[HN Gopher] IPFS Support in Brave
___________________________________________________________________
IPFS Support in Brave
Author : alexrustic
Score : 393 points
Date : 2021-01-19 18:37 UTC (4 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (brave.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (brave.com)
| WClayFerguson wrote:
| For those interested in IPFS and the Fediverse or just a new Web
| Platform in general you can check out my little toy project here:
|
| https://quanta.wiki
|
| Click "Feed Tab" at the top once inside the app, to meet some
| other Fedizens.
| erichocean wrote:
| Does Brave support Puppeteer?
| jonathansampson wrote:
| I believe the answer is yes. Should you run into any issues,
| please do let us know.
| traverseda wrote:
| Does IPFS actually work?
| jonathansampson wrote:
| It does :) Download Brave and navigate to the following URL for
| a quick demo:
|
| ipfs://bafybeiemxf5abjwjbikoz4mc3a3dla6ual3jsgpdr4cjr3oz3evfyav
| hwq/wiki/Vincent_van_Gogh.html
| traverseda wrote:
| In my experience IPFS is only fast when you're using it
| through something like Cloudflare's IPFS proxy (which is
| basically a caching proxy). I haven't found IPFS to be
| actually usable any time I've tried running a node myself.
| Especially pinning anything beyond the most trivial of
| examples.
|
| Hoping to be proven wrong though.
| dsabanin wrote:
| For what it's worth, I'm going to give it a try. We need to fight
| the Internet centralization and censorship that will inevitably
| come with it all throughout the world.
| osgovernment wrote:
| Note that IPFS has had a browser extension for quite some time
| for IPFS support. This inclusion is mostly akin to bundling a
| browser extension. While it is great to see it included by
| default, it really isn't a great reason to switch browsers unless
| you have other reasons:
|
| https://github.com/ipfs-shipyard/ipfs-companion
| needz wrote:
| Neat. Still can't make the switch until they have an equivalent
| to Firefox containers.
| jerf wrote:
| I have the Sessionbox extension for Chrome running in Brave,
| and it's broadly similar. It is not identical and I do not
| promise it'll meet your needs, especially if you define your
| needs as "exactly the same way it works in Firefox", but it's
| worth a try.
|
| But it's doing what I want it to do, have multiple AWS accounts
| open at once in one browser.
| 0df8dkdf wrote:
| just use the chrom profile it is same as containers in firefox.
| jonathansampson wrote:
| You can run multiple profiles in parallel in Brave, and we
| don't allow cookies to bleed over into other domains anyway.
| That's the default behavior. It would be great to have tabs
| from different profiles in a single window, but that isn't
| presently supported. Our work is not yet complete!
| generalizations wrote:
| In my use case, I keep multiple containerized tabs pinned
| with each of my (numerous, for work etc) email accounts. If
| Brave is able to support that (and tree style tabs), I'd
| switch in a heartbeat.
|
| Would love to try out the new stuff, but I depend on
| containers and tree tabs.
| DenseComet wrote:
| Its not just about having tabs from different profiles in a
| single window. Firefox containers allows things like
| automatically opening a specific site in a certain container.
| It allows for extensions such as the Facebook Container and
| Temporary Containers. There's a huge amount of functionality
| it provides.
| mahalel wrote:
| I agree. As someone who works with numerous customer
| environments this extension is critical for my
| productivity. Having a different profile (ie Chrome style)
| is nowhere close.
|
| If the container re-ordering patch[0] would be implemented
| it would be perfect, but it seems to be stuck in limbo.
|
| If Brave implemented this and did it right (with sorting &
| reordering) I would consider switching.
|
| [0] https://github.com/mozilla/multi-account-
| containers/pull/160...
| gnud wrote:
| > Firefox containers allows things like automatically
| opening a specific site in a certain container.
|
| I use this a bit. But the configuration GUI (provided by an
| extension) is soooo bad. So I only use it for about 10% of
| the sites I _ought_ to use it for.
