Browser-Based P2P File Transfer With WebRTC
hey,
i created a browser-based tool for p2p file transfer where it doesnt use any backend for storage. instead, it relies on storage provided by the browser.
https://file.positive-intentions.com/
its still a work in progress, but id like to know your thoughts. it isnt open source, but its largely based off another project which does P2P messaging (its just called "chat"). my intentions with this new app, is that i will aim for this to be a B2B SaaS product, but until i set up login+subscription, its free-to-use. id love to get feedback on features you would find useful.
i have some documentation, but im also sure that it isnt very clear. so feel free to ask any questions about how it works.
the landing page is also largely based off the "chat" project. https://positive-intentions.com/docs/file . i will try to make more time to improve the landing page experience.
Selfhosted P2P File Transfer & Messaging PWA
App: https://chat.positive-intentions.com/
A p2p encrypted file transfer and messaging app. Here are some features below:
- Open Source
- Cross platform
- PWA
- iOS, Android, Desktop (self compile)
- App store, Play store (coming soon)
- Desktop
- Windows, Macos, Linux (self compile)
- run
index.htmlon any modern browser
- Decentralized
- Secure
- No cookies
- P2P encrypted
- No registration
- No installing
- Messaging
- Group Messaging (coming soon)
- Text Messaging
- Multimedia Messaging
- Screensharing (on desktop browsers)
- Offline Messaging (in research phase)
- File Transfer
- Video Calls
- Data Ownership
- Self Hosting
- GitHub pages Hosting
- Local-Only storage
Check it out!
- App: https://chat.positive-intentions.com/
- More info: https://positive-intentions.com/blog/introducing-decentralized-chat
- GitHub: https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat
Selfhosted P2P File Transfer & Messaging PWA
App: https://chat.positive-intentions.com/
A p2p encrypted file transfer and messaging app. Here are some features below:
- Open Source
- Cross platform
- PWA
- iOS, Android, Desktop (self compile)
- App store, Play store (coming soon)
- Desktop
- Windows, Macos, Linux (self compile)
- run
index.htmlon any modern browser
- Decentralized
- Secure
- No cookies
- P2P encrypted
- No registration
- No installing
- Messaging
- Group Messaging (coming soon)
- Text Messaging
- Multimedia Messaging
- Screensharing (on desktop browsers)
- Offline Messaging (in research phase)
- File Transfer
- Video Calls
- Data Ownership
- Self Hosting
- GitHub pages Hosting
- Local-Only storage
Check it out!
- App: https://chat.positive-intentions.com/
- More info: https://positive-intentions.com/blog/introducing-decentralized-chat
- GitHub: https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat
thanks for the tip. youre right i think i need to do more housekeeping there. i dont give it much attention, because as a solo project, id mostly just be doing it to myself with admin stuff.
i previsously made an attempt for things like issues, but it doesnt seem to have made any different and is just an additional overhead that im ignoring: https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat/issues
i used to pay more attention to it, but its only my time being wasted if nobody else is interested (thats fine... but it results in the amount of attention i give it. and i have a lot of things to do already when i dont have enough time for it)
thanks for your thoughts!
a scenario so that people who aren’t immediately familiar ‘get’ what it is you’re achieving
i think the ability to tell a story is important here and id like to put more time to learn how to frame it. its a very secure chat implementation from what i understand about what ive created. im keen to be challenged on if its the most secure chat app out there, but this typically seen as confrontational and seems to hurt public opnion of the project (and thus i dial it down).
here is an attempt to try explain it as "more secure than mainstream solutions": https://www.reddit.com/r/cryptography/comments/1evdby4/is_this_a_secure_messaging_app
while i think i have a point about the security implementation. im also aware that the project is not very user friendly and full of bugs which makes for a very unappealing product.
its worth noting, that im trying to communicate about the project to cybersecurity professionals at the moment to see if the theory hold up and i think it does. i iteratively improved the UI in an attempt to gain traction. as a webdeveloper i know that i can spend more time on the UI that everything else combined, but that wouldnt be a good use of my time compared to some under-the-hood changes for stability and fixes.
i took a brief look. this looks like a really good read! thanks for pointing me to it!
thanks! i'll make those changes when i can.
