FAQ

Peer to peer communication means the communication flows directly between two devices rather than via an intermediate server. This means your data will not be stored somewhere else before it reaches its destination. ToffeeShare achieves this via WebRTC, a relatively new communication API used in modern browsers. Under the hood of WebRTC is a protocol called STUN.



As the image above illustrates this also allows for a much higher transfer speed. Simply because you completely skip the whole upload to a server

What might be interesting to know is that ToffeeShare initially started out as a native application, running our own proprietary version of the STUN protocol. When we discovered this had also become possible within the browser we decided to focus on that first. We might still launch the native version in the near future, but this is currently not a priority. Feel free to contact us about it, so we can give you a demo.

Tldr;
Expect maximum transfer speeds of between 10 and 100 Mbit per second.
Keep in mind that you doing both the 'uploading' and downloading at the same time, so this also saves a lot of time.

What determines the maximum transfer speed?
The maximum transfer speed is determined by the upload speed of the sender or download speed of the receiver, whichever is slower. There also seems to be a maximum speed of around 100Mbit/s on average although we've also seen speeds of up to 300Mbit/s in rare cases.

There are countless variables that may negatively influence the speed:

- A network that blocks direct peer-to-peer connections
- Busy Wi-Fi networks or bad Wi-Fi connections
- Excessive firewalls in corporate settings
- Slow devices may even have trouble with the end-to-end encryption algorithm

How can I increase the transfer speed?
- If possible make sure both devices are connected to the same network
- Make sure you have a stable Wi-Fi connection that is not too busy
- Use a cabled internet connection for at least one of the devices
- Sometimes by simply restarting the transfer, the algorithm may find a shorter path

You cannot directly send folders with ToffeeShare. This is because we'll have to create a zip file or other sort of archive in transit, which will make the peer-to-peer transfer much slower.

However:
It's quite easy to make a zip file yourself. Please see our blog post explaining how to create and send a zip file

This could mean two things:

Your trying to download the files using a browser such as Safari
In Safari we have to load the file entirely into memory which causes the transfer to fail if the file is too big. We advice you to use a browser such as Firefox or Chrome instead, where the files are streamed directly to your disk.

Your downloading a file from our mobile app
This is a known issue for some mobile devices. Some version of Android simply close the app if it's active for too long of a period in the background. A simple fix is to keep the app open in the foreground for large files. We know this is not ideal and we are still looking for a better solution!

Ok we get this question too often, really..

--> We don't store anything! <--

We say this all over the website, we even put a flashing notification when you start sharing files, but still people keep emailing us asking this. Did you accidentally stop sharing before the receiver finished downloading, and did you somehow manage to lose the files? Sorry, but tough luck. You should always make sure you keep a backup of files that are important.

So for how long will the files be available?
As long as you keep your browser tab open and don't shutdown your PC basically till the end of time. If you accidentally put your PC or laptop to sleep the transfer should automatically become available again after a 5 to 10 seconds.

ToffeeShare has been tested on many different networks, but we can't guarantee that it will work everywhere. If the progress bar is stuck at 0% it usually means a connection cannot be made. When sharing from a mobile phone you could try to switch from a mobile network to WiFi. If it feels like something is not working as it should please send us a message.

To be able to download large files, we start downloading straight to your computer using the built in browser file downloader. This process however sporadically fails to kick in, meaning the file is downloading, but not being saved. What usually helps is to just restart the transfer, you should see a message appear as if you're downloading a general file from a website. If this however keeps happening, please contact us, because it means something else might be wrong.

For the best performance we advice you to use either Firefox or Chrome. Here's a list of the most common web browsers and how well ToffeeShare supports them

Mozilla Firefox - official website
✔️ Peer to peer communication
✔️ Fallback support
✔️ No file size limit
✔️ Thoroughly tested with every update


Google Chrome - official website
✔️ Peer to peer communication
✔️ Fallback support
✔️ No file size limit
✔️ Thoroughly tested with every update


Microsoft Edge - official website
✔️ Peer to peer communication (from version 79 and up)
✔️ Fallback support
✔️ No file size limit
❌ ( Thoroughly tested with every update (Tested every now and then)


Safari - official website
✔️ Peer to peer communication
✔️ Fallback support
❌ No file size limit (browser misses required implementation, limit tested to be around 4GB)
❌ Thoroughly tested with every update (Tested only with big updates)


Internet explorer
Basically the entire website does not work. Please avoid using this browser, it is a serious security concern.

The list will be updated once we start testing on more browsers. To have a peek if ToffeeShare works on other browsers we would like to point to this handy website]. If WebRTC is supported in your browser according to this page it should work. If not, please let us know so we can fix it!