Show HN: Nousb.co – A seamless multi-platform ephemeral file transfer webapp

6 points

3 years ago

Key technical point is that it does NOT rely on webRTC, which is not reliable enough on all browsers, and there are important file system APIs (ie. `showSaveFilePicker`) that are missing on most browsers to do actual file transfers, without storing the whole file in RAM first.
The idea is to have something that is as multi-platform as possible, and can work on all browsers, even the embedded webviews in chat apps. And without app installation or account creation.
To test it with a common case, which is transferring between a smartphone and a laptop:
- Open https://NoUSB.co - Click the "Share link" button. - Scan the QR code with your phone or transfer the link to another computer. - Drag and drop large files; they'll instantly appear on the other side, regardless of size. - Click the download button on the receiving device. - Click the "Boost this!" button to unlock more transfer speed. - Close the tab and all sharing stop instantly
Multiple devices can join the same virtual drive and share their own files.
There's also a chat feature because if you click a sharing link from a messenger app, you will certainly end up trapped in their embedded webview with no way to get back to chat without disconnecting.
For more technical details: https://dev.to/stant/nousbco-yet-another-file-transfer-tool-...
Please test it and let me know how it went for you. Thanks!

webRTC is actually implemented as an experimental feature, you'll need to add `&rtc=1` on both sides to enable it. Only chrome based browsers that implement `showSaveFilePicker` can be the downloading end.