IPFS / Decentralized web / Web3 / DApps / Urbit / Internet computer

What do you think about these fledgling web technologies? I initially dismissed and ignored Web3 stuff as yet another crypto hype fad, but some of the technologies that fall under its umbrella are truly impressive and promising, with applications that go far beyond speculating in NFTs. A decentralized, distributed internet is beginning to emerge. It could become dominated by corpos and surveillance, or it could be liberating. IPFS is a distributed, content-addressed filesystem. You can use it: > to host a website > for storage > for pub/sub messaging > as a database > as torrent-style file sharing (libgen uses it now) > ... Some IPFS-related sources: https://ipfs.tech/ https://docs.ipfs.tech/concepts/what-is-ipfs/ https://teetotality.blog/posts/why-ipfs/ https://github.com/orbitdb While IPFS goes beyond simple file storage, it's not general-purpose computing. Urbit and The Internet Computer seem to be going more in that direction: https://urbit.org/ https://internetcomputer.org/ However, I haven't gone very far in learning about or using them.

>>64656 Also, one thing I've thought is that anons currently using neocities or hosting for their blogs and pages ( >>63471 >>61306 ) could easily switch over to putting their pages on IPFS and IPNS for fully free hosting.

ipfs is a cool idea but badly implemented and terrifically slow. Not sure they can fix it without basically redoing the whole shebang. urbits somewhat interesting and they keep trying to hype it but it feels like its becomming a big thing has been just around the corner since I heard about it years ago. Seems like a lot of the good programmers have left (not all) and most of the remaining folk are cryptbros who just recently thought nfts were the wave of the future. havent heard of internet computer, website is a peice of soykaf but maybe Ill look it over in a bit

>>64658 >ipfs is a cool idea but badly implemented and terrifically slow Are you sure about this? I understand it's a work in development and all, but I have streamed HD movies off of IPFS, and some of the blogs I've found on it load instantly. Connection establishment is often the slowest part in my experience, since you have to traverse the DHT. Then how fast your download is should just depend solely on the speed of your peers, just like a torrent. Sometimes you get a lot of good seeders, sometimes you don't.

>>64658 What's badly implemented about ipfs? The go implementation used to have huge performance but that was like 5 years ago, in the current year I've never had problems downloading stuff from ipfs or running an ipfs node.

>>64661 Eg, here's The Big Lebowski: https://bafybeigyz3d6i6dpwfgdsvrwdoxxh7vuy7zl35c2ceoab2jipnmzzkvrhe.ipfs.dweb.link/The.Big.Lebowski.mp4 It loads really fast, even skipping around in the file

>>64656 Is there IPFS guide for noobs? Also, is IPFS secure and does it expose my IP (or other info) if I use it to download something? Can I run it anonymously?

>>64664 >Is there IPFS guide for noobs? read OP's links >is IPFS secure define "secure" >does it expose my IP (or other info) if I use it to download something? yes >Can I run it anonymously? Theoretically, but it is not designed for anonymity or to be used through anonymity networks like Tor.

>>64664 When running IPFS, I typically take the same precautions I do when torrenting, IE, I turn on my VPN.

Do you really think in a world where citizens of "free democratic" countries have to pay for a "seedbox" to download torrents there is place for personally hosted distributed data systems? >It could become dominated by corpos It already is >and surveillance It does not depend on corpos, an open network is surveillable by default, grow up.

When I tried it, I remember that finding the id of specific things you uploaded or downloaded was a pain in the ass, and the most easy workaround was uploading it again. Unless you used the web-interface, which for some incomprehensible reason, is disconnected from what you do on the command line. So quality of life isn't great. The only thing it has over torrents is cutting out the need for trackers. It doesn't offer any privacy and you can only host static sites on it. I'd say it's a dead end and doesn't excel in any use-case.

I run an IPFS full node and regularly have 600 peers connected. Any site using IPFS as a CDN replacement loads instantly, like insanely fast, as if it's already local. IPFS is wonderful. The only downside is not being built into browsers by default.

People talk about IPFS a lot, but what about Bittorrent v2? Design-wise, one could argue the latter is better from a KISS standpoint yet you don't hear much about stuff built with it. Is it just a rust-zig kind of thing?

>>64669 >It already is In what sense? >an open network is surveillable by default, grow up. No need to be rude. You can encrypt things that you put on IPFS, and some of the other decentralized web projects have encryption built in. >>64672 >you can only host static sites on it Not true. You can use IPNS and pub sub for dynamic content, though it isn't the usual model. https://docs.ipfs.tech/concepts/ipns/ https://github.com/ipfs/kubo/blob/master/core/commands/pubsub.go#L23 There's a reddit clone running on IPFS I can't find anymore. That said, it is a storage system. It's meant to be used in concert with other distributed systems.

>urbit i've always thought it was weird that there's a community for a thing moldbug made. does that affect the culture for it at all?

