BitTorrent Shoot promises secure photo sharing on Android, iOS and Windows
Sharing photos is quite easy with modern phones as most ship with options to upload photos to the cloud automatically either by using a service by the phone's maker, the maker of the underlying operating system, or a third-party application that offers that functionality.
Most have in common that photos are transferred to third-party servers that you don't have full control over. While that may not be an issue for some photos you take, you may not want other photos to appear on the web, even in your own account.
That's where Shoot, a new application by BitTorrent Inc comes into play. The application uses the same peer-to-peer technology that is used by other company products such as BitTorrent Sync.
What this means is that your photos don't get stored on third-party Internet servers, not even temporarily, but sent directly from your device to the device of the recipient. Another advantage of Shoot is that size does not matter as files are transferred directly from your device to those of recipients.
The application itself is dead easy to use. Shoot some photos using your phone's camera and native apps or third-party apps. Once done, select photos or videos that are already on the device that you want tos share with others.
Simply select some photos or videos on your device and tap on the next button afterwards. The app generates a QR code that other recipients need to scan using their device and the installed version of Shoot on it to initiate the transfer.
Note: The app is free to try but is limited to three sends. If you require more, you need to unlock unlimited sending by purchasing it for $1.99. While you need to unlock unlimited sends, receiving files is free and requires no unlocking.
The application is super-simple to use as you only need to tap a couple of taps to send photos or videos, and tap even less when you are on the receiving end.
Shoot works best in local environments as you need to keep open the Shoot "send" interface to transfer files to other devices. While it may also work remotely with workarounds (taking screenshots of the QR code and sharing it online), it is designed for local environments and works best in those.
Is it worth the price? That depends entirely on how you plan to use it. If you transfer photos or videos regularly you may like what it has to offer, especially if you don't want those files to hit any third-party server on the Internet.
Shoot is not the first application to offer direct transfers of files between devices. Apps like SuperBeam for Android offer the functionality as well and are free, at least in basic versions.
How is this different from BitTorrent Sync?
@Zeno some people reading this article may be new users who don’t know what Bitorrent Sync is? Nor do they know what this one is. It’s called a review.
What boggles my mind is why The BitTorrent Team decided to create a completely new app that is aimed solely at smartphone users who want to share their photos via a secure peer-to-peer client when the company has an existent app that already provides the same basic sort of functionality.
Is there really a need for an app for such a specific purpose(?)
This app is similar to SuperBeam
that also generates a QR code and
by scanning it, files are shared
quickly over the same Wi-fi network
There are so many ways to share photos nowadays that I’m wondering if it’s relevant to make this as a paid app. Time will tell.
I love BitTorrent Shoot so much