Free and Open Source Alternative to Airdrop

https://www.sharedrop.io/

by linkdd • 3 years ago

228 154 3 years ago

sharedrop.io

appplication• 3 years ago

Curious seeing this basically right next to the Airdrop for Android post. I guess today we’re doing airdrop studies.

TechSquidTV2• 3 years ago

Imo this is a direct response given the other post costs money.

account-5• 3 years ago

That's what I thought too

diffeomorphism3• 3 years ago

Who cares about money? Being free seems much more important.

Hnaomyiph• 3 years ago

If you need to send larger files via link, another hn user created https://www.relaysecret.com/ I use the tunnel service for the most part at https://www.relaysecret.com/tunnel It’s open source and you can host your own instance of it! https://github.com/santrancisco/relaysecret When Firefox send shut down I was looking for a good alternative and never really found sharedrop fit my needs.

chasil3• 3 years ago

Nitroshare is OK. Local network only. Encryption and more prompting would be nice. Automatic startup at boot is a bad idea.

https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.nitroshare.android/

For third-party transfers:

https://www.swisstransfer.com/ [up to 50mb]

https://filetransfer.io/ [much bigger limit]

thrillgore• 3 years ago

"We're really sorry, but your browser is not supported. Please use the latest desktop or Android version of Chrome, Opera or Firefox."

I am using the latest Firefox though

thepbone• 3 years ago

I ran into the same error. Works after re-enabling WebRTC in Firefox.

cmiller12• 3 years ago

All of these "alternatives to airdop" don't seem to actually do what airdrop does, which is create an ad-hoc wireless connection. Airdrop isn't just a nice UI for sending files between people, it allows a wi-fi speed transfer between two devices that aren't connected to an existing network of that speed.

asadalt3• 3 years ago

this also gives you wifi speed actually. thanks for webrtc.

menacingly• 3 years ago

Many things give you wifi speed, if you're connected to wifi.

With Airdrop, if you are on the moon and meet a stranger there who also has an iphone, you can perform the high-speed transfer of large files.

vifon• 3 years ago

So Wi-Fi Direct?

fidotron• 3 years ago

ISTR around something like the Galaxy Nexus Google doing demos of beaming files between devices via WiFi Direct after having exchanged info with an NFC tap.

But that was just before they decided everything had to go via their cloud.

Curiously if you used a London bus in around 2005 with bluetooth on you would experience a lot of files being sent to you via ad hoc networks.

chasil3• 3 years ago

With WiFi direct, the devices must pair in a manner similar to an initial Bluetooth pairing.

Apple simplifies this stage.

j1elo2• 3 years ago

Apple usually does excellent integrations between their devices. But I haven't used AirDrop so I'm not familiar with how it works: in order to create an ad-hoc wireless connection, if the devices were already connected to some wifi access point, are they temporarily disconnected for the duration of the ad-hoc connection?

If not, I'd guess that Apple devices maybe come with 2 WiFi adapters inside?

pzmarzly• 3 years ago

AirPlay and Miracast both rely on WiFi (in case of Miracast it's WiFi Direct, for AirPlay I'm not sure), so it's not uncommon for WiFi chips to maintain 2 connections at once.

asylteltine• 3 years ago

No they don’t disconnect from WiFi and as of the latest iOS you can now leave airdrop radius and it will use the internet to continue transfer. Its magic

dartos2• 3 years ago

IIRC Apple uses some proprietary radio protocol (or maybe it’s just Bluetooth) to discover and communicate with nearby Apple products.

neilalexander3• 3 years ago

Neither — frequency hopping is used so that the device can establish AWDL connectivity directly with nearby devices while maintaining a connection to an access point, while still only having a single Wi-Fi adapter.

rollcat• 3 years ago

This. Airdrop is actually viable for transferring huge files, like RAW photos or ProRes footage. I've had video engineering professionals ask me if it's viable to implement Airdrop support in something like a camera or a recorder, not because it's pretty or doesn't need cables, but because it would save them time in a media workflow (they are busy people).

