Lead Thinking The Business of Software Development

P2P using TCP & Ruby

This is going to be a fairly technical post about the technologies behind Machsend and using P2P over TCP rather than UDP. I’v written a lot of context to the problem, so if you want to skip to the juicy protocol details look for the set of bullet points.

We recently launched Machsend, which enables people to send unlimited amounts of data from inside the browser. You literally drag a file onto the site, send the recipient a link, and they can download it straight away. Machsend uses TCP P2P connections to transfer data between clients.

Machsend release – P2P file transfers inside the browser

After a private beta of Machsend, it’s now being released publicly – check it out.

Machsend lets you send files to people without any size restrictions. Files are sent in a P2P fashion, straight from one client to another – which means transfers are faster, and you don’t have to trust a third party with your data.

If you’re on the same LAN, files are sent directly. Otherwise a type of firewall traversal  allows the two clients connect (which works on about 80% of firewalls). There are few good papers that explain more here and here.

Machsend uses Yahoo! BrowserPlus to perform this TCP magic.

Data transfers are unlimited – I’ve sent gigabytes over the system without any trouble.

Machsend works on OSX and Windows. Unfortunately there isn’t a version of BrowserPlus for Linux yet, but one is being developed.

There are a few more details on the ‘about‘ page.

Machsend – P2P file sharing in the browser

Recently I’ve been developing a project called Machsend which enables P2P file transfers from inside the browser.

The process goes:

• Bob navigates to the site, and drags files onto it
• Bob then sends his uniquely generated link to Alice
• Alice opens the link, can see Bob’s shared files, and downloads them

The file transfer is direct between users – it isn’t sent to any third party servers. This means it’s fast, and secure.

Files on the same network will transfer locally, greatly speeding up the process.

It also means there are no bandwidth bills to host the application, so it’ll be offered free, for unlimited size transfers (Machsend can transfer gigabytes without a problem).

Machsend is cross platform, and will work with about 85% of routers. It uses Yahoo BrowserPlus, which can be installed from within the browser, without a restart.

I’m looking for Beta Testers – so if you’re interested, please join the Google Group.