For anyone who wishes a decentralized website is in our immediate future – anyone who has, for example, recently observed the measurable forms in which great technological oligarchs play an active role in shaping our democracy, perhaps. There is good news: on Tuesday, Brave privacy-focused browser has released an update that makes it the first to appear peer-to-peer protocol for hosting web content.
Known as IPFS, which means InterPlanetary File System, the protocol allows users to load content from a decentralized network of distributed nodes instead of a centralized one server. It is a new and widely announced technology that could eventually supplant the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) which dominates our current Internet infrastructure.
“We are delighted to be the first browser to offer native IPFS integration with the current version of the Brave desktop browser,” said Brian Bondy, CTO and co-founder of Brave. “The integration of the IPFS open source network is a key milestone in making the web more transparent, decentralized and resilient.”
The new protocol promises several inherent advantages over HTTP, with faster web speeds, reduced costs for publishers and a much lower possibility government censorship between them.
“Today, web users around the world cannot access restricted content, including, for example, parts of Wikipedia in Thailand, more than 100,000 blocked websites in Turkey, and critical access to COVID-19 information in the China, ”said the IPFS project leader Said Molly Mackinlay Engadget. “Now anyone with an Internet connection can access this critical information via IPFS in the Brave browser.”
G / O Media may receive a commission
In a send an email to Vice, The founder of the IPFS, Juan Benet, said he was concerned that the internet had become centralized as it has done, leaving open the possibility that it could “Disappear at any time, dropping all data or at least breaking all links.”
“Instead,” he continued, “We are pushing for a fully distributed website, where applications do not live on centralized servers, but run across the entire network from users’ computers … a website where content can be moved through any intermediary without trust without giving up control of the data, or putting it at risk “.
After the invasion of the Chapters on January 6 by a right-wing mafia, a there has been a fierce debate between publishers and platforms about what types of content should be allowed to see the light of day. IPFS would, in part, democratize the Internet through fighting control of the hands of a few, that is, decisions like these a permanently muzzle President Donald Trump on Twitter yank parler of your hosting service would be so much more difficult to do unilaterally in the future.
VBrave version 1.19 is available for download starting today.