Obscurity4340• 3 years ago

Resilio Sync's pretty fast and less fussy than AirDrop, I also don't like keeping AirDrop running chronically

safeimp• 3 years ago

I was pleasantly pleased to recently learn Airdrop has no file size limitation! I needed to transfer several 7-9 GB files and thought for sure I'd run into issues but everything moved smooth (and quickly!).

newZWhoDis• 3 years ago

This. Apple’s built in migration tool always (well, the last 3 years anyways) fails to move everything in my File’s app over to the new device.

I’ve moved ~500-800GB via air drop in one go before.

dotancohen• 3 years ago

  > create an ad-hoc wireless connection.

Every Android device I've used has had "Send via Bluetooth" functionality built in. Is the WiFi connection just significantly faster or does it provide other additional benefits?

Angostura2• 3 years ago

Significantly faster

chasil3• 3 years ago

For large files, less power will be used for WiFi versus Bluetooth.

albert1804• 3 years ago

You would need to use "Nearby Share" for that. But it's also Standard with Androif

crazygringo• 3 years ago

WiFi is massively faster.

Apple Watches used to update over Bluetooth and it would take hours, literally. And someone discovered a trick to turn off Bluetooth to force it to update over Wi-Fi, and then the download took just minutes.

EasyMark• 3 years ago

most wifi is probably 2 orders of magnitude faster than bluetooth transfer. Syncthing is great if you're looking for multiplatform syncing of files. It takes a little playing around though, the interface is not what I would call beginner friendly, but it's not too bad, and has been very dependable in my experience

hulium7• 3 years ago

You can create a hotspot and start a HTTP server. Scan a QR code to connect to the hotspot, then a QR code for the file URL. It's easy and works with any device with Wifi access.

For the server, on Android I use "Share via HTTP". On desktop running a lightweight HTTP server is easy too.

Edit:

Apparently that sounded complicated, here is how I can share a file from my phone to any other phone in the same Wifi.

- Click Share -> Share with HTTP.

- The app opens and shows a QR code.

- Other person scans the code. Their browser opens the file and they can do whatever they want with it.

If you have no Wifi:

- Open QR code for hotspot

- Other person scans QR code for hotspot, then for file.

If you still think it is too complicated, surely there is an opportunity create a simpler UI! From a technology perspective it does not have to be complicated.

jbverschoor3• 3 years ago

I'll just tap share -> person

misnome• 3 years ago

Yeah! Just like Dropbox can trivially be replaced by FTP, FUSE mounts and CVS……

tsujamin• 3 years ago

Let me just teach my mum how to run a HTTP server and generate QR codes to send me photos of our lunch /s

epcoa2• 3 years ago

here is how I can share a file from my phone to any other phone in the same Wifi.

This will not work on many public and corporate networks. A common place where you’d want to share.

surely there is an opportunity create a simpler UI!

It’ll still suck compared to Airdrop. Apple has gone to a lot of trouble to make that work as well as it does. Trying to setup something relying on temporary hotspots will be sub par UX. (And a nonstarter for Apple devices - user apps can’t touch the WiFi settings).

moritzwarhier• 3 years ago

I admit the convenience is not the same, but this was already possible with my first Android phone (2011/12ish).

There was an app called "Wifi File Transfer" which would expose a web UI in the local network to download and upload files to the phone's storage.

First I only used it to upload music to my phone (faster than USB1.1 or even USB2).

Then I found out it also works fine when creating a WiFI AP/Hotspot and allowing other peers to connect to it.

amelius• 3 years ago

So Apple.com has built a connection that doesn't adhere to TCP/IP standards. Great engineering, people!

vladvasiliu• 3 years ago

How do you figure that? I don't know anything about how this works, but ad-hoc Wi-Fi connections are a thing, and they use good ol' TCP/IP. It just means you don't connect to some pre-existing Wi-Fi network managed by some third party (from the exchanging terminals' perspective).

tiagod• 3 years ago

1. How do you know this? 2. Even if it's the case, why would it be wrong if it's the best choice for the requirements? (incredibly simple, fast, reliable local file sharing). TCP/IP isn't the end-all be-all.

geor9e4• 3 years ago

It's a peer-to-peer wireless connection that doesn't go over the internet at all. Why does it matter (and how would you even know) if they use TCP/IP?

spieglt5• 3 years ago

Mine does! https://github.com/spieglt/flyingcarpet

zipping1549• 3 years ago

Haven't tried yet but this is really cool. Nice job.

luckyshot2• 3 years ago

Great project! Thank you for building it.

