YouTransfer: Self-hosted file transfer and sharing solution

https://github.com/YouTransfer/YouTransfer

by janjones • 3 years ago

172 107 3 years ago

github.com

moontear• 3 years ago

Last checkin four years ago and README says „looking for a new maintainer“. Is this abandonware?

h4l0• 3 years ago

Demo page also returns an error from Heroku.

causi2• 3 years ago

I've seen probably four or five different brilliant file transfer solutions that totally solved the person to person file transfer problem posted to HN and every dang one of them was shut down or abandoned.

theblazehen• 3 years ago

It's unfortunately not FOSS, but I quite like https://wormhole.app/ - It's client side encrypted and P2P when possible

ckcheng• 3 years ago

PairDrop works:

https://pairdrop.net/

https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/PairDrop

Other alternatives:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38915909

rbut• 3 years ago

We use PsiTransfer [1] in docker. Recently updated, so not abandonware. Serves our needs really well.

[1] https://github.com/psi-4ward/psitransfer

skottenborg2• 3 years ago

I can recommend PicoShare which I've been self-hosting for a while. It's a couple of years old now and still maintained. Also, it's very simple and allows for guests too.

https://github.com/mtlynch/picoshare

savrajsingh• 3 years ago

Sharedrop.io ?

ajsnigrutin• 3 years ago

Apache is still maintaned, so is nginx... just throw the file into a folder accessible by the webserver (within documentroot), and you're done :)

scrlk• 3 years ago

For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem. From Windows or Mac, this FTP account could be accessed through built-in software.

kjkjadksj5• 3 years ago

Because the problem doesn’t exist. Non tech folk use stuff like imessage to send things and rarely deal with large files at all beyond images or video. That works fine for them. Tech people use proven existing tooling like rsync or ftp. The only market that exist for this I’d guess is resumeware which explains why these projects are all built then abandoned.

IndySun• 3 years ago

For a moment there I thought you were saying 'dang' (much vaunted hacker user) had shut them down.

blacklight• 3 years ago

Before trying it in my lab, could the author elaborate on what's its killer feature?

The README mentions that it's an alternative to both Dropbox and WeTransfer. My current alternative to Dropbox is Nextcloud, and my current alternative to WeTransfer is (formerly Mozilla) Send. What's the added value of YouTransfer compared to this solution?

I'm also put off by the fact that the README has a big "looking for a new maintainer" disclaimer on top, and the demo page doesn't even work. Sure, I could put enough effort into maintaining a project if I see its added value, but in this case it seems to be a product trying to sneak into a market where there are already viable and well-maintained open alternatives.

sureglymop• 3 years ago

How do you like Send and is it still maintained?

I also use Nextcloud but use the Floccus browser extension to sync bookmarks to Nextcloud. Works well when it works.

stavros5• 3 years ago

I really like Send, I'm not sure it's still maintained, but it works well, so I don't know what there is to maintain. It comes with a cli utility as well.

https://github.com/timvisee/send

adamm255• 3 years ago

Used this in the past, imagine WeTransfer, but you run it yourself. That’s it.

sebazzz• 3 years ago

I built something similar in ASP.NET: https://github.com/Sebazzz/IFS

say_it_as_it_is• 3 years ago

There seems to be a trend of people on HN sharing abandoned projects seeking a maintainer

squarefoot• 3 years ago

Because there are many unknown, probably worth of being picked by some volunteers. I think it'd be worth creating some place (HN subsection?) where a list of dead or unmaintained, still worth of attention, projects could be kept so that potential maintainers could be made aware of their existence. Just a simple list, all text, one line per project with a bunch of fields: YYYYMMDD formatted date of last update | Name (resolving to link to the project page) | Short description | clickable short list of say max 5 tags so that users can find similar ones just by refining the search to the desired tag(s).

kjkjadksj5• 3 years ago

It takes so much time and effort though. It would really be a labor of love to take up someones abandoned piece of work thats probably got deep structural issues if the author decided to pack up and leave already.

stavros5• 3 years ago

I even made a community for that! https://www.codeshelter.co/

It's abandoned, though.

actionfromafar• 3 years ago

Haha taking the long play to the punchline!

jarym• 3 years ago

Sounds like a perfect thing to fine tune an instruction following GPT on?