>>64695 no it doesnt affect it at all who even is this mold bug sounds gross surely you dont expect me to eat moldy bugs of all things for heavens sake

>>64695 Apparently modern Urbit is the result of a total overhaul after Moldbug left the project.

I just want to see a platform where terabytes of content could be uploaded anonymously and permanently and be easily discoverable by any random user. Even if hosting prices doubled vs IPFS that'd still usher a hell of a piracy renaissance.

>>64664 Think of IPFS like torrenting. You are basically shouting to a crowd what file you want to download, and the crowd gets together to give you each piece of the file you asked them for. By default people know who you are and what you're downloading so you will need a VPN so that people don't know who you are.

i like ipfs but i don't have any interesting stuff i can host on it except for copyrighted media.

>>64700 If you're interested in permanance when it comes to data, look into Arweave. I haven't tried it myself, but from what I've heard, it should work well enough. Prices are absolutely skyhigh though,

>>64839 Oof, only if I was rich enough to dump six figures into this, not to mention it's only as permanent as the service remains valuable to hold just as with any crypto. It would be nice if I could just buy 3x what I want to store in hard drives and keep one's own data contingent on online availability (down for over a month = equal of your data deleted).

>>64692 >That said, it is a storage system. I would rather use something that doesn't have janky, second-class features that are billed as selling points. If your goal is to host a website with dynamic content, especially when its user generated, a centralized server, is the simplest, most efficient way of doing it.

Fediverse is web3 according to some people, because it uses a decentralized identity system. https://fediverse.party/en/fediverse/

>>64658 >>64695 >>64699 Does anyone have any deep knowledge of Urbit? It seems like a really good concept, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around it. I'd love to read your thoughts.

>>64658 >ipfs is a cool idea but badly implemented and terrifically slow As others have pointed out, the go implementation Kubo isn't so bad anymore, but I'd also like to link this for y'all: https://iroh.computer/ Iroh's a supposedly better-performing-and-much-lighter implementation of IPFS. I haven't given it a go yet, but it seems like it's in a fairly usable state, judging by the docs (?)

>>65428 I forgot to mention another nice project worth taking a look at, Berty (https://berty.tech). The whole idea is to make a chat platform using IPFS (pubsub + encryption + CRDTs). It's coming along, and the organization has done good work on several libraries so far. They've been doing a lot of work getting IPFS usable on mobile, for instance.

Trash in my experience for reason of >install the thing >sit there with IPFS ability >uuuuuh what now? No links, plainly bad confused UI, counterintuitive, empty, meh.

>>64656 How can I find movies, series, animes and music on IPFS?

>>64658 I used to work for dfinity (the internet computer company) the is legit tech is cool, but the made it super centralized and over marketed and over hyped everything. The exection environment is nive, its based on wasm actors with orthogonal perstance

lol, years back someone here, I mean lainchan, tried to get a private lainchan-network going there was even a guide about how to do the thing it was a cool thing but I found it just when it was about to die

>>65821 I meant private ipfs network the coolest thing about it, is that it was ultra fast

How does IPFS, Freenet, Blockstack, dat, and Zeronet compare in performance potential and degree of compatibility with anonymization?

>>65838 >IPFS It can be fast. As for anonymity, it's similar to BitTorrent. >i2p >Freenet Both are anonymous but also slow and they don't have enough users. >Zeronet Faster than Freenet but it can leak your identity with JS. Tor/Tor Browser is better (But I think i2p and Freenet are even better if they had more users).

>>64656 abolutely no one is sharing ipfs hashes (aside from that old video) or indexes of hashes makes me think that ipfs supporters here are not really using it

>>65861 Is there an "open host" like 0x0 or whatever where I can upload some files to ipfs without hosting them myself?

I came across a new decentralized web host called Riza. Anyone try this yet? >>65847 You can use Tor with ZeroNet though but I don't know how much it's speed would suffer. Apparently there is a fork called ZeroNetX written in Rust. Not sure if that solves the JS leak issue you mentioned or not. Is IPFS compatible with Tor or would that slow it down bad too? I thought I2P wasnt a decentralized web host like Freenet is?

>>65861 >abolutely no one is sharing ipfs hashes Do you *want* us to share hashes in this thread? If you ask nicely, I bet I or some of the other posters can scrounge some up. >>65867 https://www.pinata.cloud/ https://fleek.co/ Here are two that I know of, although you need to register to use them. I don't have any experience with them because I just have my own IPFS node, so I don't know if they're any good or not. >>65868 >Apparently there is a fork called ZeroNetX written in Rust. ZeroNetX (https://github.com/ZeroNetX/ZeroNet) is written in Python, not Rust. https://github.com/zolagonano/awesome-zeronet#rust There are two unfinished ZeroNet implementations in Rust, but unless you like >Note: This project is not completed yet then I don't recommend either of them. >I came across a new decentralized web host called Riza. Anyone try this yet? https://notabug.org/caryoscelus/riza >This repository does not have any content yet. https://github.com/riza-committee/riza >This repository is empty. Uh... nobody's tried Riza, lainon, because there's literally no code in the repo. If you mean a different Riza, then please specify.

