{"id":486393,"date":"2023-04-03T11:22:14","date_gmt":"2023-04-03T09:22:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=486393"},"modified":"2023-04-03T12:18:46","modified_gmt":"2023-04-03T10:18:46","slug":"google-launches-airdrop-rival-on-windows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/486393-google-launches-airdrop-rival-on-windows.html","title":{"rendered":"Google launches AirDrop rival on Windows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google has launched a beta of its Nearby Share app<\/strong><\/a> for Windows, allowing users of the PC operating system to quickly send files between their computers and Android smartphones or tablets.<\/p>\n

Nearby Share was first launched on Android phones and Chromebooks in 2020.<\/p>\n

It uses a combination of Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and mobile data to transmit data directly between devices at a much faster speed than Bluetooth alone.<\/p>\n

Unlike apps like Wetransfer, Dropbox, and Google’s Drive service, Nearby Share allows sending files without consuming data.<\/p>\n

The beta is open to users in most countries with a Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC and can be downloaded from the Android.com website<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Once installed, users can share their files by dragging and dropping them into the app or by right-clicking on them and selecting “Send with Nearby Share”.<\/p>\n

For added convenience, Nearby Share can be set to run in the background so that you don’t have to open the app every time.<\/p>\n

Files will also be accepted automatically as long as the user is logged into their Google account on both devices, even if the recipient’s screen is turned off.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Illustration of file being sent from Android smartphone to Windows PC using the Nearby Share app<\/p><\/div>\n

Nearby Share is Google’s very late rival for Apple AirDrop, which was first launched in 2011.<\/p>\n

AirDrop allows Apple users to quickly and easily send files between their iPhones, iPads, and Macs.<\/p>\n

Before Nearby Share’s launch on Windows, users of Microsoft’s operating system would have required a Samsung device to benefit from faster file-sharing speeds through Samsung’s proprietary Quick Share feature.<\/p>\n

But Quick Share has not been as fast as AirDrop.<\/p>\n

Testing by In Depth Tech Reviews<\/strong><\/a> found that Quick Share could send a 1GB file between two smartphones in just over 31 seconds, while Nearby Share took between 18 to 20 seconds, similar to AirDrop speeds.<\/p>\n

Nearby Share also comes with more options to save data by using Wi-Fi-only or No Internet modes.<\/p>\n

An early tester of the Nearby Share beta<\/strong><\/a> has found that sending files from a Windows 11 PC to his Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra achieved 25 megabytes per second transfer speeds \u2014 slightly slower than In Depth Tech Reviews’ previous results.<\/p>\n

However, the tester complained that the reverse operation \u2014 sending from Android to Windows \u2014 performed poorly, achieving a maximum of 150kbps.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Google to launch AI-powered features for Gmail and Workspace apps<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google has launched Nearby Share for Windows PCs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341042,"featured_media":486411,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,16],"tags":[605,85315,13427,167,85313,807],"class_list":["post-486393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gadgets","category-software","tag-apple","tag-apple-airdrop","tag-file-sharing","tag-google","tag-google-nearby-share","tag-windows"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486393"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341042"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486393"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":486421,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486393\/revisions\/486421"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}