Infinit speeds up video, photo sharing via smartphones

French company Infinit has released Android and iOS applications for free file-sharing that promise improved transmission speeds over cloud-based services.

High-resolution smartphone cameras that can shoot 4K videos means that such a service is needed on mobile devices, Infinit said in a blog post on Tuesday. There are already apps for Mac OS and Windows.

All the apps are free and there is no limit on file sizes or types that can be transferred. There are two ways to share files. Recipients who have the one of the apps installed get a notification they have to accept. It’s also possible to share content with users who don’t have the apps; they get a link to download it from via email.

The company’s peer-to-peer technology doesn’t require app users to wait for files to upload before they are shared. Transfers are only paused if the network connection dies or the smartphone is turned off. Privacy is improved because there are no central servers and the files are encrypted end to end, the company said.

Speeds are at least two times faster than any other product, and up to 30 times faster if both sender and recipient are connected to the same Wi-Fi network, Infinit said.

A quick test shared a 320MB video file between an HTC One M9 and a MacBook Air in about 3 minutes, via an LTE and an ethernet LAN. Just uploading the same file to Google Drive via LTE took about 25 minutes, so Infinit seems to be able to back up its performance promises.