Projects using decentralized networking

There used to be a wonderful piece of decentralised, blockchain-like webware called ZeroNet.

It seems to be essentially dead in the water: still available, still operational, but its code hasn't been updated (on GitHub anyway) in over 5 years, and there aren't many users. It really only works when there are an abundance of users.

However, there are many other decentralised web-space technologies, so here I will list a few that I've recently discovered and am currently investigating.

We need a new paradigm for how to communicate through the web of the world.

We need to stop relying on internet providers and centralised server platforms, like Meta and Google and X (ex-Twitter, RIP Blue Bird) and all the rest.

List of interesting technologies to explore

• Reddit post I got some of these from: r/ZeroNet/ Is there any service/app similar to ZeroNet?

Pear Runtime

Pear Runtime is a modular JS stack for creating "unlimited P2P apps".

• website — https://pears.com/

• docs site — https://docs.pears.com/

• github site — https://github.com/holepunchto/pear

• npm-js — https://www.npmjs.com/package/pear

• google it — https://www.google.com/search?q=pear+runtime

EthSwarm

"Swarm completes the vision of consensual computation, decentralised infrastructure, and private messaging, powering open, serverless, and permissionless dapps."

• website — https://www.ethswarm.org/
• docs site — https://docs.ethswarm.org/docs/concepts/what-is-swarm
• github site — https://github.com/ethersphere/bee

IPFS — InterPlanetary File System

"IPFS is an open system to manage data without a central server."

Despite the seemingly humorous name, this is a legit platform that has served — and still does — in providing internet access to government-blocked sites. One major event was Turkey blocking Wikipedia in 2017, and IPFS was used to clone Wikipedia and provide un-blockable access to Turkish citizens for 3 years — the govt actually restored access in 2020.

• website — https://ipfs.tech/
• Ted Talk about IPFS — The next Internet Revolution | Juan Benet | TEDxSanFrancisco — YouTube

  • @10:35 : "The internet is supposed to be a force for equality, it's supposed to equalize access to information knowledge. It's the people who need it the most, that get the least benefit from it."

• Article explaining what they did with Wikipedia
• Distributed Wikipedia Mirror Project — https://github.com/ipfs/distributed-wikipedia-mirror

  • Wikipedia mirrors in: English, Turkish, Burmese (Myanmar), Arabic, Chinese, Ukranian, Russian, Farsi (Persian)

Nostr Apps

I haven't really worked out what this is all about yet, but it seems to be a fundamental communications protocol that is inherently uncensorable, and there are a whole slew of apps built using the nostr protocol.

Check out the apps hub website.

• app hub website — https://nostrapps.com/