »

skrowl wrote: post #100
thedanbob wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except Apple I wouldn't exactly call that universal...

Yep, Apple's market share is around 11%, so only 89%(ish) of smartphones. Not 100%, and doesn't include desktops / laptops / etc. Still, about 8x better than AirDrop!

Anything that excludes 11% of the market isn't universal at all though, which was the OP's original request.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#104

Post by skrowl »

amq wrote: post #41
ekwogefee wrote: post #34

Cross-platform local file transfer alternative with resumable file transfer: https://feem.io

Looks great, I wonder why it doesn't have more traction.

Because not only is it not free, but it also has an annual license to use it.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#105

Post by fooqux »

skrowl wrote: post #101
staticvoidmaine wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rather than the google solution suggested by a sibling comment, I’d suggest a look at send.firefox.com.

Send.firefox.com sends files over the internet, not peer-to-peer. If you're somewhere with poor (or no) network connectivity you can still use Google Files or AirDrop (I believe, not 100% sure on AirDrop).

And if it was purely peer-to-peer people would complain that it doesn't work in their particular use case. Personally, it's rather nice sometimes to 'fire and forget' a file transfer with a tool like this. All I need to worry about is if I successfully uploaded the file. I don't need to worry about their internet connection, keeping some daemon running on my side, keeping power on my side, remembering to delete that file that I only kept around so somebody could download it from my computer, etc.

The point is, options are good. Most of us subscribe to the Unix philosophy of "Write programs that do one thing and do it well" so why are so many advocating for a pancea solution that does everything for every use case?

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#106

Post by neilalexander »

theresistor wrote: post #86
neilalexander wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For what it’s worth, I have been able to get the Yggdrasil Network ( https://yggdrasil-network.github.io ) to peer over AWDL, allowing nearby Macs to mesh without even being connected to the same Wi-Fi network, or any network at all. It’s not perfect - there are trade offs, like how the wireless performance is reduced somewhat when AWDL is active due to channel hopping and how AWDL expects a single node to play the r…

I would be very interested to learn more about this if you have any pointers.

Happy to help where I can. What would you like to know?

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#107

Post by wlesieutre »

skrowl wrote: post #100
thedanbob wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> except Apple I wouldn't exactly call that universal...

Yep, Apple's market share is around 11%, so only 89%(ish) of smartphones. Not 100%, and doesn't include desktops / laptops / etc. Still, about 8x better than AirDrop!

It doesn't matter to me how many Android users there are globally when we're talking about short range file transfers. I'm not bluetoothing files to somebody in India.

The US's market share split is more like 55% Android and 45% iOS, so anything that doesn't support both platforms is going to fail half the time here.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#108

Post by explorigin »

theomega wrote: post #88
smurfpandey wrote: post #83

An HTML5 alternative: https://github.com/cowbell/sharedrop Uses WebRTC for file transfer.

Just to make it more obvious: You don’t have to self host it, there is a free (no registration) Version deployed at https://sharedrop.io Works perfect between IOS, Android, Linux, MacOS and Windows.

Why does it need firebase? That doesn't seem to tic the "not-google" box. :-)

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#109

Post by kitsunesoba »

est31 wrote: post #38
jeroenhd wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowing Apple, such an effort would likely be destroyed by an army of lawyers the moment you bring out an app that provides such features. The Apple ecosystem is very closed and Apple will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. Removing vendor lock-in would, after all, allow users to try switching to another brand without an enormous amount of hassle.

> The Apple ecosystem is very closed and Apple will fight tooth and nail to keep it that way. In general you are right, Apple is very adamant about keeping full control over their ecosystem (and locking users in). They even sponsor a C compiler project so that they can avoid gcc. There are exceptions though, like AirPrint which is a marketing name for open standard technologies: https://wiki.debian.org/AirPrint

The switch to llvm/clang was about more than just avoiding gcc… it was also about filling holes in gcc’s functionality. Swift for example is heavily rooted in llvm/clang because at least at the time, llvm/clang was capable of a lot of things that gcc simply wasn’t, and the arcane nature of gcc’s innards made it unnecessarily difficult to add missing features to. Of course, GPLv3 poses issues too, but that’s only a single factor among several in Apple’s decision to deeply invest into llvm/clang.

Re: OpenDrop: An Open Source AirDrop Implementation

#110

Post by lostgame »

skrowl wrote: post #89
mxuribe wrote: post #81

It is 2019, and it is quite surprising - and disappointing - that we STILL haven't universally solved the means to easily, securely, and (yes, I'll use this term again) universally share files. I wish we could share files in a peer-to-peer fashion securely without hindrance of mobile platform, nor blockage of network MiTM, etc.

https://files.google.com/ is a standard and it works on the vast majority of phone sold this year, by every manufacturer except Apple. Checks all 3 of peer-to-peer, secure, no MiTM network blockage. It's only 11MB. Many popular file manager apps on android have peer-to-peer xfers as well, via WiFi direct, etc. EDIT - As people are pointing out this isn't universal because it doesn't work on Apple devices or desktops…

The situation isn't being helped by another proprietary solution that won't be cross-platform. (I'm an iOS dev, and I don't see integration of this possible without using private API's, and this would also fall under the 'Duplicate existing service' issue.)
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