If the UI was simpler and more "Apple-like" (hate to say this) I could convince my non-tech coworkers/family/friends to use it.

Also, could you auto detect the other peer's OS? You could skip an extra step and UI element. Do you need it to know which WiFi bandwidth to use?

heavyset_go• 3 years ago

I used this a while ago, thanks!

araes2• 3 years ago

Thanks for the link. Looking through the Github, this appears to be close to what I'm looking for on my own project. Namely, being able to share files automatically with nearby devices when they move within range.

I thought Bluetooth might be viable, as beacons and GattServers seem to be designed for this purpose. Android's implementation was painful, yet doable. However, after wading into Microsoft's codebase, I suspect it will be slog.

Question: With an agreed upon network name or configuration, and agreed upon access parameters, how much change do you think it would take for FlyingCarpet to instead by used as a semi-anonymous, dynamic membership mesh network?

Ex: A laptop and a phone get near each other, they recognize their proximity, and that they are both offering the known network, they then check for the presence of known filetypes in a known folder location, and exchange small updates with each other. The same with any number of desktops, laptops, or phones that get near each other. If I was in a mall with 11 other similarly configured phones nearby, and 5 people working on laptops, then my phone would call the 16 other devices, and they would each get a file from my phone, and I would get a file from their phones.

hammyhavoc• 3 years ago

Excellent work.

nagarjuna981• 2 years ago

This serves the purpose of cross-platform file sharing. Great job.

albert1804• 3 years ago

snapdrop.net does. It works locally in your network Peer2Peer

geor9e4• 3 years ago

It doesn't do what airdrop does, although it is a step better than Sharedrop, in that it doesn't require the data be sent over the internet. But it still has a lot of extra hassle that airdrop doesn't have. If you're away from home, you first have to enable Mobile Hotspot to create a wifi network (and pay your carrier for the right, since it's usually locked down in Android), then manually connect your other device to that wifi. Airdrop skips all of that. If Airdrop is open, it's scanning via bluetooth for another device with Airdrop enabled (it doesnt even have to be open). Then they instantly agree on an ad-hoc network and connect, all invisibly to the user. So you don't do anything at all. I wish a Android developer could accomplish this.

davidbanham• 3 years ago

I routinely use airdrop to transfer mapping data when fighting bushfires in remote areas. There’s no network of any kind on most of these, but with a geocoded PDF map and Avenza we can still plot going edges, mark hotspots and dangerous trees, etc.

Being able to quickly squirt all of that, including photos, to another crew is a literal lifesaver.

1vuio0pswjnm7• 3 years ago

"All of these "alternatives to airdop" don't seem to actually do what airdrop does, which is create an ad-hoc wireless connection."

Not all of them.

"Airdrop isn't just a nice UI for sending files between people, it allows a wi-fi speed transfer between two [Apple] devices that aren't connected to an existing network of that speed."

More precisely, WiFi Direct allows it.

There is no reason why one should not be able to use WiFi Direct to transfer files between Apple hardware and non-Apple hardware.

But Apple and Google, via iOS and Android, stop users from using WiFi Direct to do it.

WiFi Direct does not belong to Apple, or Google.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi_Direct

Everyone who buys a computer from these companies should be able to write applications that use WiFi Direct. The chips support it. The buyers own the hardware, not Apple or Google.

asadalt3• 3 years ago

similar: I have been using https://snapdrop.net/ for a few years now.

1B05H1N• 3 years ago

Do you guys actually share this much locally?

I have my local sync'd to my cloud storage and just pull it down if/when I need it. I'll just email/text people around me if they don't have airdrop compatibility.

firtoz4• 3 years ago

I'm trying to learn how to use Tiktok (yes, I know, I'm sorry) and other social media and cross-posting isn't really great and some platforms pretty much force you to post from mobile devices or vice versa (Tiktok, Instagram for mobile, LinkedIn for desktop web), and I need to pass source videos from mobile to editors on PC and back and forth for posting on the different media.. It's a big of a mess, I'm kinda sure there are crossposting services out there already, but it works for me so /shrug!

dewey• 3 years ago

Sounds much more painful than dropping them in iCloud / Google Drive / Dropbox, as you have to send, accept, save, switch to app, upload instead of just going to the app, select file from cloud storage, upload.

