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Brave Becomes First Browser To Add Native Support For the IPFS Protocol (zdnet.com) 61

Posted by msmash from the moving-forward dept.
With the release of Brave 1.19 today, Brave has become the first major browser maker to support IPFS, a peer-to-peer protocol meant for accessing decentralized or censored content. From a report: Released in 2015, IPFS stands for InterPlanetary File System. It is a classic peer-to-peer protocol similar to BitTorrent and designed to work as a decentralized storage system. IPFS allows users to host content distributed across hundreds or thousands of systems, which can be public IPFS gateways or private IPFS nodes. Users who want to access any of this content must enter an URL in the form of ipfs://{content_hash_ID}. Under normal circumstances, users would download this content from the nearest nodes or gateways rather than a central server. However, this only works if users have installed an IPFS desktop app or a browser extension.

Brave says that with version 1.19, users will be able to access URLs that start with ipfs://, directly from the browser, with no extension needed, and that Brave will natively support ipfs:// links going forward. Since some major websites like Wikipedia have IPFS versions, users in oppressive countries can now use Brave's new IPFS support to go around national firewalls and access content that might be blocked inside their country for political reasons and is available via IPFS.
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Brave Becomes First Browser To Add Native Support For the IPFS Protocol More

Brave Becomes First Browser To Add Native Support For the IPFS Protocol

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  • If the protocol is intended to support behavior that's otherwise controlled, blocking should be trivial. It will only be reliable within an intranet, where other methods to share files already exist.

  • Slashdot never fails. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by nightflameauto ( 6607976 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @04:43PM (#60965498)

    For years we've seen post after post saying, "we need a decentralized internet!"

    Someone provides a decentralized protocol and all the responses are, "HOW DO WE KILL IT FIRE! MUST NOT ALLOW!"

    Never change, Slashdot. Always rational.

    • The parasites are finally getting that revolution they have been gunning for for the last 50 years. Unfortunately, now that they have found out theyâ(TM)re going to be on the business end of it, they are no longer so crazy about the idea.

    • The autism is strong here. Like the story about Covid patients requiring additional hospital visits and a higher death rate. Slashdot answer: Well they could all just be old!

    • Re:Slashdot never fails. (Score:4, Informative)

      by Xylantiel ( 177496 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @06:17PM (#60965912)
      Sorry but you are just making things up. As I write this there are 30 comments, which is not very many, and the ones that are even close to what you claim are ones pointing out that it is easily blocked and won't work, not that it is inherently bad. Your post is just more evidence that slashdot is infected with trolls either paid or volunteering to push a certain agenda with stupid rhetorical tricks like your strawman regardless of the actual content. Well you and the other dozen or so variants on the same theme of trying to pretend there are a bunch of voices rising up against this when they just don't exist.

  • We can't have this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gabrieltss ( 64078 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @05:25PM (#60965660)
    This will actually ALLOW people FREEDOM OF SPEECH. This just can not be tolerated. I can hear the crazies screaming this now.

    Actually the best thing to do is go back to BBS's and Ham Radio for communication. hard to control that by the big tech monopolies who try and tell us what is allowed as freedom of speech.

    I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

    - Evelyn Beatrice Hall

    • Ham Radio

      Amateur radio is NOT about communication. It is about furthering the art of Radio Sciences and "international goodwill".

      That communication happens is actually secondary to the stated purpose.

      You aren't permitted to have many kinds of discussion over licensed amateur bands and the licensing bodies do occasionally issue infringement notices for crossing the line.

      Gun toting nut bags have popped up in amateur radio forums lately proposing that getting licensed is a great way to get the gubbermint out of your sp

      • Ham Radio

        Amateur radio is NOT about communication. It is about furthering the art of Radio Sciences and "international goodwill".

        That communication happens is actually secondary to the stated purpose.

        You aren't permitted to have many kinds of discussion over licensed amateur bands and the licensing bodies do occasionally issue infringement notices for crossing the line.

        Gun toting nut bags have popped up in amateur radio forums lately proposing that getting licensed is a great way to get the gubbermint out of your speech. Oh, the irony. Get a license from the gubbermint to use a band which requires you transmit your gubbermint issued ID code regularly.

        You apparently aren't a ham in the US. Hang out on 80 meters AM or SSB some time. Plenty of political nuts already there. Always has been.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      IPFS isn't going to help sites like Parler if that's what you were thinking. It's only good for fairly static content and you still need a server somewhere.

      It will be tolerated because all it's good for is posting static pages and doesn't provide any anonymity so it's not hard to find out who is behind them, or who is accessing them. If Wikipedia is blocked in your country then IPFS isn't safe, you should use Tor to access it.

  • Like... maybe, HERE. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by roc97007 ( 608802 )

    "users in oppressive countries can now use Brave's new IPFS support to go around national firewalls and access content that might be blocked inside their country for political reasons"

    Like, maybe, the US?

    • Users in oppresive countries have to chance installing the browser - assuming they can get that far along without being detected. I tend to be a little sceptical when the geek claims to have outwitted the police state.

  • FTP, Bittorrent and 9P?

    Also, anyone remember when Opera contained both a web server / file server for easy sharing, and a BitTorrent client?

  • And not a OS one.

    Oh wait! The browser maker tech cargo culters think browsers are operatimg systems again, aren't they?!

  • InterPlanetary? (Score:4, Funny)

    by jeromef ( 2726837 ) on Tuesday January 19, 2021 @06:30PM (#60965962)
    That's a bit short-sighted if you ask me. We definitely need InterGalactic.

  • Something tells me that this is not going to be fast.

  • Source: https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs [github.com]

    An alpha quality protocol implemented natively in a production web browser. Nothing could possibly go wrong here.

  • Asking for a friend...

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chrnb ( 243739 )

      Nope, seems it doesn't work in China.

      Only tried one wikipedia mirror though, but seems all ipfs is blocked here.

  • Excellent. But If anyone intercepts your IPFS URL's, then you are providing them with exact information on what content you are requesting. So trying this in an oppressed country might be a VERY bad mistake. You will absolutely need a privacy preserving layer!

  • more than one page here, "only on your system"...

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