|
| I wish Firefox would work on these features, instead of for
| example messing around with the address bar on every other
| release.
| mind_half_full wrote:
| +1
| warlord1 wrote:
| Cue the guy with nebulous claims that IPFS going mainstream will
| lead to "white supremacy" and "alt-right" ideas in 3... 2... 1...
| adkadskhj wrote:
| Can anyone compare Brave to Beaker Browser? I've long been
| interested in Dat vs IPFS, so i'm curious how their browser
| counterparts behave.
|
| I suppose right off the bat, Brave is a "normal" browser - so it
| just supports +1 protocol. That's really cool.
| alexrustic wrote:
| See also ZDNet article about this:
|
| _Brave becomes first browser to add native support for the IPFS
| protocol_
|
| https://www.zdnet.com/article/brave-becomes-first-browser-to...
| fwip wrote:
| I've got a quibble with the headline - it might be the biggest
| browser to have native IPFS support, but some tiny browsers got
| there first.
| [deleted]
| iampims wrote:
| Is it possible to configure the http gateway?
| agilob wrote:
| Mozilla promised us Tor integration, IPFS integration and more
| private browsing by default. Brave delivered it all.
| erichocean wrote:
| Maybe they shouldn't have let go the guy who made it happen...
| christophilus wrote:
| I missed this. What is the backstory?
| drak0n1c wrote:
| The founder of Brave was the CTO of Mozilla.
| zrm wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brendan_Eich
| Reedx wrote:
| Mozilla seems to be moving in the other direction now.
|
| "We need more than deplatforming"
|
| https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-than-d...
| aarpmcgee wrote:
| My sense is that this blog post is objectionable to you but I
| can't quite figure out why.
| nvr219 wrote:
| What's that supposed to mean or have to do with this topic at
| all
| mikece wrote:
| Does Brave have an implementation of Multi-Account Containers?
| This is the ONE killer feature in Firefox that makes it
| impossible for me to leave for Brave completely:
|
| https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
| max_ wrote:
| The first time I actually leant how to use this I was like
| wow.
|
| It was the only reason why I left chrome for firefox
| jonathansampson wrote:
| Not a 1-to-1 parity at this time, but Brave offers parallel
| profiles. You can have one running personal interests, while
| the other has professional interests. Each profile is able to
| host a unique session for Facebook, etc. Brave already
| prohibits cookie and data bleed-over from one domain to
| another.
| mikece wrote:
| That creates a new window per Profile as opposed to just
| one window with a bunch of tabs, all conceivably in using
| their own Container, right?
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| > Brave already prohibits cookie and data bleed-over from
| one domain to another.
|
| Is that similar to First Party Isolation in Firefox?
| jonathansampson wrote:
| I suspect so, but don't know the details of FPI in
| Firefox. We don't permit cookies and storage access by
| third-parties, while also blocking known bad-actors
| entirely. We also "farble" APIs to create noise for those
| who do have access. If there are any specific scenarios
| or questions you have in mind, I'd be happy to discuss
| further.
| joombaga wrote:
| Would Brave's parallel profiles allow me to be signed in
| to 2 different AWS accounts?
|
| I've tried this in Multi-Account Containers for Firefox
| and SessionBox in Chrome, and they're both pretty buggy,
| e.g. the console's username menu indicates I'm in account
| "A", but I'm seeing resources listed from account "B", or
| EC2 will work fine but clicking over to ECS prompt me to
| sign in again.
| minitoar wrote:
| I'm not terribly familiar with all the features that Multi-
| Account Containers offer. Does SessionBox for Chrome not meet
| your needs for some specific reason?
| tarruda wrote:
| It is easier for Brave to deliver new features when the biggest
| work is done by Chrome team.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I don't quite follow, are you saying Mozilla's structure is
| poor so making modifications is harder? Or perhaps that
| Chrome's developers did the work on IPFS and adding Tor and
| that you feel Brave rubber stamped them?
|
| Mozilla has something like a $200M pa income (from Google
| alone). I wonder how that compares with Brave's income.
