Brave becomes first browser to add native support for the IPFS protocol

Brave

Brave users will now be able to seamlessly access ipfs:// links.

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.

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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.

Brave becomes first browser to add native support for the IPFS protocol

 

Brave browser takes step toward enabling a decentralized web

First browser to fully integrate the new IPFS protocol

By Jon Porter@JonPorty Jan 19, 2021, 12:00pm EST

Brave has just taken a step toward supporting a decentralized web by becoming the first browser to offer native integration with a peer-to-peer networking protocol that aims to fundamentally change how the internet works. The technology is called IPFS (which stands for InterPlanetary File System), a relatively obscure transport protocol that promises to improve on the dominant HTTP standard by making content faster to access and more resilient to failure and control.

This explainer from TechCrunch offers a good overview of how the protocol works. But here’s the short version: while HTTP is designed for browsers to access information on central servers, IPFS accesses it on a network of distributed nodes. Vice likens it to downloading content via BitTorrent, rather than from a central server. You type in a web address like normal, and the network is able to find the nodes storing the content you want.

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