Rating: 5

Version tested: 0.55.1

Description: AllPeers allows you to share files of any size with your friends individually or collectively. It employs a peer-to-peer technology very similar to bitorrent and currently comes as a Firefox extension, with an Internet Explorer extension in the pipeline.

Ever wanted to share files of any kind (pictures, videos, etc.) with a group of your friends. AllPeers allows you to do just that. What it does is essentially create a private torrent which you can share with your network of peers. Here’s how it works:

• Everyone in your network must download and install the Allpeers Firefox extension. There is an IE version planned if you do not want to use Firefox (if you want to download Firefox you can find a link at the bottom of this post).
• Clicking on the Allpeers icon in the toolbar will display the Allpeers sidebar. This is where you can see a list of your all people in your network. You can add files to share simply by dragging and dropping these files onto the sidebar.
• You can only share files with the people you know who are on your list. You can check the names of all the people whom you want to share with in order to do so all at once.
• Your files are not broadcast globally in the same way that torrent files usually are.
• Allpeers also features a real-time chat function. It is somewhat rudimentary compared to some IM messaging clients out there, but promises to be secure.
• Security: Allpeers is supposed to be secure for both file transfers and chats. To quote the Allpeers website “all communications are encrypted using industry standard SSL”.
  
• Downloads and uploads display a progress bar that you can use to keep track of these (when online).
• You can view/play shared files (videos, pics, music) straight from Firefox by clicking on them after they download.
• Both you and your recipient(s) have to be online in order for the file transfer to occur. If you need a file-transferring service that does not require this, you can use a program like Pando to email files (via a centralized server), or you can upload your files to an online service such as Mediafire or Divshare.

Here are some observations on my experience with this program:

• Firewalls: happily, I was able to share files even behind a stringent company firewall straight off the bat; no tweaking and or other interventions necessary.
• Reliability: while generally reliable, there were a number of instances where a friend of mine whom I was testing this with would share files that would not appear for downloading on my end. In another instance, a large file that had been downloading for hours disappeared entirely after a restart on both uploading/downloading ends. We were not entirely sure whether these glitches were caused by our connections or whether it was a glitch in the technology.
• Despite Allpeers’ nice clean interface, I found myself on more than one occasion clicking away aimlessly trying to figure out where I needed to be. Which is not to say that the UI is badly designed; rather, the browser integration takes a little bit of getting used to. I caught myself on several occasions wishing that this was a standalone program instead. I noticed that this suggestion was made by another person on the Allpeers forums (there was also something on the Allpeers site about designing this as a browser extension to provide an integrated browsing experience or somesuch; oh well).

Allpeers works well, provides secure transfers, and is free to boot. It is still in its early stages and I am guessing that any glitches will be ironed out in future releases. If you’ve been looking for a fast and easy way to share files securely with friends then you have found it.

Compatibility: WinAll, Linux, Mac.

Go to the download page to get the latest version (approx 7.5 megs). Also visit the program home page.