| Legion wrote:
| I think the person's point is that Mozilla is making a
| complete browser, rendering engine and all, while Brave is
| basically a shell of stuff on top of Chromium/Blink.
| caycep wrote:
| I kind of wonder how many Mozilla developers/engineers jumped
| ship to Brave over the years?
| jonathansampson wrote:
| We have quite a few engineers whose roots lie within, or have
| passed through, Mozilla. We even have several engineers and
| team members who pioneered much of the Web at Netscape and
| prior :)
| jonathansampson wrote:
| And we will continue to deliver :)
|
| Thank you for the support!
| dleslie wrote:
| I've been using Firefox since its inception, and was a
| Netscape user before that. I _briefly_ tried Chrome, but
| swiftly returned to Firefox.
|
| Half my extensions are still broken on Firefox Android. I've
| been using Firefox desktop on my PinePhone off-and-on and not
| only do all of my extensions work, but it's snappy and has a
| superior UX. I can actually access and manage my bookmarks
| with a sane interface.
|
| And yet even desktop is sullied. Each major version tries to
| hide my bookmarks, or something equally egregious, and
| Mozilla frequently abuses my trust by promoting products and
| services through privileged channels.
|
| It's getting hard to justify using Firefox.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| I don't know anything about IPFS and would like to know more.
|
| When I visit an HTTPS URL I see content and some authenticity (of
| the server, at least) tied with the transport mechanism.
|
| IPFS provides the content and a distributed transport. Does the
| protocol include authentication of the author? Is it up to the
| content author to include their own signature protocol outside of
| IPFS?
| hecturchi wrote:
| IPFS has a mechanism called IPNS where any /ipns/author-hash
| can resolve to /ipfs/hash and the ipns record is signed and can
| only be provided by that signer/author.
|
| But this is just another way of authenticating the "author".
| You can also use dns (if you can trust it), or you can use
| signed content, or you can get the ipfs hash through a channel
| you trust.
|
| The main idea though, is that IPFS content is authenticated by
| default because it is referenced by its own hash. The problem
| on obtaining a hash you can trust is just a layer above and
| solvable in multiple ways, as needed.
| pier25 wrote:
| So essentially this is P2P between browser caches?
| elwell wrote:
| > If you choose to use a local node, Brave will automatically
| download go-ipfs as a component and will route future traffic
| through this node.
|
| That's nice. I was worried it was just going to be centralized
| somewhere at a different level.
| musingsole wrote:
| Tried Brave in the past. I liked it fine but didn't have a
| practical reason for it. Now I do and will be switching promptly.
| jonathansampson wrote:
| Welcome back, MusingSole. We missed you :)
| JBiserkov wrote:
| See also the Beaker peer-to-peer web browser. I love how much
| simpler it is to host websites, from the browser - the real
| read/write web!!
|
| I'm not affiliated with them in any way.
|
| https://beakerbrowser.com/
|
| https://docs.beakerbrowser.com/faq#what-does-beaker-do-bette...
| kubanczyk wrote:
| I'd like to take a look at say ~10 self-hosted sites. How can I
| get to them? Honest question.
| rzzzt wrote:
| Start with personal pages listed at
| https://userlist.beakerbrowser.com/ and go from there.
| jonathansampson wrote:
| The folks at Beaker are doing a phenomenal job; it's great to
| be working towards a common goal of a better Web.
| iknowstuff wrote:
| Lovely. Mozilla should be advancing the web in similar ways in
| Firefox.
| josteink wrote:
| They're too busy taking down MDN, firing talented engineers,
| diverse-hiring non-developers and funding feminist Wordpress-
| setup camps these days for that to ever happen.
|
| Mozilla today is not the Mozilla we knew.
| Fellshard wrote:
| I believe that's what we call 'ideological capture'.
| 1996 wrote:
| Yes, Firefox need to focus on a usecase.