Especially when you might want to upload from multiple devices.

rainbowzootsuit• 3 years ago

Do consider Syncthing particularly if you are using Android. If using apple iOS you'd need the möbius sync client.

https://syncthing.net/

https://www.mobiussync.com/

One thing that it beats the cloud / centralized sync on is because the connection is direct between devices when the initial transfer is completed the file is completely there on the other device. With a cloud type of sync you do the transfer twice. I've seen stack up on large media or with the structure of cloud services pricing making it expensive depending on how your workflow is setup with inside and outside parties. For example, Dropbox deduction from all parties' storage limits not just the sharer.

You can also point Syncthing at a local sync of Dropbox or Google drive and then forward the files to other recipients from that for some purposes.

function_seven• 3 years ago

For videos, yeah. When I'm in a room with friends, and one of them is already connected to their TV, it's much quicker to airdrop a large video file (say, 500MB) than it is to send it up to the Internet and have them download it. Aside from the better bandwidth, it's also much faster from the time I tap "Share" to the time it's appearing on their device.

For gifs or a funny photo or whatever, yeah I'll just text it.

linkdd3• 3 years ago

Back when I was teaching, I was using sharedrop to share the project files, slides, exam solutions (after the exam of course), etc... to my students.

I used to set up a local http server with `python -m http.server` until one of my student told me about sharedrop.io

windowsrookie2• 3 years ago

Yes I do. I'm often moving files between two Macs and sometimes my iPhone. I have a few important documents and maybe 100 photos backed up in my free google drive storage, everything else is stored locally.

Email/Text has very small files size limits so that's not an option for me.

andreicap• 3 years ago

Yes. I send pictures and videos (with original metadata/quality) to my friends and family, thus avoiding clutter in messaging apps.

bluish29• 3 years ago

I would recommend pairdrop [1] which works even in situations when you have Apple Private Relay or a VPN.

[1] https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/PairDrop

tomasff3• 3 years ago

If you already use Tailscale, Taildrop [1] works great.

[1] https://tailscale.com/kb/1106/taildrop

escanda• 3 years ago

Tailscale looks nice. I acknowledge there is a lot of room for NAT traversal and alike tools. I am quite curious how do you manage network settings across your network. This could have served me well 10 yrs ago.

ahmedfromtunis3• 3 years ago

I wanted to use this, but reading the documentation, my understanding was that with tailscale data goes through a server.

Am I understanding it correctly?

EDIT

This makes it a great solution for sending sensitive or large files without third-party servers in the middle.

It clearly says the opposite. I don't know where I got that idea from.

maronato• 3 years ago

It sends the data using wireguard, so it’s p2p.

There is a coordination server that sets up the initial connection, but after that both devices are connected directly to each other.

raihansaputra• 3 years ago

At the very worse case (NAT hell or something else) they may use a DERP relay. But if you have a cooperative connection or plain local connection it works fine.

There's encryption overhead though, I can't saturate a 1Gbps over Tailscale on M1, while direct connection works (iperf3).

HungSu• 3 years ago

From that doc:

Taildrop is currently limited to sending files between your own personal devices. You cannot send files to devices owned by other users even on the same Tailscale network.

tomasff3• 2 years ago

Good point, it doesn't quite fit the same purpose as AirDrop & other alternatives. Useful if you want to share files between your devices though!

wccrawford2• 3 years ago

I'm not a big fan of having to pay once for every computer I want to use something on. I'm just 1 person.

Also, making it free for Android but not PC seems... Wrong.

hk__2• 3 years ago

What are you talking about? This tool is free for everyone.

wccrawford2• 3 years ago

I somehow managed to reply to the wrong one. Ubidrop is the one I meant to reply to.

Phenomenit• 3 years ago

Sharing files is great but what I’m looking for is simple QR code ephemeral chat. Like if a want to copy a link or password between my phone and some device. Tried a bunch of different ones that I’ve found on search but they’re clunky and kind of work.

ahmedfromtunis3• 3 years ago

I should check the code first, but my guess is that this is built using webrtc which was primarily created for realtime communication (including audio and video).

So my guess is that such feature can be easily added.

By the way, if you're using chrome, you can take share text directly via the clipboard. So that you can share from your phone, and immediately paste it in your computer, or vice versa.