beeeeeeee• 3 years ago

https://github.com/proofrock/sfup a possible alternative, if you need upload/download via commandline (curl).

brudgers• 3 years ago

Is this easier than self hosting FTP?

martinbaun6• 3 years ago

I recently started using SyncThing, it seems just perfect to share between two people. Maybe I'll put it on a server as well so we can sync without being online.

noirbot4• 3 years ago

It's definitely pretty nice, but the ergonomics of it for someone that's not that good with computers can be a little hard. I've gotten synced folders into bad states before that took a long time to fix. It's also kinda awkward having to send over a nominally private and very long ID string to set up the share in the first place.

brnt3• 3 years ago

Having the whitelist all peers on all peers is a chore.

I stick with Resilio for this reason. For over a decade now it had been a 100% reliable fire and forget tool.

martinbaun6• 3 years ago

hey Noirbot, I haven't used it for long. Can you tell me thei ssues you had a little in depth?

Cyphase4• 3 years ago

That's not how Syncthing keys/IDs work.

That device ID you have to send to someone is not nominally private; it is in fact explicitly the public key of a key pair. If you use the public discovery servers (which is the default), that key is sent there so people who'd want to connect to you can look up your IP address with it.

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/security.html#global-discov...

https://docs.syncthing.net/users/faq.html#should-i-keep-my-d...

Should I keep my device IDs secret?
No. The IDs are not sensitive. Given a device ID it’s possible to find the IP address for that device, if global discovery is enabled on it. Knowing the device ID doesn’t help you actually establish a connection to that device or get a list of files, etc.
For a connection to be established, both devices need to know about the other’s device ID. It’s not possible (in practice) to forge a device ID. (To forge a device ID you need to create a TLS certificate with that specific SHA-256 hash. If you can do that, you can spoof any TLS certificate. The world is your oyster!)

g_p• 3 years ago

One convenient feature if you run a third instance on a server is that you can "distrust" the server by encrypting the files you sync (this is done at share level), then only entering the decryption password on the trusted end devices. That way plaintext file content doesn't sit on the server.

It's worth checking exactly what is encrypted as I don't think folder and file structure and names were encrypted.

martinbaun6• 3 years ago

that's superb cool!

Can you tell me what this feature is called?

bayindirh3• 3 years ago

I use syncthing between three different systems and it’s great for keeping multiple systems in sync. One of them takes daily backups of the shares, so I have time-machine like backups too.

martinbaun6• 3 years ago

sweet! this is the setup I am looking to do as well.

mr337• 3 years ago

For one off for technical folks on both ends I like the magic-wormhole cli tool. https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole

kjkjadksj5• 3 years ago

If you are working with technical people might as well just use ftp and be done with it

toomim• 3 years ago

And for non-technical folks I use wormhole.io.

factormeta• 3 years ago

Just FYI, Quiet also allows unlimited file transfer size: https://tryquiet.org/

Not saying it is most efficient, but for non tech friends, that may be an option.

Dotnaught• 3 years ago

Partially open source (the crypto) and easy to use. Free though not self-hosted: https://wormhole.app/

hacb• 3 years ago

I'm using LocalSend for local network sharing needs (typically stuff between my laptop and my phone). It works like a charm, and is really easy to use

https://github.com/localsend/localsend

tamimio2• 3 years ago

I did try a bunch of these peer-peer file sharing, the best ones the worked well are localsend and LANdrop, as I have a screen (basically a custom android tablet) in my car and I needed to send files without the car accessing any wifi, those two worked well. The others I tried that didn’t work well were: Arc, Sharedrop, pairdrop, and snapdrop.

mekster• 3 years ago

SnapDrop was so buggy that the transfer speed was very slow, sometimes hitting the send button did nothing, and need to open browser on the target machine first and recently somehow it stopped working completely, I figured installing NextCloud client on my Android phone solved it easily to have the file arrive instantly without complications.

davidcollantes• 3 years ago

Having to download an app for each platform to use it is a huge drawback for me. LANdrop seems to require this (unless I am not understanding it well).

luckman2122• 3 years ago

Been running a selfhosted PairDrop instance for about a year now and it's amazingly useful. No apps to install, just web based "AirDrop" that works across macOS, Windows, iOS, Linux...

https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/PairDrop

LambdaJon• 3 years ago

Out of interest, What’s the advantage of self hosting vs using the web version on the main page? Are there security or convenience benefits?

guluarte• 3 years ago

last commit 4 years ago... sounds like a security nightmare

INTPenis• 3 years ago

I've been self hosting a fork of Firefox Send[1] for years now, probably since Mozilla cancelled their Send project.

