Re:Mega was second: The first client-encrypted file sharing ...
by saurik on Sunday January 20, 2013 @01:47PM
(#5087700)
Over a year ago, it was a safe bet that users had Flash installed (more than today are likely to have a "modern browser"). Flash can read files directly with, AFAIK, arbitrary complexity and was specifically popular to build improved file upload widgets (such as Facebook's photo importer tool). This concept thereby doesn't really "rely" on the File API (so one could easily imagine there having been someone doing exactly this many years ago, not that "first" is really relevant anyway ;P).
In the case of Wuala, they actually were totally available via web browsers [1]; they used Java, however, instead of Flash, as seemingly their desktop client was already written in Java, so this was convenient. (Additionally, Java came pre-installed on most systems, albeit Windows shipped with the ancient 1.1 version, of course, due to that lawsuit.) You can find presentations from 2009 discussing the technical issues that went into this [2].
This method did, of course, involve getting pulled out of the web browser, but AFAIK that was not a technical requirement of Java for this purpose. (They claim in the presentation that a "Web App", even with Flash, wasn't capable of client-side encryption, which doesn't make much sense to me; maybe they just didn't want to implement the encryption algorithm? I also do not see them considering embedding the Applet into the website as opposed to just using it to launch their external app, but again: convenience to their existing codebase is likely a strong factor.)
In the case of Wuala, they actually were totally available via web browsers [1]; they used Java, however, instead of Flash, as seemingly their desktop client was already written in Java, so this was convenient. (Additionally, Java came pre-installed on most systems, albeit Windows shipped with the ancient 1.1 version, of course, due to that lawsuit.) You can find presentations from 2009 discussing the technical issues that went into this [2].
[1]: http://www.wuala.com/en/launch/
[2]: http://jazoon.com/portals/0/Content/ArchivWebsite/jazoon.com...
This method did, of course, involve getting pulled out of the web browser, but AFAIK that was not a technical requirement of Java for this purpose. (They claim in the presentation that a "Web App", even with Flash, wasn't capable of client-side encryption, which doesn't make much sense to me; maybe they just didn't want to implement the encryption algorithm? I also do not see them considering embedding the Applet into the website as opposed to just using it to launch their external app, but again: convenience to their existing codebase is likely a strong factor.)