A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn’t great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don’t promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
- 0 users online
- 108 users / day
- 435 users / week
- 1.32K users / month
- 4.54K users / 6 months
- 1 subscriber
- 4.67K Posts
- 118K Comments
- Modlog
Been using localsend for maybe 2 years now.
Super simple and absolutely wonderful program. Something that any OS on any device should have just came as a free and simple implementation from the get go, but instead they make it as hard as can be without passing your data through their grubby little fingers first.
LocalSend is the best way to move and backup your files without the cloud or a data cable.
Cool concept.
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.
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.
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?
Who said it was an airdrop alternative? Maybe a reason why it is called “Local” send
The title of the post
Oups 😂
It’s in the Github “about” section.
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
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.
One of the best file sharing programs. I have it on all of my devices.
I’ve been using Local Send for almost a year (I think) and love it. Graohene to my Linux machine no problem…well, no problem when I remember to adjust my firewall.
I gave this a try during the drama with syncthing-fork (new maintainer without a heads up from catfriend1). Had no issues sending from Fedora. GrapheneOS wouldn’t send any files. Too bad.
Check out the firewall settings, it could be the issue. Also don’t forget to turn off VPN on both devices if you’re using one.
That’s why it wouldn’t work for me - I never turn off my vpn. Syncthing works through a vpn so I use that.
I’m not sure that’s needed, but the firewall on your PC is likely to be blocking the connection by default
If you want to send files between just your own devices KDE Connect is great and can do many other things too. If you are on Gnome there is a gnome extension for better integration (gsconnect I think?)
Works for me on graphene
It’s good to know it does work. Thanks.
Have you enabled local network discovery?
I don’t have Local Send installed but if/when I do, I’ll check that. Thanks.
If does need ports to be accessible in order to receive anything. So check the firewall.
LocalSend lets you securely share files and messages with nearby devices over your local network—no internet or third-party servers required. It’s open-source, cross-platform (desktop & mobile), fast, and works fully offline.
https://github.com/localsend/localsend
Not to rain in on localsends parade but you can also send via
echo text | nc -l -p 1234and receive vianc <sender-ip> 1234unencrypted, unauthenticated, unverified, and not just hard but impossible on phones.
From https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8863
Aren’t both of these solutions unencrypted?
Not through a Wireguard tunnel
spam account