Speer is a fast, privacy focused and open source communication app for various use cases. It is built with peer-to-peer web technologies, which allows it to perform better in many aspects then other similar softwares. Speer can help you to make audio and video calls, to send as big files as you want or just to chat with someone.
Try and use it at https://speer.fun.
- Speer was built with privacy in mind. All of the data sent to a friend is encrypted and none of it will go trough or be saved on servers. The data you send is only your and your partners buisness.
- Speer is lightweight, your device is less likely to slow down during calls than while using other screen-sharing solutions. And if it does, you can customize Speer to suit your needs even better.
- Speer is cross platform. It can be used on any OS which supports modern browsers. Yes it even works on mobile! You can install Speer from the browser with a single click to unlock even more features.
- Speer is free and open source (FOSS). How would you trust a software that it doesn't spy on your data, when no one can see its internal workings? You shouldn't and luckily you don't have to. Speer's code is visible for everyone and you can use it for free!
Have you ever wanted to watch a movie with someone who is phisicly at an other place? Well, with Speer you can. Here is why:
- In Speer you can share your screen in Full HD and later maybe in even higher resolutions.
- You can share your system audio as well.
- On Windows and Chrome OS you can share every sound on the system.
- If you are using Linux or Mac OS you can only share the sound of a Chrome tab, but you can open your movies with the browser.
- While watching the video you can still talk in the same app.
Using the in-call settings you can change the resolution and the frame rate of the stream you send to your partner just like the microphone or video input device. This makes it possible to adjust your stream to the current network conditions.
Of course you can use Speer for regular microphone and webcam calls.
The messages sent or received dissappear after logging out as they are not stored on a server. This functionality is not meant to be an everyday chat (at least for now), but a way to communicate during a call or to chat in a very private way.
Sending files in Speer is as easy as in other apps, but you have no size limitation. The data is not collected in your RAM memory but written directly to your hard drive. File sending speeds are good, but it is something I want to work on even more, so contributions in this regard are espacially welcomed!
On Android if Speer is installed as a PWA you can share files trough Speer directly from your phones share dialog.
Speer sends the bytes of a file in order, making it possible to watch a video/movie wich you are receiving already while it is being downloaded, if your OS supports this (only tested on Linux).
Please don't forget that just like messages, files can not be redownloaded from the app. They dissappear right after being downloaded the first time.
As mentioned before, Speer connects you to your partner directly leaving out servers from the data-flow. But this also means that you can't talk with someone who is not online. To overcome this problem, one can register its devices to receive push notifications. If you want to talk to someone who has notification devices configured but is not online, you can "ping" (send a short message to) them to let them know that you want to talk to them.
Note: Push notifications will be stored on third-party servers (like Google), but will be encrypted.
If Speer makes your everydays easier and/or you like the project, please consider buying me a tea at buymeacoffee.com (caffeine makes me sick :/).
The basic functionlities are supported in all major desktop browsers, but some others are not. To get every feature and the fastest speeds use Chrome for now. Here are some of the known issues:
- Push notifications are not supported in Safari
- System audio sharing is only supported in Chrome
- File sending in Firefox and Safari is only possible with a PonyFill which affects the performance a bit
- File sending from the clipboard does not work in Firefox
Most mobile browsers are also supported on Android. The only feature not working is screen sharing as that is not implemented by mobile browsers currently. IOS users are sadly handicapped by Safari and can only use Speer to send and receive messages and files. If someone can help making Speer working on IOS, I would be very grateful.
This project is still in development and although it is fairly stable you might encounter problems. I take no responsibility for any damage caused by Speer.
First of all: many thanks if you are planning to invest your time into making Speer better! Every contribution is welcomed. If you don't know what these instructions below mean, just open an issue with your idea.
Speer on the frontend is using Nuxt.js (a Vue.js framework) and on the backend Actix Web and MongoDB. Both the front and backend is handled in this single repository to make things easier.
Don't be afraid if you haven't used Rust before. Speer is a frontend heavy application so mostly you won't have to touch the Rust side of things, and if you do Rust is a great language and I am happy to help, just create an issue.
Before you can run the project you will have to install the dependencies of the frontend with: npm install. The backends dependencies will be installed automatically when you start it the first time.
To start the project just execute the following commands from the root of the repository:
npm run dev - starts the frontend, it will be accessible at http://localhost:9000
npm run server- starts the backend (also whatches for changes in the 'backend/src' folder)
- The project uses Node.js (v.14 or higher) install it easiliy with nvm
- The project uses Rust (v.1.59.0 or higher) install it easiliy with rustup
- The database is MongoDB, so you need to have a MongoDB server running at the default port.
You will also have to create some config files:
SPEER_COOKIE_SECRET=secret
SPEER_CONFIRM_SECRET=secret
SPEER_MAILJET_PUBLIC=api_public_key
SPEER_MAILJET_SECRET=api_private_key
SPEER_ADMIN_EMAIL=admin@something.com
These values can be anything for testing, except if you want to test out email sending. In this case you need an account at mailjet and use the provided keys.
This file is only needed if you want to test push notifications. It can be generated by following the steps provided by the web-push crate. If you do test this funcionality, you also need to replace the corresponding public key in the file frontend/components/popUp/profile.vue (line 100), start the frontend with npm run generate && npm run start instead of npm run dev and the backend with npm run prod-server instead of npm run server.
If you fail to build the rust code for the server you can also build it using docker. For this you can execute the npm run docker-build command in the root directory of the project. This will download the official Rust image for docker and build the server in release mode. When the command finishes you can run the server binary which is located in the default place 'backend/target/release/speer'.
Without the following libraries this project would not exist, so thank you:
- Vue.js - for the superb frontend framework
- Nuxt.js - for making Vue.js even better
- simple-peer - for providing a solid base for the p2p communications
- streamsaver - for making it possible to save huge files until browsers implement the The File System Access API
- Actix Web - for making a really enjoyable and fast web-server
- Serde - for simplyfying every Rust programmers life
Speer - A free and open source communication app
Copyright (C) 2021 Horváth Bálint
This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see https://www.gnu.org/licenses/.