|
| It may not be able to beat chromium right now, but a working
| IPFS and TOR right inside your "vanilla" Firefox would give a
| compelling reason to keep it, when you can install
| chromium/chrome/edge and get better features - except this one!
| 4b11b4 wrote:
| Is there any kind of "index" of "public" IPFS sites?
| elisaado wrote:
| Curious about this as well, may be a proto-Google but for IPFS?
| nvr219 wrote:
| No, not yet.
| k__ wrote:
| Pretty awesome.
|
| I switched from Firefox to Brave a few months ago and really like
| it.
|
| Chrome performance is really needed for all the heavy weight
| browser apps I use for my job and Brave paired with NextDNS form
| a really good ad-block team.
| thescriptkiddie wrote:
| Am I the only one who has significant performance problems with
| Brave/Chrome/chromium? Is this an OSX issue?
| jtxx wrote:
| It's a memory hog on all OSes, but even worse on mac. and on
| my 2017MBP, cpu usage goes up quite a bit too.
|
| Firefox is also pretty bad on my mbp though.
| alpaca128 wrote:
| Performance on Linux is pretty nice - until I open more than
| a handful of tabs, which then leads to the computer spending
| more time swapping memory than anything else. Which is
| probably fine for the majority of users, but kind of a
| dealbreaker for me. And I don't plan on expanding memory just
| for the browser.
| k__ wrote:
| How much memory would you recommend to prevent swapping?
| jonathansampson wrote:
| There was a bug with our "Greaselion" component in versions
| prior to 1.0.41, which could cause some excessive resource
| consumption (usually for macOS users). We found and fixed it
| in 1.0.41, however. You can confirm that you're on this
| version via the brave://components page. Check for "Brave
| Local Data Updater", which should be up to date.
| k__ wrote:
| I don't have any up-to-date machine here. All my PCs and Macs
| are rather old. So I can't say, really
| jcstryker wrote:
| Last few things missing for me to make the switch are: tree-
| style/nested vertical tabs (https://github.com/brave/brave-
| browser/issues/464) and firefox style per-tab sessions
| (https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/34)
|
| Really excited to see brave adding native IPFS support, though I
| would hope the team could start dedicating some cycles to some of
| these core features that firefox has over them.
| Nican wrote:
| It is not the first time that I have looked at IPFS and I still
| have a hard time understanding how the ecosystem is going to
| work.
|
| From my understanding, the file hash is basically the file URL,
| such that any change to the file content is a change to the file
| url as well. For hosting something like Wikipedia, how would one
| create pages that link to one another? And if indexes need to be
| created on top of the content, how are the different indexes kept
| in sync?
| Splatter wrote:
| I have been a diehard user of the Vivaldi browser for a while
| now. I just posted the referenced article to their forum stating
| that Vivaldi should follow suit. Without such support I'll likely
| change to Brave specifically due to IPFS support.
|
| The internet is in desperate need of decentralization.
| jonathansampson wrote:
| We would love for you to download Brave and give the emerging
| IPFS support a spin. Any feedback you have about expectations
| and experience would be greatly appreciated.
| desireco42 wrote:
| Vivaldi is great, I really like it. Both it and Brave are
| excellent places to browse internet. Glad to have options and
| choice.
| tylersmith wrote:
| I'm also a big fan Vivaldi and have been pretty vocal about it.
| Thanks for taking the time to make this request. I've added a
| comment of support, so the demand for this has literally
| doubled in 15 minutes!
| whycombagator wrote:
| I want to like Vivaldi but isn't it closed source? That's a
| non-starter for me (given most other alternatives are open
| source)
| hobo_mark wrote:
| Uhm, no? https://vivaldi.com/source/
| dsissitka wrote:
| Only part of their source is available.
|
| > Of the three layers, only the UI layer is closed-source.
| ... The Vivaldi UI is truly what makes the browser unique.
| As such, it is our most valuable asset in terms of code.
|
| https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-browser-open-source/
| [deleted]
| fabianhjr wrote:
| Most browsers have great support via the IPFS Companion (
| https://docs.ipfs.io/install/ipfs-companion/ ) and that is
| better since it is easy to have an IPFS node running locally
| since it is quite efficient.