completely understandable conclusion.
it started off as a curiosity, but i think there is something to it. I’m aiming for something that looks and behaves like react, but without the overhead of the react tooling for transpiling.
im not trying to take a share of that market, i come across this solution as pf of the chat app project. id like to build up this ui framework well enough to rebuild the chat proct with it... the chat app is made with react and material UI. with this framework, i am aiming to create a more simplified version of the chat app where the "no need to transpile" is a feature for its transparency. perhaps it doesnt make sense right now without the ability to effectively demonstrate it.
thanks. i think then i should continue as im going and see where i end up.
thanks for you thoughts.
i previously didnt have the "unstable" warning. this results is people saying that i should make it more clear. i think the project is in its early enough stages for it to be sensible to include there. im already planning on breaking changes which could make things worse so this is something i hope make it clear to users about the status of the project. before i had that notice, i would get complains from people that the app is terrible and doesnt work (which was basically true because it still is a work in progress and full of bugs.). i added a bit of a polish on it so it leads people to think its a finished product.
im looking for contributors on the dim repo because there part things i would like to do (and tried), but reached the limits of what i understand. i can learn and figure it out if i pour more time into it, but i have already poured time into it. im hoping someone with relevent experience would want to help.
im hoping to get a following on lemmy, mastodon, reddit in order to get traction on the projects. as it stand its just me and so its a bit of an uphill to get traction on something like the chat project. what you might be interpreting as ego, is a mannerism i have to adopt if i want to actively promote it as being a "secure chat system". otherwise, feedback is a lot more dismissive about the project. that would surely sink the project immidiately.
im a developer not a sales person... but since working on these project ive learnt to moderate how cautious my tone should be to balance the communication of technical details as well as promoting something. i dont think i do the best job of it, but im still in the learning process.
ive tried several variations in how to communicate about it.
with blog link/with repo link/with a mix
https://programming.dev/post/21417457
it seems my projects are well recieved, but i guess it just isnt interesting for the minority of developers that would consider contributing. i also dont explicitly ask for contribution. this post this the first time im doing that to see what it could yield.
https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat https://github.com/positive-intentions/dim
i dont think my documentation is as clear as it could be, but i dont think its unclear: https://positive-intentions.com/blog/dim-functional-webcomponents
i think i have put efforts towards a good landing page, readme, documentation etc. id appriciate if you critique those.
thanks. maybe i havent reached the point at which people are using my projects enough for them to to improve a part of it.
thanks for the tips.
i typically mention the git repo's involved.
i'll give it a go with something like contribution welcome. my projects are on github and i think i have something setup for issues tracking.
i suspect my projects might be a bit complicated and so unappealing to a random contributor.
its further described by this previous post: https://programming.dev/post/23381812 ... to put it simply, its a javascript UI framework.
i have another project https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat ... but that project is very complicated. too complicated for me to easily explain how it works.
How do i ask for contributors to my open source projects?
id like to ask if there is some guideline/advice for asking for open source contributions.
initially i thought i could just have open source code, documentation and communicate about it, but that doesnt seem to work for gaining contributors.
maybe there is something else im overlooking?
contributors would be using their own valuable time and effort so it could just be that my projects are not interesting enough. it might be worth concluding that i should proceed on this solo.
Thanks for input. I think it could still work without js-painting given that it's using the customElement.define().
I'm aiming for something that looks and behaves like react, but without the overhead of the react tooling for transpiling.
Functional Webcomponents
I'm working on creating something I can call "functional web components".
I'm creating a JavaScript UI framework for my own projects. It's a learning journey and I'd like to share my progress.
I've written some blog posts about my progress so far:
- Functional Web Components - https://positive-intentions.com/blog/dim-functional-webcomponents
- Functional Todo App - https://positive-intentions.com/blog/dim-todo-list
- Async State Management - https://positive-intentions.com/blog/async-state-management
- Bottom-up Browser Storage - https://positive-intentions.com/blog/bottom-up-storage
Note: The UI framework is far from finished. I want to share progress to see if there are any outstanding issues I'm overlooking.
Bottom-up Javascript Storage Management
I'm working on creating something I can call "functional web components".
i wanted to see if we can create asynchronous bottom-up state management, we have the basics to put together a state management system. State management solutions in apps typically have ways to persist data.
