When we need send files to some contact, and these are too big to be sent via email or instant messaging Whether productive or technically possible, we are presented with several alternatives to which to turn.
There would be the option of sending a link to a file previously uploaded to cloud storage platforms (such as Onedrive or Google Drive), but we will not always have enough space available to host said files, so the next option will be to resort to platforms such as WeTransfer and similar.
“What Dropbox does not mention is that they have the key to decrypt your files”, explain the creators of WormHole as motivation to create their platform
How do these alternatives work?
But what if we want guarantee the confidentiality of the data and not uploading important files to third-party servers over which we have no control? What if we could turn to platforms similar to WeTransfer, but connecting users’ browsers to each other, without the file having to go through centralized servers?
Well, this kind of P2P services exist, and allow us to dispense with the requirement to wait until the file has finished loading so that it can begin to be downloaded: since the file is already on the hard disk, when the sender initializes a transfer, they receive a ‘temporary link’ they can immediately distribute to recipients.
By accessing said link, Recipients’ browsers connect directly to the sender’s browser and they can start downloading the selected file. And because the data is never stored on an intermediary server, the transfer is private and secure. And fast … as long as sender and recipients have a connection that allows it, of course.
Four choices
- FilePizza: In its FilePizza repository we have everything you need to create your own FilePizza instance. According to the FAQ on their website, Chromium-based browsers sometimes have problems handling large files (and by ‘large’ we mean from 500 MB).
- Cend.me: “Direct file transfer without server involvement. Automatically generated password protection. Accepts any size. Immediate transfer for devices on the same network.” That’s all the text on your website, and you don’t need more.
- SnapDrop: The particularity of SnapDrop resides in that it does not provide a link to send our files to any user, but allows us to detect which other computers on our internal network are also connected to ShareDrop at that time and send them messages or files.
- WormHole: WormHole is a special case, as it combines the centralized WeTransfer model with the decentralized one of the previous options. And it does so depending on the file sent: if it is greater than 5 GB (the limit is 10 GB), the connection is made directly from browser to browser.
What technology is behind?
This is possible thanks to the use of WebRTC technology, the same one whose birth we covered in Genbeta more than a decade ago. In the words of the developers of Vegh, another platform of this class that seems to have stopped being online,
“WebRTC is a free and open project that provides browsers and mobile applications with real-time communications (RTC) capabilities through simple APIs. […] It is very similar to the exchange of data via Bluetooth, NFC and WIFI, although using WebRTC we can achieve multiplatform support since it is based on the web. “