FlyingCarpet VS uploadserver

Fortunately I found a reddit post which mentioned about a software named Flying Carpet after tinkering with that, and checking its code I found out there is something call Wireless ad hoc network (WANET), it its basically a decentralised type of wireless network which does not rely on router or wireless access points.

Related projects:

- FlyingCarpet: direct transfer over local adhoc WIFI: https://github.com/spieglt/FlyingCarpet

- LANDrop: Drop any files to any devices on your LAN: https://github.com/LANDrop/LANDrop

- In-browser file transfer similar to Airdrop: https://snapdrop.net/

- Magic Wormhole: simple file transfer from computer-to-computer over the net: https://github.com/magic-wormhole/magic-wormhole

- Croc: similar to magic wormhole: https://github.com/schollz/croc

- Wormhole: user-friendly in-browser based e2e encrypted file transfer: https://wormhole.app/

network transfer

I'm rewriting https://github.com/spieglt/flyingcarpet. It will be public when it's finished and the Android/iOS versions are out but it'll be a few more months probably.

I don't really know how many users I have, so I don't know how "meaningful" my projects are, but I have found some of them posted on French, Chinese, Greek, Russian blogs etc., so hopefully they fill some people's needs besides my own.

https://github.com/spieglt/flyingcarpet

https://cloaker.mobi

https://github.com/spieglt/cloaker

https://github.com/spieglt/whatfiles

https://github.com/spieglt/winage

I learned to program because I was frustrated that after working in IT consulting for several years, I still had no idea how computers worked. I started with "Learn Python the Hard Way" and "Automate the Boring Stuff with Python". Then got a job doing some Windows consulting stuff, and they said they'd hire me as a software engineer if I learned Go, which was a pretty easy step from Python. I'd tried to learn programming as a kid several times and always found it too frustrating. I started working on side projects as a way to learn new languages, improve my resume, and scratch my own itches. The hardest part was coming up with ideas for useful/worthwhile projects. I was super frustrated one day that the easiest way to get a file between two machines that were right beside each other was sending them out to the internet via Google Drive or Dropbox, which made me want to write "cross-platform AirDrop", which became Flying Carpet. If you find yourself wanting a simple piece of software that seems like it should already exist, that's a great project idea.

You first start one server on a desktop/laptop which has the software, and then any client (Android, iOS, PlayStation, Kindle, etc) with a web browser (no need to install any client software) can upload or download files from it.

You can download prebuilt binaries for x86-64 Linux, Windows, or Mac OS (sorry, no prebuilt binaries for Apple Silicon, but they could be added if there is sufficient demand) from https://github.com/akovacs/uploadserver/releases/ or compile from source using a nightly rust toolchain if you prefer.

Compared to cloud services or `python -m http.server 8000`, this is extremely fast since the server is written in rust, it is fairly simple (compiled and stripped binary is typically less than 3MB), it sends everything over local LAN, it seems to handle large files (over 4GB) fairly well, and you only need to install the software on one machine.

For additional details, please see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39665095

If you don't have a network connection, you can setup an adhoc hotspot on any Android 9+ (Settings > Network & internet > Hotspot & tethering https://support.google.com/android/answer/9059108) or iPhone (Settings > Personal Hotspot), then connect to it using any WiFi-enabled device.

A useful filesharing utility that a friend wrote is https://github.com/akovacs/uploadserver - it's basically a nicer version of:

    python -m http.server 8000

Basically just start the file server, and then navigate to it using the web browser of your choice on any device (no need for a client application).

Download prebuilt binaries from https://github.com/akovacs/uploadserver/releases/

Or install from source if you prefer:

    # install rust toolchain

A similar utility (much more bare-bones though) that a friend wrote is https://github.com/akovacs/uploadserver

It works on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and therefore should probably work on FreeBSD as well if you can install a Rust toolchain:

    pkg install curl

Another option (also not Airdrop compatible) is https://github.com/akovacs/uploadserver which is a Rust (Rocket) web server that you can run on a local machine. Open a browser and navigate to the machine's IP address at port 8000 to upload/download files from the web form.