By using kdeconnect (it has an Android app and a gnome extension), you have this done automatically. This means that you can copy a text in your phone, and paste it in your computer, as well as the other way around.

talkingtab• 3 years ago

Interesting idea. The QR code part is good I think. I would be interested in what you tried, why it was clunky, ideas of how to make it usable. thanks!

Cupprum2• 3 years ago

I am still missing why people are so crazy about airdrop. Sure, it seems nice, and is nice to interact with, but all my stuff is already in the cloud and i don't seem to need to share it very often with people around me. What are some of the use-cases you personally use airdrop for?

Angostura2• 3 years ago

Person A takes group Photo. Person B "could I have that"? Two people touch phones and hit accept.

Cupprum2• 3 years ago

But neither of these implementations are going to provide this functionality, because of lack of development kits, right? So in the end people would just send it over some messaging app, which scales nicer, or create a shared album, which also scales nicer. Because smashing phones in group of 10 people might get tedious.

windowsrookie2• 3 years ago

I put almost nothing in the cloud. So for me it's an easy way to transfer files between devices. I'm often moving files between two Macs.

When I go on a vacation with friends, they want a bunch of photos and videos that I took. So I can easily just airdrop them to my friends.

gpchelkin• 3 years ago

I've tried a lot of similar tools for sending files between devices in local area network and found that https://localsend.org works best. Yes, it requires an application installation, but the transfers are much more faster and reliable when browser is not involved. And its Android application works nicely on Google TV/Android TV, so I can send files there easily.

SushiHippie• 3 years ago

For receiving you don't need to download an application. Localsend can act as an http server, where everyone can just access it through their browser.

codethief• 3 years ago

How does localsend work exactly? I've read both their website and Github README as well as part of their protocol docs but I still have no idea. How does the initial device discovery work? For file transfer does it use the local wifi, some external server, …?

nsagent3• 3 years ago

It looks like they implement something similar to Bonjour [1] using multicast DNS [2]. Not sure if it's basically a reimplementation like Avahi [3] or if it's a slightly different protocol (only skimmed the code [4] briefly).

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bonjour_(software)

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multicast_DNS

[3] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avahi_(software)

[4] https://github.com/localsend/localsend/tree/main/app/lib/pro...

wazoox• 3 years ago

I'm using KDE Connect on my phone, tablet and PCs. It works great to transfer files across devices, and adds some other benefits (clipboard sharing, using the phone as a trackpad or a presentation remote, reading SMS on the PC, etc).

ahmedfromtunis3• 3 years ago

För some reason it never managed to send more than 2 files from the computer to the phone. And I was never able to fix it.

On my tablet, however, it works flawlessly.

leumon• 3 years ago

Would be cool if we sometime would get https://github.com/seemoo-lab/opendrop as an android app (but it would only work with rooted devices). This would allow to send and recieve files to iPhones from android via Apples Airdrop protocol.

Flex247A• 3 years ago

Also check: https://localsend.org/

Apps are available for all platforms, and it's possible to achieve transfer over a LAN connection.

kleiba• 3 years ago

Genius name, for sure!

AnonHP• 3 years ago

My need is actually when I’m out somewhere fairly remote where there’s no WiFi Internet connection, but there’s either 4G or 5G data, the phones are running iOS and Android and are in close physical proximity with each other. Is there something that works for this device-to-device to send raw data with minimal friction and maximum security (don’t want the app to be sending the data elsewhere)?

augusto-moura• 3 years ago

Pretty slow, but you can still use Bluetooth transfers. Other ways are to have an WiFi hotspot on one of the devices and use one of these alternative apps.

Some apps out there are even capable of opening a small HTTP server, so you can technically serve files on tether.

dang• 3 years ago

Related ongoing thread:

Show HN: I made an app people call "Airdrop for Android" - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39067040 - Jan 2024 (97 comments)

xyst• 3 years ago

Kind of cool. UX not as smooth as p2p file sharing with airdrop on Apple devices, but it works well enough.

I couldn’t get the “local network” feature to work though despite devices on both networks. Probably missing something. Had to send the link to myself.

theLastOfCats• 2 years ago

Taildrop?

Free and Open Source Alternative to Airdrop

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