
Show HN: SendRail - Easy P2P File Transfer From The Desktop - ritikm
http://www.sendrail.com/
======
miles
_We use Facebook to validate your identity and send the download link directly
to the recipient's Facebook message inbox._

You might want to consider offering a couple of different options; none of
these file transfer services have a FB requirement:

<http://wetransfer.com> <http://yousendit.com> <http://letscrate.com>
<http://ge.tt>

Or perhaps you want to position this as a FB-only service? It would certainly
differentiate your service, but might also limit your user base unnecessarily.

~~~
alagu
_It would certainly differentiate your service, but might also limit your user
base unnecessarily_

Limiting user base? I don't think it would hurt much. Half of internet users
use Facebook. I think they have a good chance at giving better user experience
by tying with Facebook.

~~~
miles
_Limiting user base? I don't think it would hurt much. Half of internet users
use Facebook._

Even assuming that figure is true, why cut your potential user base in half
right off the bat? And for those who are FB users, what do they do when they
want to exchange files with non-FB users? The service will be unusable in such
cases even for FB users, and sendrail ends up losing more transactions.

~~~
ritikm
We also support hooking into your address book on your Mac, and are working on
integrating your online email address book and ActiveDirectory into it. We're
trying to cover every single contact mechanism out there so you don't have to
worry about "finding the right tool" to send a file to someone -- we hope to
make SendRail work for every single use case you encounter.

~~~
white_devil
So how do you plan to make money? I can't see any pricing information, so I
guess this is yet another case of users being the product.

------
dfc
Peer to peer? I guess I am getting old. I can remember when peer to peer meant
that one host would communicate directly to the other host and not store the
file transfer on a centralized system. Or that an application would not use a
centraliozed third party for authentication.

~~~
ritikm
We only store the file on our central server if the receiving end doesn't have
our app. If they have the app, we create a direct connection between both
parties and transfer the file(s) directly without them ever hitting our
servers.

~~~
dfc
So you actually think this is a P2P architecture?

On a related note how do you handle firewall piercing?

~~~
catch23
probably with port knocking? pretty standard I would think.

~~~
_sh
Port knocking makes no sense in this situation. I think it's something more
like STUN (RFC3489).

<http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3489.txt>

------
webwanderings
"All our files are encrypted with top of the line 256-bit AES encryption. We
use Facebook to validate your identity and send the download link directly to
the recipient's Facebook message inbox. No one but the recipient will ever be
able to access the file."

No, thank you. Above is a turn off. First of all, the files can't be yours and
you can't make people use Facebook to use your service.

------
ericz
I love seeing apps that replace what we misuse email for -- e.g. sending files
to a friend -- and looks like you guys have that spot on. The biggest issue
with other solutions is that they grow to a point where it's no longer easier
than just emailing the file. Hopefully you guys don't outgrow the ease of use!