I wanted to explore if there are any benefits to define and manage state in webcomponents with a bottom-up approach. I wanted to see if it could give a greater flexibility in developing a UI and not having to worry about persisted storage management.
https://positive-intentions.com/blog/bottom-up-storage
javascript encrypted persistance
im working on a javascript UI framework for personal projects and im trying to create something like a React-hook that handles "encrypted at rest".
the react-hook is described in more detail here. id like to extend its functionality to have encrypted persistant data. my approach is the following and it would be great if you could follow along and let me know if im doing something wrong. all advice is apprciated.
im using indexedDB to store the data. i created some basic functionality to automatically persist and rehydrate data. im now investigating password-encrypting the data with javascript using the browser cryptography api.
i have a PR here you can test out on codespaces or clone, but tldr: i encrypt before saving and decrypt when loading. this seems to be working as expected. i will also encrypt/decrypt the event listeners im using and this should keep it safe from anything like browser extensions from listening to events.
the password is something the user will have to put in themselves at part of some init() process. i havent created an input for this yet, so its hardcoded. this is then used to encrypt/decrypt the data.
i would persist the unencrypted salt to indexedDB because this is then used to generate the key.
i think i am almost done with this functionality, but id like advice on anything ive overlooked or things too keep-in-mind. id like to make the storage as secure as possible.
Is metaverse in a browser possible?
Created to investigate metaverse-like capabilities of a browser.
Introducing decentralized P2P video calls in virtual reality on a browser. Check out the demo here:
https://positive-intentions.com/blog/p2p-video-calls-in-virtual-reality
Async Javascript State Management
I'm working on creating something I can call "functional web components".
Creating QR Codes with Javascript to use as a Data Channel
Explore the new "File Sharing by QR Code" feature in our decentralized chat app. Learn how we use JavaScript-based QR technology for offline data exchange and the innovative potential of this experimental approach.
https://positive-intentions.com/blog/qr-codes-as-a%20data-channel
QR Codes as a Data Channel
the demo in the blog article is a bit cluncky. here is a better link for it: https://chat.positive-intentions.com/#/qr
thanks!
when i started, the attempt was to try to create this functionality without using any dependencies (including Lit). the Lit html function is well done and makes things very convenient for handling things like the lifecycle methods and caching states.
i would like to revisit that attempt, but i found that Lit does it very well and for me to create something from scratch would take much more consideration and i expect i would overlook some nuanced detail. i'll see what i can make of it in future changes.
while im sure Lit users could benefit from this, as for contributing to the Lit ecosystem, im not really sure what steps to take for this. similarly, React 19 also introduces "support" for web components.
no. it isnt better or more stable than React. its all an experimental proof-of-concept.
its an idea im trying out. i thought maybe others might find it interesting.
im aiming to see if i can get something that looks and behaves like React, but works natively in a browser without the need to build or transpile. i think in theory it could work.
React-Like Functional Web Components
I'm working on creating something I can call "functional web components".
Functional Web Components
https://positive-intentions.com/blog/dim-todo-list
Github: https://github.com/positive-intentions/dim
Demo: https://dim.positive-intentions.com
Am i using Google Keyword planner correctly?
ive only just discovered google keyword planner (GKP), but i dont know about blogging in general. for my "intro blog", GKP suggest the words to use as seen in this GKP export.
im making an attempt to integrate some of those suggestions in my blog. this is what i have so far.
am i doing this right? as for picking the words, im not sure what column i should filter/sort by to choose the words that get me the most clicks to my blog?
the page in questions is this: https://positive-intentions.com/blog/introducing-decentralized-chat
How to create functional webcomponents
https://positive-intentions.com/blog/dim-functional-webcomponents/
im investigating an idea i have about functional webcomponents after some experience with Lit.
Lit is a nice lightweight UI framework, but i didnt like that it was using class-based components.
Vue has a nice approach but i like working with the syntax that React used and i wondered if with webcomponents i could create a functional UI framework that didnt need to be transpiled.
i think the article is already quite long, so i think i will create a separate one as a tutorial for it.
note: im not trying to push "yet another ui framework", this is an investigation to see what is possible. this article is intended as educational.
