Show HN: Snapdrop: Instantly share files between devices. No setup, no signup
snapdrop.me67 points by Capira 11 hours ago
67 points by Capira 11 hours ago
I've used a bunch of similar tooling like airdrop and localsend. I don't have alot faith in them a little since they usually choke on large files or many files. I'm still looking for something that works well in those cases without resorting to a cable / MTP which isn't fantastic either.
I can't report on percentage improvement, but after a long time localsend recently pushed out a version that claims to be much better (to be read as faster) for the transfer of large/many files.
For a long time the issue was blocked because of an upstream library, maybe LLMs finally unblocked the devs to push the fixes through.
But SnapDrop was sold to LimeWire from what I remember, wasn't it? I have it on my (somewhat popular) list https://gist.github.com/SMUsamaShah/fd6e275e44009b72f64d0570...
Edit: so that was SnapDrop.net this is so confusing now. Are you the author of that GitHub repo?
It seems to be the original developer relaunching. Here is an old show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10791403
There is a fork of it here: https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/PairDrop
Looking at the history of the github repo of this show hn, the readme was previously linking to now Sold to LimeWire SnapDrop.net. Github author recently changed that to SnapDrop.me and is either doing a Show HN himself or this is another fishy play by LimeWire.
I have used localsend. How is snapdrop this different from https://github.com/localsend/localsend?
I wanted to try it out, so i fired it up on my laptop and my phone. The laptop experience was pleasant, but on the mobile, the ads seemed to be covering the nearby devices, and it felt like full scam-ware.
So close, yet, so far.
I'll usually go with pairdrop.net, never failed me!
Why does this look exactly like https://pairdrop.net/ ?
Pairdrop is listed in the “Inofficial” instances section of Snapdrop’s GitHub FAQ
https://github.com/RobinLinus/snapdrop/blob/master/docs/faq....
Pairdrop is a fork with new features.
See: https://github.com/schlagmichdoch/pairdrop#differences-to-th...
Both look like Airdrop. Is this for people who don't have airdrop? I am not seeing the benefits.
So does this host the files? For free? How long before ads start / you have to register / subscription model, etc?
> None of your files are ever sent to any server. Files are sent only between peers. Snapdrop doesn't even use a database. If you are curious have a look at the Server. Even if Snapdrop was able to view the files being transfered, WebRTC encrypts the files on transit, so the server would be unable to read them.
https://github.com/RobinLinus/snapdrop/blob/master/docs/faq....
If you like Snapdrop, you'll love croc!
I used Snapdrop before they got bought and found it pretty reliable. It sometimes would not transfer and I went exploring.
I used magic-wormhole-based Warp and liked it, but now I use croc of getcroc.com for almost everything. Whether it's sending files to myself or others, it's just the most flexible and seems to be reliable and fast from my use.
(I haven't been using it super long, but I heartily recommend.)
I like croc but you can get magic wormhole clients for platforms that your SO uses through the usual distribution channels without having to resort to "weird" installation methods like Obtanium or Fdroid.
What about something like Iroh?
I've never used Iroh; can you use it with no setup or without an account? I send/receive files often enough from non-technical people, having a no-install/accountless solution for sending files is essential. For my use-case, my go to is croc or Bitwarden Send (I'm on a paid acct), depending on the person.
Update: I see that there are many ways to do this accountless. For some reason the search result was iroh.computer and I made some assumptions. There are definitely some iroh-based options that look like they would have essentially the same UX that I'm going for. Would love to hear if there's some specific pros or cons to croc or iroh.
I've had this need recently and noticed that tailscale is extremely useful between phone to mac transfers as well. I mean you can also technically use airdrop too, but that sometimes is unreliable for me.
This can be very useful.
Indeed my Android phone sees my Linux PC. And the PC can send a file to the phone. At first the file transfer to the PC didn't work and the icons just twitched. After 5 minutes it works now strangely enough.
does my file stay local?
File transfers do not work. Even after allowing microphone access on both ends.
What is the microphone access for?
Do you need to say "My voice is my passport." or something?
What year is this?
Use Tether!!
Terrible service. I used to use it back in the days until it starting going down all of the time. Switched to localsend and never looked back.
I like localsend mself
good work!
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