Show HN: Engye – transfer files between any two devices by scanning a QR code
Early in April I needed to print some tax forms at the library, first time in forever, and I began to wonder: what's the easiest way to get a file onto a public computer? There are many ways, but most of them involve creating an account somewhere or plugging in a thumb-drive. I use a password manager, so my passwords are long and complicated, not easily typed. I don't want to plug anything into a public computer, nor do I fancy uploading my taxes to some random website. I thought about what a he
Early in April I needed to print some tax forms at the library, first time in forever, and I began to wonder: what's the easiest way to get a file onto a public computer? There are many ways, but most of them involve creating an account somewhere or plugging in a thumb-drive. I use a password manager, so my passwords are long and complicated, not easily typed. I don't want to plug anything into a public computer, nor do I fancy uploading my taxes to some random website. I thought about what a helpful product would looks like, and in about an hour I spun up the first version, https://gitlab.com/PavelSafronov/engye/-/tree/09f6ca401246b2... : a static Vite TS site, hosted on GitLab Pages, which uses a QR code to connect two instances of the website using WebRTC. Now all I had to do was navigate to a URL on the library computer, scan the generated QR code, choose the tax file on my phone, and the library computer instantly downloaded it. After the library trip, I looked further into this space, and found that no one solved the specific combination of cross-network, no install, no account, no cloud. Snapdrop and PairDrop are similar sites but are LAN-only or require a public room. LocalSend requires installing software on both devices, which makes that impractical for public devices. And other solutions were either hardware locked (AirDrop, Quick Share), required uploading files to the cloud (Google Drive, Dropbox), or sent data through their own servers (Wormhole). So with some determination, night and weekend coding, and plenty of scope creep, we have... Engye, pronounced "an-jee" like the name Angie, is available at https://engye.fuzzyworld.net and can be used to do a whole lot with just a QR code and no accounts: - send a file: users download it from your browser tab - collect files: users upload files to your browser/desktop - clipboard share: users share a single text box, good for sharing short text - virtual drive: Engye Drive allows you to create and attach a vi
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