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Have any of you used Tailscale's AirDrop alternative Taildrop?
(tailscale.com)
I use KDE Connect. Works remotely if you self host a VPN, or isolated over a hotspot/internet sharing.
Nowhere near as convenient as Wi-Fi direct or Airdrop though, but Linux and Windows machines don't have either
personally I run tailscale almost constantly anyway so I paired kde connect over tailscale and that works amazingly
LocalSend is already so damn good that I don't know why I would ever use anything else.
What benefit does this have over AirDrop? This seems like a more limited version of AirDrop with way more steps in-between. I’m asking this as well as someone who has a Synology NAS.
Not sure why the poster compared to AirDrop because it's not really similar.
AirDrop works over WiFi and can send to nearby devices (using their radios to connect directly, even in the absence of a WiFi network). It can be used with strangers' devices if they have theirs set to public mode — which has led to some unpleasant incidents as you can imagine.
Tailscale is primarily a private VPN network that you create only between your personal trusted devices, not strangers'. It works over the internet so it requires a working connection (of any kind). Its primary function is secure communication between your devices, for example you can do things like connect to services on your home server, assist a relative over remote desktop, use your home PC's connection when you're on hotel WiFi etc.
Tailscale is usually not something you keep going all the time but you can if you want, there's no penalty for doing it. It only uses the encrypted tunnel when you connect to another of your Tailscale-enabled devices.
I guess you could stay connected to your Tailscale all the time just so you can drop stuff between your phone and PC for example but it seems a bit overkill.
It's not hard to use btw, you just get their app, enroll it, and then it's just an on/off switch.
But this isn’t just Tailscale. It’s Tailscale and Taildrop. What’s the Taildrop piece?
Taildrop is just an extra feature tacked on top of Tailscale, it's not a separate product. Normally each Tailscale node only does VPN tunneling, routing, and a bit of DNS. "Taildrop" is marketing speak for "now you can also transfers files between nodes".
They also have a feature where Tailscale acts as a SSH server if you don't already have one on that node. It's called... get ready... Tailscale SSH. That one wasn't a very exciting name.
But seriously, if it were easy they'd probably also add some sort of remote desktop, that would be really cool.
It’s cross platform and you don’t have to be near the other device if I understand it correctly
I just use nearby share.
Yeah. It’s pretty great I haven’t tried it on windows but from Linux, iPhone, Android and Mac it is pretty great.
Have yet to try Taildrop but have a haiku:
With Tailscale Network. Decrease all your latency. Secure Peer to Peer.
No. I use Linux Mint which has its own Airdrop alternative called Warpinator. I can send files and photos between my phone and pc wirelessly. It doesn't do clipboard though, just files and photos but that's fine for me.
Oh I’ve never heard of this. Looks like they have a windows and ios beta too
Yes. I've only seen it on Linux Mint but it will be open source so you should find it in other distro repos too.
Its available as a flatpak for all Distros.
Oh yes that's right. I'm glad they have that but I only use Flatpak if I have no choice because they need so much storage and are slow to load.
this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2023
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