Sunshine: Share Files without cloud storage
Sunshine is a free application for Android and iOS devices as well as Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X that enables you to share files of any size directly between devices and with friends.
It can sometimes be difficult to share large files with others or transfer them from one device to the next.
For instance, if you have a large video on your Android device that you want to share with your friends, you'd be hard pressed to find a good way to do so.
Sure, some cloud storage providers might be suitable candidates but that would mean storing the file in the cloud.
Sunshine has two things going for it. First, it does not restrict the size of files that you share, and second, it does not use the cloud to do so.
After you have installed an app on your mobile device or a desktop program, you are required to create an account before you can get started. All you need to supply are a password and an email address to get started.
You can use one of the apps as a standalone if you only want to share files with friends and not with other devices you may use.
The desktop app allows you to add up to five folders that you can access on other devices that you connect to the account you have created. While five folders may be sufficient for most users, it may not be enough for some. BitTorrent Sync was criticized for introducing a 10 folder limit some time ago but that was probably more because the functionality was previously not limited.
Data is synchronized with the account but instead of hosting files in the cloud, only information about the files are synchronized (e.g. file name and location).
It takes a while to sync the data and device access is disconnected during that time. Once done, you may access the folders directly on your mobile device to transfer files to it.
One interesting feature of Sunshine is that you can view content without downloading it first. This is especially interesting when friends share files with you, e.g. a large video as you can watch it without having to download it first and save it to your device.
Sunshine supports the streaming of media to DLNA-supporting devices so that you can stream videos from any mobile device running Sunshine directly to smart TVs, gaming devices or speakers if they support it.
The app displays sharing options by default that you can use to share files that are on the device with friends.
Sharing works by selecting files on the device and then one of your friends from your device's friends list or by selecting one of your contacts stored on your phone. It is furthermore possible to copy the shared link to paste it manually into emails or elsewhere.
A tap on the device icon in the app displays all supported devices of the account and if you select your computer here, you get the list of folders that you have set for sharing.
It feels a bit strange that you find only photos, videos and files listed as file groups and not music. Music is sorted in the files group under miscellaneous.
Closing Words
Sunshine is an interesting application that makes sharing and transfer files a breeze. It is a bit difficult to set up on the desktop as you need to add files to the app and let it synchronize information about those files before they become available on mobile devices you run the app on.
Transfers and streams worked fine without issues on the other hand which is great especially for low storage devices that seem to run out of space ever so often.
The website reveals no information about the technology behind the product. For instance, how secure are the transfers.
Another issue that you may run into is that you cannot share to more than 10 friends.
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.