Being able to send large files from one computer to another has been a problem without a perfect solution for a while. The prevalence of broadband did not solve the problem but only made it more noticeable. For smaller files, you can send them as an attachment. For larger files, you can involve a third party like Dropbox or a file sharing locker to upload the file and send your target a link to the file. Even that can be tedious and make you wary of the third party’s security. When the issue was recently brought up in a thread of a forum I frequent, the group seemed to have decided that setting up an FTP server on your computer and giving the target the credentials to access it was the best solution available at the time.
BitTorrent has a different idea. The company introduced BitTorrent Sync. It is now available in Alpha to everybody.
Whereas third party file sync services have capacities to monitor (or pay if you need to go over), BitTorrent is unlimited. It takes advantage of the P2P protocol and can send large files between devices and automatically sync folders with other people. BitTorrent Sync also includes built-in security with encrypted transfers and files protected by a secret you can share to only the individuals you want.
BitTorrent Sync has been in pre-Alpha with 20 thousand people. Now it’s in Alpha and available to the public.
The BitTorrent Sync client works with Windows (XP SP3 and newer), Mac (10.6 and newer), and a variety of Linux builds for computers and NAS boxes. Once you have it installed, it only takes a little bit of configuring to designate if you want to share any folders and the options to go along with it. You can read up on that under the Get Started section.
If peers are behind strict firewalls, P2P traffic might be restricted. To get around that, BitTorrent provides an optional proxy relay between peers that you can opt out of if you would like.
This sounds like a great solution to wanting to send large files to other people without getting third party servers involved. You still have the bandwidth cap with your ISP to keep in mind but this could actually reduce some traffic over those other approaches. As the product moves from Alpha to Beta and general release, hopefully it can become even more user-friendly to open peer-to-peer up again to the masses.
You can learn more about the technology behind BitTorrent Sync and download the client at http://labs.bittorrent.com/experiments/sync.html or through their FAQ on the BitTorrent forums.