>>65868 >I thought I2P wasnt a decentralized web host like Freenet is? Freenet started as a fork of i2p, that might be why he is confused. >Is IPFS compatible with Tor No. From my understanding IPFS uses UDP which Tor can't do. There were plans to add a TCP based, hidden service to hidden service extension to IPFS. But then Tor nodes would be cut off from the rest of the IPFS network unless someone volunteers to run nodes that are both Tor and clearnet to bridge the two worlds. (The same problem i2p has with bittorrent) https://github.com/ipfs/notes/issues/37 >You can use Tor with ZeroNet though The thing you have to watch out for with zeronet is that it automatically seeds every website you visit. Tor can decouple your real identify from your browsing history, but your browsing history is still 100% public.

I hope there are efforts out there to integrate these sort of technologies into meshnets to make it available to people who can't afford internet,are more rural areas, access during power outages or just to opt out of ISP surveillance without losing much. It could help prevent web 3.0 from being dominated by corporations. >>65883 >ZeroNetX is written in Python, not Rust. Oh thanks for correcting that false info I came across then. >Rust forks incomplete Darn >empty Riza repository My bad. I assumed too much on progress of it. >>65887 >Freenet started as a fork of i2p, that might be why he is confused. Probably. >There were plans to add a TCP based, hidden service to hidden service extension to IPFS. >But then Tor nodes would be cut off from the rest of the IPFS network unless someone volunteers to run nodes that are both Tor and clearnet to bridge the two worlds. >The same problem i2p has with bittorrent I see. Gets frustrating finding solutions. >ZeroNet automatically seeds That does seem like a big problem for anyone who were to wind up wandering somewhere where it would be illegal to seed the contents. At least you can remove site data after at least. >Tor can decouple your real identify from your browsing history, but your browsing history is still 100% public. True and I feel like using Tor draws unwanted attention to users

>>65436 Couldn't we use IPFS pretty effectively on imageboards? Like if half the people on here have IPFS installed, we could all just post IPFS links as a second layer of file uploading to Lainchan. Eg, here's Stafford Beer's "Brain of the firm" (I'm not going to run IPFS all night): https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmTLa2ktS4UfDyvg1pGwngDUxsRJ9NKkvex8itXE5wfmM4?filename=The%20Brain%20of%20the%20Firm.pdf Only problem, of course, is feds could come here and post illegal content IDs.

>>65821 IMO the problem was that it was private

>>64656 there's a project called upspin that provides global namespaces for files which can me mounted and pretty much accessed from anywhere with a network connection. https://upspin.io/ i setup my own upspin server on GCP one time and it was a little laborious but i just hate server admin stuffs. if you don't want to use GCP you can also upload to Google Drive, AWS, etc. or just your own local machine.

>tfw proof of work means one specific well defined thing and there is no other proof of X >only 90s users know this feel

>>65967 >Only problem, of course, is feds could come here and post illegal content IDs. I'm not an expert on IPFS, but it seems like that isn't that much different than just uploading illegal content directly? I guess that it might be incriminating for mods to reach out to that asset to check if it is illegal content, but they could use a VPS.

>>66609 >When did you last… >make a file public just to share it with one person? >accidentally make something visible to the wrong people? ... >Choose the second option to deploy your servers to the Google Cloud Platform

>>66609 I dont think of myself as hating renee pike but holy cow thats an ugly thinggy she drew for those guys.

>>66964 you mean renee french? never heard of her. I don't actually hate it i think

>>65887 >>65897 >Freenet started as a fork of i2p, that might be why he is confused. I2P is a fork of Freenet. Freenet was made in 2000 while I2P was made in 2003. https://geti2p.net/en/docs/how/intro https://freenetproject.org/pages/about.html >"I2P initially began in Feb 2003 as a proposed modification to Freenet to allow it to use alternate transports..."

ipfs is actual garbage MVP code made by a bunch of lamer neckbeard dweebs the only thing in your list with hope is urbit, which is probably a bunch of security-clueless boohmers, but at least its trying something new. it may be like academic projects which provide new good ideas but are total soykaf, so it could have some value that way.

>>67254 not an ipfs fan but urbit is has negative "hope", you know?

IPFS as a concept in general is quite interesting. I hope to see it grow, but it's unfortunate how it's associated with cryptocurrency and NFT brainrot.

>>67236 freenet is also working on new cool soundling locutus, check it out if you're ok with rustlang.

>>68121 why would i not be "okay" with rust? im not okay with C im not okay with PHP. im not okay with Java. im not okay with any industrial soykaf for brains PL. that includes rust. i dont need a trigger warning for it. if im going to look at any software project ever im prepared to see the exact same braindead bullshit over and over as they did in t he 90s.