Lately I've also started self hosting Pairdrop.[2]

1. https://timvisee.com/projects/send/ 2. https://pairdrop.net/

NoZebra120vClip• 3 years ago

Obligatory xkcd, of course: https://xkcd.com/949/

hirako2000• 3 years ago

Sad reality.

For non sensitive data, ufile.io is the most decent drop app I could find. Been around for a while and am surprised they haven't yet spoiled it with dark patterns, removal of free tier, sold out.

For sensitive data, Google drive. Share.

For very sensitive data, encrypt, ufile.io, or Google drive. decrypt on the other end. Quite a pipeline but note that it paradoxally doesn't require a self hosted drop app.

Ipfs? Still not nearly as simple as via google drive, needs native app app running. Drains phone batteries, requires manual encryption for anything sensitive as file access can't be gated.

Blockchain? Except for tiny blobs, impossible.

a p2p app that use some open KPI for encryption would be great.

teddyh• 3 years ago

Every time someone invents an actually effective method of person-to-person file transfer, it gets used for piracy and blocked and shunned.

syeare• 3 years ago

The age of piracy has dawned upon us yet again! WHO wants to be paying $100+ every month to Disney+ Netflix Hulu etc. just to watch 1 or 2 shows on each service?? Who the hell wants to pay for a game that works worse and hurts the customers more than a deDRM'd, cracked version?

POWER TO THE PIRATES

EduardoBautista• 3 years ago

I usually only have one active subscription at a time.

paulryanrogers• 3 years ago

People who don't want to faff about with VPNs, BitTorrent, malware scanning, and the anxiety of never knowing if your gaming machine has been compromised or not.

crtasm3• 3 years ago

What do you wish to use that is blocked?

windthrown• 3 years ago

I'm still bitter that abuse brought down Firefox Send

Chrupiter• 3 years ago

When I need to transfer a file from PC to smartphone, I do a

python -m http.server 8080

then from my phone I just use a browser.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 3 years ago

Another alternative. This uses only HTTP and requires no special software, except the server. Elegant, IMHO. Extremely robust in fact.

https://github.com/nwtgck/go-piping-server

After starting the server, a few options.

Method 1: Visit https://127.0.0.1:8080 in a Javascript-enabled browser and fill out HTML form

Method 2: Visit https://127.0.0.1:8080/noscript in any browser and fill out HTML form

Method 3: Use any TCP or HTTP client. For example here is a quick and dirty shell script

       #!/bin/sh 
       test $1||exec echo usage: $0 something file
       test $2||exec echo usage: $0 something file
       x=$(stat -c %s $2)
       {
       printf 'POST /'$1' HTTP/1.1\r\n'
       printf 'Host: 127.0.0.1\r\n'
       printf 'Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=\"yxxxxzxxxzxxxzzxyxzx\"\r\n'
       printf 'Content-Length: '$x'\r\n'
       printf 'Connection: close\r\n'
       printf '\r\n'
       cat $2
       echo ---yxxxxzxxxzxxxzzxyxzx
       } \
       |nc -vvn 127.1 8080
     
       laptop> 1.sh whatever 1.pdf
       phone> curl http://127.0.0.1:8080/whatever > 1.pdf 
       laptop> 1.sh 1.pdf 1.pdf
       On phone, type into browser: https://127.0.0.1:8080/1.pdf
       This file is saved as 1.pdf
       YMMV

There is also a Rust version.

1vuio0pswjnm72• 3 years ago

Correction:

Replace 127.0.0.1 with an appropriate address for computers on the LAN, e.g., RFC 1918 192.168.0.0/16, 10.0.0.0/8, 172.16.0.0/12.

rldjbpin• 3 years ago

taildrop (https://tailscale.com/kb/1106/taildrop) is also nice to have if you already have a tailscale network set up for your devices. helps with the networking bit also.

YouTransfer: Self-hosted file transfer and sharing solution

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