------
mtgx
I'll never use a service that requires a FB login exclusively.

~~~
rsamvit
We also support hooking into your address book on your Mac, and are working on
integrating your online email address book and ActiveDirectory into it. We're
trying to cover every single contact mechanism out there so you don't have to
worry about "finding the right tool" to send a file to someone -- we hope to
make SendRail work for every single use case you encounter.

------
latortuga
Cool product and integration with OS X. Your video needs a lot of work -
you're talking way too much about technical things like 'threads'
'asynchronous' and 'in the background' - no normal user cares about these
things. Show me how I can click a file, press a shortcut, and have it show up
on my friends computer. This is a killer feature and you need to HAMMER it.

------
lixef
Every time people think about a solution about this (to my mind) huge e-mail
issue I'm really happy to be not the only one who is sick of the existing
solutions out there.

I used to use things like Dropbox or other syncing services and then share the
link of a file, which is for me an okay solution. But not what makes me really
happy.

Your idea looks also interesting, but how do you want to manage things like
the file storage time? Do you want to store them permanent? What will become
also some interesting challenge is to make the "send file functionality"
everywhere in the world fast, regarding up- and downstream.

Really looking forward if other people will find an idea soon. I've been
thinking for a while now about it and still never found the kick-ass idea.

I wish you all the best for your product.

Ps: on the bottom of your website is a "-->".

Best, Felix

------
knes
Great that other smart people are trying to make sending files easier!

We at Dropdock ( http:/getdropdock.com/getstarted , check at the end for
invite code ) are also working on this problem. We have developed a Cross
platform application that send files to anyone, wether they are a dropdock
user or online.

Dropdock also work flawlessly over LAN. Our client auto detect other dropdock
users on the LAN so you can send them larges files with ease.

We have working on an Android & iOS app too so you can send all those photos
and HD video to anyone in one big batch instead of uploading them to different
services or sending multiples emails.

We don't want to replace file attachement. If you want to send a simple
spreadsheet to someone, you should sent it through email with explanation and
not upload it somewhere and C/C the links.

Finally, we though going the facebook route too, but it wasn't too user
friendly since you can't auto detect other users base on their facebook
account and it just didn't make sens for us to use Facebook messages for
notifications.

We are currently in private Beta ( Alpha-ish ) but are about to release a big
update with a lot of fixes and new features. If you want to try it out, signup
at <http://getdropdock.com/signup> with the invite code DROPDOCKBETAP1.

------
alan_cx
It may well be a great product, but sadly as soon as I see the word
"facebook", my gut reaction is good bye privacy, there for Im automatically
excluded. Shame.

------
aprescott
I literally just finished something today that attempts to solve a similar
problem: <http://copyfile.net/>

~~~
gillett
Cool concept. Is there not a way to streamline the process even more? Is it
possible to generate a magnetized link that sets the file location for you?

~~~
aprescott
Unfortunately, for security reasons, browsers only give you the base of the
filepath, so all you can pick up is the filename. Even if you had the full
filepath, though, I don't think the format of a torrent file lets you specify
the file location.

------
kirillzubovsky
Looks so simple, it's hard to believe it's really true. Good job! Can't wait
to get my invite.

------
simonmales
Secure via HTTP? I think your URL is missing an 's'.

~~~
ritikm
We host our files on a completely different server which is completely secure.
Sorry for the confusion there and thanks for raising this point -- we'll add
SSL to our main website too.

------
dools
This seems almost identical to Sendoid which appears to have died completely.
For asynch file sharing, we can use Dropbox, for synchronous file sharing,
Skype. Is there a file size limit on Skype?

I must say that when I've seen a very very similar product completely die as
recently as Sendoid did, I get pretty sceptical about the viability of the
idea.

------
fomojola
Side note, but I'm curious: what do you use to send messages directly to the
Facebook messages inbox? The standard FB dialog or is there some Graph API
endpoint that will let you do that? My memory of the FB API is hazy, but a
quick scan seems to indicate that you still can't post messages to the inbox
without popping up the UI.

~~~
ritikm
Great question - we're using the xmpp_login permission that Facebook Auth
provides to get messaging permission from the user and we have an XMPP server
running on Node.js that handles all the messaging.

------
dfield
This is a problem I run into all the time. Really excited to try SendRail out!

~~~
rsamvit
Thanks! We'll be sending out versions to our beta users really soon.

------
bencoder
I use a flash based p2p file transfer service for this now:

<http://www.filesovermiles.com/>

Can't really see how this could be more convenient to me.

------
slurgfest
I am surprised that nobody mentioned Nitroshare, which is great for a number
of use cases, and completely free

------
icebraining
How are you different from SoShare[1]?

[1]: <http://www.getshareapp.com/>

~~~
sturmeh
It's not an attempted Facebook clone used for uploading files?

It has a desktop client? (Which is the whole point.)

~~~
icebraining
You may be confused at what Share is; it's a desktop application that uses the
bittorrent protocol[1] to do P2P transfers between users. It integrates with
Facebook for very much the same reasons as SendRail does.

See [https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-releases-new-share-
appli...](https://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-releases-new-share-
application-120105/)

[1] It's actually developed by BitTorrent Inc, the same guys who write
µTorrent.

------
bussetta
you lost me at 'we use FB to validate your identity'

------
mintplant
What if I have two friends with the same name?

------
sokrates
Epic Ketchup Prank.mkv :D

------
tashmahalic
how will you generate revenue?

