Pixeldrain is a project which I started working on during the lunch breaks at school around 6 years ago. Originally it was intended as a screenshotting tool for Linux. Eventually I realized I had more fun working on the backend than the desktop app, so I abandoned the app and opened up the site for all file types instead of just images. Both the backend and frontend are optimized to be as fast as I can possibly make it.<p>Recently I also responded to a question on HN asking about tech stacks, you can find that one here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28300657" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28300657</a>. Following the success of that post I thought I should show my project to everyone on HN.
I'm curious what was the biggest difficulty you encountered when building this?<p>If I had to guess I would imagine it to be the economics behind finding suitable hosting providers and pricing rather than something purely technical, but having never built anything like it this could be completely off-base. Maybe moderation of user content will become the big one.
Nice project. I like the text file and hotlinking features! Unfortunately supporting hotlinking makes end-to-end encryption impossible. Also, the inclusion of third-party tracker/ad scripts and the discussion of possibly adding “more shady ads” is concerning.<p>For an E2EE alternative with no third party scripts, see <a href="https://wormhole.app" rel="nofollow">https://wormhole.app</a> (Disclosure: I built this)
I discovered PixelDrain when I was involved in open source distributed storage projects in 2015-2017. Glad to see it still going strong!<p>Are you still using any kind of decentralized storage technology on the backend?
I can't reach the page, possibly due to HN's hug of death.<p>An archived version of a non-functional version of the home page is here though: <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210911035325/https://pixeldrain.com/" rel="nofollow">https://web.archive.org/web/20210911035325/https://pixeldrai...</a>