exu
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3913h

I’m always annoyed at the “AirDrop alternative” marketing. It’s not. It requires both of your devices to share a network.

The truest AirDrop alternative that uses discovery and ad-hoc connections between devices is FlyingCarpet. It definitely needs a simpler UI though.

Eh, yes and no. It may not have 1-for-1 feature parity, but it’s still an alternative insofar as two people can transfer files to each other. Yes, LocalSend requires them to be on the same network while AirDrop does not. I still think it’s beneficial for LocalSend to show up in search results for “airdrop alternatives” b/c it might be good enough for most people’s use cases and it is perhaps the most feature complete, easiest to use, free & open source option out there.

but it’s still an alternative insofar as two people can transfer files to each other

after painfully figuring out (or not) how to make a hotspot with a somewhat secure password and get the other phone to connect to it.

@jet@hackertalks.com
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20
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10h

Conference meeting test: you and a bunch of strangers gather for a quick q&a after a conference talk, the author wants to share their slidedeck with you. Everyone has whatever solution you are evaluating pre installed but your strangers so you have nothing setup specifically for this group… How many button presses across everyone does it take to share the slides?

Wait, I don’t see you. Are you on the conference wifi? No I’m on call data, join the conference wifi. What’s the password. Ok. Thanks. I joined it, I don’t see the file. Which wifi are you on? Oh I’m on 5g. This is too complicated join my hot spot. Fuck I can’t see your hotspot, turn airplane mode on and off. I joined it but I don’t see anyone…

btw localsend has some plans for supporting google’s somewhat common but proprietary quickshare functionality, but it seems the app hasn’t received an update in almost a year

LMFAOOO

I was gonna say… “no internet connection required” is not the key attribute of AirDrop. AirDrop doesn’t even require a network connection. It’s a weird comparison.

That does definitely replicate the feature of AirDrop more closely. Do you have any experience with it? Does it work reliably?

A thing to look out for is Wifi Aware, which would enable the functionality if implemented. That is what was recently also used by google to enable android<->ios Airdrop

why another wifi standard? we already have wifi adhoc mode, and at least 2 different wifi directs. why couldn’t they just build upon that?

@paf@jlai.lu
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-1512h

Who said it was an airdrop alternative? Maybe a reason why it is called “Local” send

The title of the post

@paf@jlai.lu
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57h

Oups 😂

taco
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810h

It’s in the Github “about” section.

@paf@jlai.lu
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27h

I must be blind, I just check the about section and can’t see it mentioned but as someone else said, it’s on title of post

taco
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26h

About section of the project (top-right of the page for me on desktop), not the readme file. It’s literally just “An open-source cross-platform alternative to AirDrop” + a link to localsend.org.

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