file transfer
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  • Reep.io P2P File Sharing Service

    There are many file sharing services available for one to use such as the all famous yousendit.com (now hightail.com) or the infamous megaupload.com. These services allowed the user to upload their files on to the service’s server so that the uploader can share the file with who ever they want.berryjam.ru

    If you just want to transfer your file and not store on some server there are other niche services such as the peer to peer (p2p) file sharing services. Reep.io is one such app which Connects the two parties via a p2p connection.
    A p2p file sharing connection does not require an intermediary server to transfer the data. It is only needed for service discovery. After that the two parties communicate directly with each other. The two parties are both the client and server.

    The p2p file sharing technique has been made popular by torrent software and Skype which was originally a peer to peer service before it got acquired by Microsoft.

    Reep.io connects the sender and the receiver are connected with each other directly. One thing which really attracts me to such projects is that Reep.io is an open source project and you can download the source code from github. I myself am a developer, and i have an interest to see how different software work.

    The user experience is very simple and minimal. The user can either select files by dragging them onto the website’s page, or press the “Add or drop files” button and open a file browser.

    If the user decides to upload more files then they will all be shown on the same screen ordered vertically. Do note that it is key that the browser(or tab) is not closed if the file upload is in progress, else the file transfer will fail.

    The website is easy to use, and the process of uploading the file is the same as it has been so there is nothing new here. The user knows exactly what to do. The instructions are given clearly in the page of the website.

    The theme itself is dark and red which gives of a professional feel.

    When the user uploads a file, a link is generated by the service which identifies the connection. The link is given to the other user and he loads it up on his browser. Then two browsers connect with each other and the file transfer begins.

    Both the sender and the receiver are shown both the speed of transfer and how much the file to be transferred is left. This is a good addition and a requirement in such type of apps.

    Another thing that i notice is that if both the sender and the receiver are on the same WiFi network, then the data is transferred over the local network, and not over the Internet. Such a scenario took place with me, and the transfer speed that i got was just above 1MB/second.

    This fact was further reassured when my Internet connection got disconnected but the file transfer continued as it was.

    The file transfer did not work for me on Mozilla Firefox, but it worked on Google Chrome. The developer will have to make this app cross platform, or it will not be of much use to the users.Watch movie online The Transporter Refueled (2015)

    Reep io is session based, so once the session is disconnected the transaction is lost and the file transfer will have to be done from scratch. This is a pain if you are uploading a large file. Just today while testing service I asked my friend to send me a large file which uploaded till 45 percent but then the connection disconnected and all of the progress was lost.

    Other file transfer techniques such as FTP (File Transfer Protocol), HTTP file upload, Skype file upload are all session based, but if the developer finds a way to cache the data downloaded and keeps a track of what part of the data has been uploaded and what is remaining, i am pretty sure that this will surely make the app more appealing and more useful for the users. I think the developer should do what torrent software or download managers do.

    I also noticed that if i upload a video file, the file type(in the name) is not changed back to the original type. Maybe this was an edge case, but the developer should look into this.

    The idea of the app is quite good, but not novel. There are many peer to peer file transfer websites available out there, and this feature is already integrated in other software such as Skype.

    I recommend that if the development team work on the problems given above, they can rise above the competition and have a hit on their hands. Just because the file transfer is peer to peer it does not mean that caching of the file can not be done. This is one feature which i really want. I do not want to start the file transfer all over again if my session has been disconnected. I have had this problem with many file transfer services. I would like this particular problem to be solved as soon as possible. I believe this is one reason why torrents and file download managers are so popular that they cache the data, and continue the download from the place where they were interrupted.

    Update: 6:49 am 6th December 2014. I made some spelling corrections.

    Update 3:35 am 9th December 2014: I have updated the link of the article and the content to improve SEO.

    December 5, 2014 • Utility Apps, Web Apps • Views: 8162