| josu wrote:
| >and that is better since it is easy to have an IPFS node
| running locally since it is quite efficient.
|
| No, it isn't.
| sergiotapia wrote:
| I've been using Brave for about three years now as primary
| driver. It gives me so much hope that Brave is pushing this
| forward and into mainstream. The web needs to be removed from the
| control of the select few. The web is for everyone!
| petre wrote:
| I used it until they introduced widgets in nov 2020 and screwed
| with my start page, then switched back to opera. Of course bat,
| rewards and the other junk was disabled from the onset. Dunno why
| bother and build your business model around such useless non
| features. The browser is pretty good otherwise. Ipfs is nice but
| not enough to switch back, not until the start page, frequents is
| unscrewed anyway. Others will probably follow suit and add ipfs
| as well. A torrent downloader and magnet links would be nice as
| well.
| drak0n1c wrote:
| For those reading, the start page/new tab stuff can be trimmed
| and removed with a few clicks in Settings if desired.
| petre wrote:
| I just needed a multiline top sites like on the old version,
| nit just a line, not disable it.
|
| Also funny how all browsers populate the top sites by default
| with facebook, amazon and other privacy perpetrators, instead
| of leaving it empty. Like their obnoxious preinstalled or top
| suggested apps aren't enough of a nuisance. Go ahead, help
| them gain even more market share.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| I've been critical of Brave in the past, but I'm glad to see IPFS
| gaining more traction. IPFS getting browser based support is
| what's needed to connect in traditional consumers and let it take
| off.
| simias wrote:
| I agree, I still want to support Firefox because I'm worried
| about all web browsers becoming shallow reskins of Chrome, but
| having built-in support for IPFS is pretty great.
|
| That being said given the trajectory taken by Mozilla it seems
| like I'll have to give up on it sooner or later... What a
| waste.
| meremortals wrote:
| Which criticisms? I've just started using it after Firefox's
| blog post
| gandreani wrote:
| Which blog post?
| jejkfmgmgk wrote:
| Probably the one by the Mozilla CEO, "We need more than
| deplatforming"[1]
|
| 1: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2021/01/08/we-need-more-
| than-d...
| echelon wrote:
| And there goes my monthly Mozilla donation.
|
| I'm a liberal. But this is fucking fascism. When you want
| to take your position and jam it down everyone's throat
| and police how people can even talk.
|
| Fuck this. Decentralize everything.
|
| _Edit_ : I just re-read the article after skimming and
| now I feel completely different. The article title is
| really bad. Mozilla is just calling for more transparency
| into how advertisers and social media operates.
|
| What a bad headline.
|
| I hope Mozilla never treads into the censorship
| territory.
|
| They can keep my money. :)
| barbacoa wrote:
| "Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices
| over disinformation."
|
| One has to read closely to pick up on the doublespeak.
| They are calling for the use of algorithms to hide ideas
| they disagree with and artificially promote ideas they
| agree with. It is soft censorship but far more sinister.
| echelon wrote:
| Damn, that's insidious.
|
| The people downvoting me would be terrified if it were
| Trump that had this power.
|
| My belief is that nobody should have this power.
| vlunkr wrote:
| They really needed to proof-read that headline.
| ampdepolymerase wrote:
| It is not particularly surprising considering that the
| founder of Brave was fired as Mozilla's CEO and replaced
| by the current one specifically because of politics.
| jamienicol wrote:
| Brendan Eich wasn't replaced by the current CEO though.
| Nor was he fired. Nor was it just because of [his]
| politics.
|
| Nor does that article say what you think it does.
|
| But whatever, think what you like.
| dave5104 wrote:
| > because of politics.
|
| Even more specifically because of his anti-LGBT politics.
| arsome wrote:
| That headline is certainly inflammatory, but I don't
| think the actual content of the post is nearly as bad -
| they're not suggesting web browser start
| flagging/blocking sites or anything similar like it
| initially made me think.
