Previously when I’ve used https://share.ipfs.io/ to send files to friends and family neither side required an IPFS node to be running. When I’ve tried using it today it wants a node on the sender’s side, but also claims to need the browser to remain open to transfer the files.
Is this expected behaviour?
share.ipfs.io does not require a node running other than what it runs itself by keeping the page open.
Why do you say it needs a local node?
Hmm, looks like I should have taken a screenshot, as it’s working fine now!
When I opened it about half an hour ago the panel on the right hand side was telling me what CORS configuration to change instead of letting me choose which files to upload. Looking in the F12 tools said it was trying to find a node on (from memory) /ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/5001
It all looks to be working fine now, so maybe something was being weird with my browser 
Thanks for the quick response though
Hey @MatthewSteeples - thanks for flagging this. We made some substantial improvements to share.ipfs.io across the board about a month ago, but as a result we’ve seen a few instances of rather aggressive caching for folks who used the site in the recent past. Looks like your reload took care of the caching though 
As @hector mentions, you don’t need a local node, but you do need to leave the page open until your recipient gets the files (because the page itself is running a js-ipfs node). You might also want to check out the recently updated repo readme for the share.ipfs project if you’re interested in digging a little deeper.