I created a blog for my app. Roast my blog.
https://positive-intentions.com/blog
https://www.reddit.com/r/positive/_intentions/
i normally use reddit for what people normally do with a blog. this is because i dont know enough to drive traffic to my site. i recently created a Docusaurus blog for my app and id like to see more traffic go there when i set up ads. the amount of traffic i have right now is barely anything (about 30 per day), compared to the number of "views on reddit".
i regurgitated old reddit posts into articles. im not much of a writer and im sure the content can be improved to "flow better".
i created some images on my phone... i justify it as "it matches the theme"... its actually the best i can do without using some AI or an actual artist.
id like to set up some kind of ads on it when its looks like its in a better state and i can attract traffic.
let me know what you think i could/should do to make it better.
I created a blog for my app. Roast my blog.
https://positive-intentions.com/blog
https://www.reddit.com/r/positive\_intentions/
i normally use reddit for what people normally do with a blog. this is because i dont know enough to drive traffic to my site. i recently created a Docusaurus blog for my app and id like to see more traffic go there when i set up ads. the amount of traffic i have right now is barely anything (about 30 per day), compared to the number of "views on reddit".
i regurgitated old reddit posts into articles. im not much of a writer and im sure the content can be improved to "flow better".
i created some images on my phone... i justify it as "it matches the theme"... its actually the best i can do without using some AI or an actual artist.
id like to set up some kind of ads on it when its looks like its in a better state and i can attract traffic.
let me know what you think i could/should do to make it better.
P2P Messaging and State Management: Todo List Demo.
P2P framework. Contribute to positive-intentions/p2p development by creating an account on GitHub.
a decentralized P2P todo list app to to demo the P2P framework used in the chat app.
https://github.com/positive-intentions/chat
It is a wrapper around peerjs. peerjs is good, but it can become complicated to use on bigger projects. This implementation is an attempt to create something like a framework/guideline for decentralized messaging and state management.
https://positive-intentions.github.io/p2p/?path=/story/demo-todo-list--basic
how it works:
- crypto-random ids are generated and used to connect to peerjs-server (to broker a webrtc connection)
- peer1 shares this ID to another browser/tab/person (use the storybook props)
- peers are then automatically connected.
- add todo item
- edit todo item
There are several things here to improve like:
- general cleanup throughout (its early stage for this project and missing all the nice things like good-code and unit-tests)
- adding extra encryption keys for messages comming in and going out (webrtc mandates encryption already)
- handling message callbacks
- key rotation
POC: Decentralized Chat
chat.positive-intentions.com
github.com/positive-intentions/chat
I'm excited to share with you an instant messaging application I've been working on that might interest you. This is a chat app designed to work within your browser, with a focus on browser-based security and decentralization.
What makes this app unique is that it doesn't rely on messaging servers to function. Instead, it works based on your browser's javascript capabilities.
Here are some features of the app:
- Encrypted messaging: Your messages are encrypted, making them more secure.
- File sharing: Easily share files using WebRTC technology and QR codes.
- Voice and video calls: Connect with others through voice and video calls.
- Shared virtual space: Explore a shared mixed-reality space.
- Image board: Browse and share images in a scrollable format.
Your security is a top priority. Here's how the app keeps you safe:
- Decentralized authentication: No central server is required for login, making it harder for anyone to gain unauthorized access.
- Unique IDs: Your ID is cryptographically random, adding an extra layer of security.
- End-to-end encryption: Your messages are encrypted from your device to the recipient's device, ensuring only you and the recipient can read them.
- Local data storage: Your data is stored only on your device, not on any external servers.
- Self-hostable: You have the option to host the app on your own server if you prefer.
A decentralized infrastructure has many unique challenges and this is a unique approach. Ive taken previous feedback and made updates. Its important to note, the app is an unstable proof-of-concept and a work-in-progress. Its important to understand at this early stage in the project, there will be breaking changes. It is not ready to replace any existing apps or services. While the app is aiming to be an encrypted and secure chat system, the project is not mature enough to have been reviewed by security professionals and should not be considered encrypted or secure. it is provided for testing/review/feedback purposes.
Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!