Freenet

[Q]

Freenet is free software which lets you anonymously share files, browse and publish "freesites" (web sites accessible only through Freenet) and chat on forums, without fear of censorship. Freenet is decentralised to make it less vulnerable to attack, and if used in "darknet" mode, where users only connect to their friends, is very difficult to detect. http://freenetproject.org/

It is ideal for places like Iran, China and more of those great places...

So yeah, while I know about this project for years now, it was never really usable (read: extremely slow, difficult to use). I gave this another try with the 0.7.5 release and this is surely a great leap forwards.

Now, to improve your security you can add friends' connections as your primary nodes to which you connect to freenet with. If you have 10 or more you can feasibly switch over to darknet mode without losing too much speed.

So yeah, are there other freenet users here? (do not share your node information here, as that obviously compromises your anonymity!)

[yuon]

I've known about it for a number of years. However, I've never seen a real required use for my purposes.

Added to that, I've hardly ever in recent years had a decent always on connection that was under my control.

In the end you get, Freenet, a damn good idea, and I really want it to succeed, work, be fast etc., but right now I'm now using it.

*shrug*

:closedeyes:

[Q]

And the purpose of your post was...? Just a rant?

If you care about anonymity, then freenet is something to care about for your use. Of course, given the rather few people using freenet, the content is also low, so that can be an effective blockade against using it for all your stuff. But there is little stopping you in using both freenet and the normal www. Indeed, the barrier only got lower.

[Ovi]

The Tor Onion Router (http://www.torproject.org/) seems a better way to combat censorship to me. You can surf the regular web as well as the 'hidden' web, where both the clients and servers are anonymous.

[Q]

The Tor Onion Router (http://www.torproject.org/) seems a better way to combat censorship to me. You can surf the regular web as well as the 'hidden' web, where both the clients and servers are anonymous.
TOR has its own advantages and drawbacks. TOR is a good addition to Freenet for anonymity uses.

[yuon]

And the purpose of your post was...? Just a rant?
I didn't think it was a rant. I was just commenting that I really like the idea of Freenet, but don't happen to use it.

One of the reasons for this is that, as I understand it (and I could well be wrong), it wouldn't work properly for me. It wouldn't work because I don't really have a constant, always on, Internet connection under my control.

I'm often moving about, on dial up and so on.

In this situation, I'm not sure Freenet would work, because if it stored stuff on my computer, it wouldn't be able to get it off again. :confused:

I just looked through the website and found this:

Do I need a permanent connection to run a node?
No, but it is preferred. You can run the software and test it from a "transient" connection (such as provided by typical modem/ISP setups), but for the network as a whole to be most useful, we will need as many permanent nodes as possible (most cable modem or DSL setups are sufficiently "permanent" for this). A later version of Freenet may take better advantage of transient nodes.


*shrug* :blink:

So, yeah, I guess I would be able to access content, but it wouldn't be so useful to store stuff.

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Ovi_1, I would suggest looking at http://freenetproject.org/faq.html#attack for some of the differences between TOR and Freenet.

[Ovi]

Ovi_1, I would suggest looking at http://freenetproject.org/faq.html#attack for some of the differences between TOR and Freenet.
I already know the differences. The point is that tor is more suited at anonymous communications since there are exit nodes which allow communication with the outside world using any tcp based protocol.