Taildrop

Same. It’s labeled as alpha but I’ve had no issues, aside from the UI being a bit lacking. I usually just use it to send stuff to/from my phone easily. In that instance it’s kinda weird that the files just get dropped on my Desktop. But I’ve also used it a few times to transfer stuff to/from other devices.

There’s a lot of tools that fulfill “file transfer between random devices” but this one works great for me. Because I’ve got Tailscale everywhere already, I’ve also got file transfer everywhere too.

I've been using it since the initial announcement too. I filed one bug (on iOS after you send the file there was no way to close the send dialog) but otherwise it has worked well. I use it mainly to send images from my iPhone to my personal Linux desktop.

I'm hoping one day they will add some way on the Linux CLI to pick a file instead of just getting all the files at once. Or, dare to ask, a TUI file picker.

kdeconnect is overall buggy ash and i had to stop using it after a year. just not that reliable. taildrop has worked way better.

I agree, I have a few qualms with this app.

1. As you mentioned, kdeconnect is a much better use case as it offers more features without locking you down to a system.

2. It doesn't actually replace a USB drive. Most people I know e-mail files to themselves or host them somewhere online to be able to perform presentations, but they still carry a USB drive in case there are connectivity problems. This does not solve the connectivity issue.

3. It does not seem very "viral" or income-generating. I know this is premature at this point, but without charging users for the service, is it reasonable to expect to make money off of this?

Kdeconnect might be nice, but it’s not any use for people who don’t use Linux/Android.

One interesting issue is that as the number of devices rises, the effort required to pair them all together rises as O(n^2) rather than O(n). With Dropbox, you can add all your devices into an account and they'll all share a folder, but on Syncthing you have to add every device to every other device, unless you have a central server (here a laptop I never sleep), set it as an introducer on every other device, then by adding a new device to the server it gets pushed to all other devices connected to the server. KDE Connect, unlike Tailscale, has the O(n^2) problem if you want to pair every device with every other device. I'm not sure the best way out; KDE Connect shouldn't require a central authority like Tailscale's management servers, perhaps a LAN server, or an optional integration to publish keys on Tailscale and auto-pair with keys available there? But is it secure to allow one device to connect to your account and add its keys to all your networked machines? Then again Syncthing introducers already do that, but Syncthing doesn't offer remote code execution while KDE Connect can emulate a keyboard.

I’ve been using Tailscale and browsing media on network shares using native file sharing on macOS (SMB) through Infuse

I am using Tailscale + SMB on my mac and Infuse on my iPad. Works perfectly.

Being VC funded & having a serious marketing budget?

The TL;DR is there isn't much difference besides the protocol being used. Tailscale published their own comparison that seems pretty fair to both sides (they do this for a few other options as well) https://tailscale.com/compare/zerotier.

For two years I've been remote working from home on the PC located in office via Remote Desktop. While ZeroTier is still enabled as fallback solution to get access to work PC (as well as Chrome remote) Main workforce became Tailscale.

With Zerotier RD connection were not stable. Even using same ISP at home and at work don't help a lot. With Tailscale I've forgot about this kind of issues. It's just works.

Also now I'm constantly using Tailscale as a VPN on mobile devices.

Being built on top of wireguard is a plus - although it's a shame tailscale (for good/architectural reasons) doesn't support using standard/kernel mode wireguard.

ZeroTier is source-available - but invents a separate protocol, and so misses out on some shared scrutiny / feedback.

In my setups zero tier barely worked while Tailscale worked flawlessly.

Zerotier does not seem to work behind my University's firewall, which seems to be a CG-NAT, and bans UDP traffic. It gets stuck on connection. It seems to connect to a relay but it does not actually work. Tailscale works out of the box.

Plenty of ad hoc file sharing solutions roundtrip through a server.

With a P2P/mesh VPN solution this is pretty standard yes.

But with a traditional VPN it's not. If I transfer a file to a colleague when we're both in the same coffee shop and we're both connected to Global Protect (terrible traditional VPN) it will go all the way to the server and back.

So it's a value prop of the type of VPN. Not the transfer software per se.

No, syncthing is automatic and runs continuously.

Airdrop only works between Apple devices that are close together, while Taildrop works on many OSes over the Internet.

1. AirDrop is Apple OSes only.

2. AirDrop can be super flakey on typical enterprise wireless environments with client isolation enabled.

1. i can run this from my phone easily. using a terminal on a phone is a pain in the ass and increasingly more as android limits apps like termux.

2. tailscale handles key management. this is literally one of its big core competencies btw.

also when did every file copy thing become scp? like if it's not scp why would you expect them to mention it?

Or just nfs on a tail scale VPN ...

Hah, these dismissals remind me of the comment on Dropbox's initial Hacker News post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

> Now sysadmins and security have to deal with users randomly shooting files around between devices.

Only if the feature is enabled, it is disabled by default.

Wait a sysadmin can't turn off a ssh server? you might want to fire him very quickly if they can't handle that.

They have ACLs. You can use those. Then don't enable Taildrop on certain machines.

The enterprise option is nifty. I'm gonna use it for my next startup. I find it to be pretty freaking amazing. But if you're suggesting that having an open port on a secure connection is dangerous... well that's why you have a secure connection. So just use ACLs to restrict access to machines you shouldn't have access to. And you can do it by port. Is there something I'm missing?

> Now sysadmins and security have to deal with users randomly shooting files around between devices.

Well yeah if a user needs a file on their phone then that's the point of the app. Seems like a pretty conventional and valid use-case?

> zip your mortgage documents over to his cell phone to review them on the go?

If they’re using Tailscale they can already spin up a good old HTTP server over whatever open port and download from there, if said enterprise isn’t competent enough to configure proper access control.

The manager could already try emailing the files to herself and get fired for that. If she can set up Tailscale on her office PC, the sysadmins should be fired as well.

> They were on thin ice adding remote management (SSH) out of nowhere to what was supposed to be a VPN replacement. Now sysadmins and security have to deal with users randomly shooting files around between devices.

historical note: Taildrop pre-dates Tailscale SSH by more than a year, so if you had concerns about Taildrop's functionality, those were valid way before ssh functionality was enabled.

Both Taildrop and Tailscale SSH are disabled the moment any ACL but the default (which allows everything to access anything which is what no enterprise runs with) is configured because their ACL feature allows only access but no denial, so if something isn't listed explicitly, it's denied.

If you'd like to contact info@tailscale.com we can set up a time to talk.