Why and how I made "Flash", the file-transfer app?

December 27, 2025

Have you ever heard of "Flash"? Or even, have you ever wondered how "Flash" was created?

"Flash" is a web based file-transfer app that can transfer any file without logging into other websites.

The process of creating "Flash" started with a real problem: transferring files onto a smartboard. Usually, people would use WhatsApp Web, which required either a constant presence of your private WhatsApp groups on the smartboard or a log in each time a file was going to be transferred. This took time and I was confident that I could shorten it.

Another options is just using an e-mail address. Even though this works fine, not all smartboards (or computers for that matter) would have an active e-mail address associated with them that was open all the time. I wanted to simplify that part as well.

That's where "Flash" came in. Initially got its name from a flash drive, Flash was initially going to be a personal Google Drive-like storage website, just for me. After initially thinking about the idea, I decided it was a no-go because of the storage related burdens. Then it hit me. I introduced myself to the world of WebSockets and Socket.io, which made it possible to create a live interaction between multiple "clients". This live interaction model was the start of the project Flash.

Since I didn't know much about either WebSockets or Socket.io, I decided to investigate which one's better and which one's better to use in my project. I love to overcomplicate and build the infrastructure myself, therefore I thought WebSocket was going to be better for me, but since I didn't trust in myself to edge a technology I didn't know much about, I decided to use Socket.io.

After trying the connections of Socket.io (sending many messages, which is still possible with Flash), I started introducing the file-transfer aspect to Flash. The initial version was fine, but it was only limited to 50 MB files, max (because of Socket.io's understandable limitations). Therefore, it wasn't really useful for large files of any kind. The initial model of "connections" was also not the best, as it was built on "connection codes" and "clients" in which a "client" would create a connection which other clients would join. It was easy for me, but it wasn't easy or convenient for anybody else.

Therefore; after gathering feedback over time and improving it over months, I finally am confident in Flash to be a real solution for easy file-transfers that doesn't require an account (although you can still log in) and that doesn't require an app. It now allows any files with any size to be transferred with a sender-receiver model, which is much easier to understand and use.

Haven't used it? Go to flash.alprys.com to use it today!