Hacker News Reader

Comment by mirkules | Hacker News Reader

For me the killer feature of AIM was P2P file transfer. Is there even a service today that does this? It was so easy to just click "send a file" and it worked fairly reliably. Dropbox comes close, but, of course, it is not a direct file transfer.

View on HN

You can send files P2P using WebRTC. I've never used it, but https://www.sharedrop.io/ came up in a quick search.

For something more in the vein of AIM, pretty sure Skype lets you send files too.

IRC allows files to be sent: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Direct_Client-to-Client - it's not a great protocol however, particularly when used with firewalls.

IRC file transfer is always a roll of the dice if you're going through NAT.

Yes. Check out instant.io, it uses webtorrent, which is powered by webrtc. All major browsers should be supported. Just pick the file and link your friend.

I send files during Skype conversations, so there's that. Sharing a Dropbox link to a file is also possible, but I always considered that clunky

Edit: oops, I didn't know that Skype got rid of P2P, now files are uploaded to their servers

IRC had this what, a decade before AIM even existed? I love reading about the great innovative features of the huge multitude of modern chat apps we have these days, which were present in software from the '90s. The more things change...

IRC UX is terrible

Telegram allows file transfer up to 1.5Gb. It's not P2P though.

Skype used to do P2P until like 2 years ago, now all files shared are uploaded to their servers.

We are sadly still using Skype at work, and due to the lack of P2P file transfer I'm really sketched out sending database dumps, certificates, and other sensitive content with it to colleagues.

Hmm I didn't notice there was a server in between the file transfer, looks like I'll have to reconsider how I transfer files

Tox, like qTox supports file transfers.

I can't say that I've used it, however.

i loved that feature. i remember sending a 3gb file over the network in just over a minute (early 2ks)

That's a pretty large file, especially for early 2000s standards. I'm guessing DivX?

compressed binaries :)

.r00, .r01, .r02, ..., .rar? :)

FB Messenger supports sending files

that's not p2p file transfer.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com