Localsend: An open-source cross-platform alternative to AirDrop

It really helped cement how great open source apps can be for me.

I wonder if any of the alternatives do the same.

I tried on three phones, two of which are using the same account, I'm reasonably confident I am technically competent to not make silly mistakes, though the best I've achieved was endless wait.

I had better success with IR and BT file transfers. Hell, even spinning a local http server (with python -m http.server) works better than quick share.

This one fails the "must not require an existing Wi-Fi network that both peers are connected to" criterion.

[1] https://craphound.com/spamsolutions.txt

But I just wish Apple fixed AirDrop, every time I go to use I have so little confidence in it, it often doesn't see devices or if you have multiple Mac users it will confuse them, showing you the same Mac device twice without telling you which user it is

Like in my case, the only files I generate on my phone are photos and videos, and these get backed up by Immich, which I can then share with someone by sending them a link to the files/album in question. I imagine normal folks would use iCloud or Google Photos for the same task.

For syncing other files like documents and such, I use ownCloud OCIS, and I'd imagine most other folks would use something like DropBox or iCloud, or even just email or WhatsApp the files.

For local network transfers of say ISOs or something, I'd just copy them over SMB, which is pretty much universal and doesn't need any special app. Or even just plug in a hard drive, if I'm doing backups.

So I don't understand why I should be using this.

Sending a photo over text message often compresses it, which isn't always desirable. (Not actually sure if it gets compressed when sent of iMessage)

I've also used it to send people photos when we were in places without cell service like on hiking and camping trips.

From windows to android to iOS.

Got this in the console: `WebRTC: ICE failed, add a TURN server and see about:webrtc for more details.` Not sure how to troubleshoot this. Most of the suggestions I found are for the devs not users.

EDIT: Ok, figured it out. It works if I disable Tailscale.

What's the main value prop over wormhole? That it works from the browser?

That you can set the recipient so it will auto-accept from the trusted senders.

And for me that in Android I can do Share to....localsend to do it faster than with wormhole.

Many have tried, I don't think anyone has succeeded.

Supposedly the EU interoperability mandate will make this possible going forward, though? (The tricky part is usually not getting your device to speak some protocol, but to get Apple devices to actually respond to your attempts.)

One beauty of Airdrop is that it creates and handles that local network automatically under the hood (as far as I understand). So you could be out on a hike with friends and Airdrop something.

The workaround I've found after switching to an Android device has been to teather my connection to my friend's device, which ends up creating a LAN that Localsend can work through, but this is not as nice an experience.

Apple has consistently done everything it can to self-sabotage their implementations of stuff to comply with EU anti-trust legislation like the stuff with digital marketplaces, so I'm not holding my breath on this.

I suppose that is "widely expected" from the usual group of anti-Apple internet griefers looking for a reason to moan in public, rather than actually doing some research or knowing things.

To quote a sibling comment:

"Apple contributed the core logic to the Wi-Fi Alliance to build Wi-Fi Aware, which they now also support."

https://github.com/KeibiSoft/KeibiDrop

Anyway, good to know we can use our NAN signal to send signal NaNs!

It’s a future promising tech though. A much better version of Wi-Fi Direct.

* https://www.wi-fi.org/wi-fi-aware-resources

* https://developer.apple.com/documentation/WiFiAware

* https://developer.android.com/develop/connectivity/wifi/wifi...

I've definitely used STA and AP modes concurrently on my Windows laptop with the operating system's built-in internet connection sharing function to help troubleshoot a problem in the field.

That was around a decade ago. It didn't take any extra effort on my part; I just told it to do the thing, and then it did that thing.

This seems like such a basic solution that I'm surprised that it isn't required by any of the mainstream standards before WiFi Aware. I wonder if this was some sort of a patent issue or similar.

When Quickshare drops your Wi-Fi connection, its not Direct anymore, that's just soft AP from an error, and if that doesn't work, it fallback to Bluetooth. Bluetooth is used for provisioning as well.

The only reason why many apps don't use it is because of buggy implementation, some phones require a full restart after using Wi-Fi Direct to fix connectivity issues, even Motorola's own product line with Smart Connect use it only with certain models, despite having Wi-Fi direct due to poor implementation (can be forced). They even have a white list of supported adapter for the Windows app since direct is used as well, can be unofficially force enabled for Mediatek based adapters (rare on some laptops).

Back in 2016 things were much stable on Android phones with Wi-Fi Direct, even with old Blackberry, there were many apps including file managers that used it before it was essentially dropped, even for onboarding/provisioning apps like HP printers...

Apple's Airdrop success is about gaining traction, in the era of Wi-Fi Direct or other methods, most people were not aware of such features, as it required an app to be installed, they used email/messaging, even when Airdrop was first introduced and preinstalled, it took years for the average person to use it.

However the path towards this type of interoperability would likely go through additional standardization via IEEE 802.11* and the Wi-Fi alliance. At which point Apple will need to implement and support the new standards. There is no need to reverse engineer AWDL to meet the new European interoperability requirements. What is needed is for wifi chipset OEMs to implement such standardization. Something pretty routine of them.

It can be expected that Apple will also maintain the proprietary AWDL in order to support their legacy devices.

Maybe a network nerd can chime in - is this implementation so difficult that it's unrealistic we'll see an OSS version?

Say you've got an android phone, windows PC, and a linux box, and you want to be able to quickly drop files from each one. unless we get some kind of cooperation across all three platforms at the OS level, you'd at minimum need to install some kind of client into each system - when the nicest feature of airdrop is that it's baked into all of Apple's OSs, in my opinion. even if it worked exactly the same way, but had to be installed, I think it would see less use - and there's no real way for a single OSS project to do that across multiple OS platforms, to my knowledge

What's tricky is to specify and get everybody to implement the layers on top of it, including device discovery (frequently offloaded to Bluetooth for efficiency reasons), user identification (Apple runs a PKI for this) etc.