|
| They're simply suggesting further transparency in
| algorithmic suggestions and research be conducted. You
| could even argue that they're suggesting that
| deplatforming simply isn't the ultimate solution.
| da_big_ghey wrote:
| You're right that the content itself doesn't suggest
| Firefox doing something troubling, but the headline
| certainly does. It bothers me much more from a company
| known for privacy than it would from someone else.
| [deleted]
| detaro wrote:
| How is "more transparency from platforms" not in line
| with what you'd expect from Mozilla? It's not like they
| just suddenly started to talk about the topic.
| [deleted]
| Triv888 wrote:
| Mozilla's current CEO is like the opposite of what
| Firefox used to stand for... I can't wait to switch for
| something better. I think that he really likes the Google
| dollars.
|
| Disabling most add-ons in Firefox Mobile, really? I still
| use the old engine (Fennec) even if it probably makes me
| vulnerable. And there's a bunch of other problems that
| make the new Fenix engine less useful then Fennec... I
| don't even know what is supposed to make the new engine
| better.
| ku-man wrote:
| Isn't the current CEO a female? (a very incompetent one I
| understand)
| sfg wrote:
| Brave's current CEO co-founded the Mozilla Project,
| Foundation, and Corporation.
| [deleted]
| jjd33 wrote:
| Peter Thiel (Palantir) is one of their main investors. that
| should raise all alarm bellas for a product that advertises
| itself with "privacy"
| erichocean wrote:
| Palantir exists to improve privacy of citizen data within
| the government. Without it, government workers have
| massive, untraceable and unaccountable access to private
| data. (See Snowden for more info.)
|
| I don't like that there's even a _need_ for Palantir, but
| given the need, I 'm glad it exists and I'm glad someone
| like Thiel is behind it.
| lasfter wrote:
| Instead we give that access to Palantir workers? How is
| that any better?
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I very, very much do not buy this at all.
|
| I don't honestly care all that much about Palantir
| specifically (pros and cons, though lots of cons), but
| one thing they do not do by simply existing is help
| citizens protect their data. They do a lot of things, but
| not that.
|
| That's just marketing/PR nonsense.
| miles wrote:
| Perhaps this?
|
| _The Brave web browser is hijacking links, and inserting
| affiliate codes_
|
| https://davidgerard.co.uk/blockchain/2020/06/06/the-brave-
| we...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23442027
| justsee wrote:
| Brendan Eich mentioned it was a default completion bug they
| got no revenue from, which was fixed:
|
| https://twitter.com/BrendanEich/status/1270128401760743424
| jonathansampson wrote:
| Please see https://brave.com/referral-codes-in-suggested-
| sites/ regarding this claim. It's important to note that
| Brave never hijacked links, modified pages, our injected
| codes into content. The browser offered a pre-search list
| of suggestions for a small set of keywords (see blog post
| for screenshots). Happy to answer any questions you may
| have beyond the contents of that blog post. Nothing
| malicious here; no data or privacy impact either. We were
| able to fix the behavior within 48 hours (IIRC), and burned
| the associated affiliate code.
| Shared404 wrote:
| > "Show Brave suggested sites in autocomplete
| suggestions" setting's default to "off"
|
| This may be the change I needed to know about to try
| Brave at some point.
|
| Are there any plans to get into any Linux distro's
| repositories? Brave wasn't in Ubuntu's last time I
| checked, although that was a little while ago.
|
| E: Formatting doesn't like asterisks.
| pbhjpbhj wrote:
| I just added it to an Ubuntu (actually Kubuntu), very
| easy instructions, and familiarly default too -
| https://brave.com/linux/.
|
| One slight gotcha, if you view the link from Tor it
| offers an .onion site for the apt repos string, but I
| wanted the regular repos as I don't use OS-level Tor but
| happened to be using tor-browser.
| sneak wrote:
| Now we just need repositories and other manifest files to start
| listing ipfs multihashes in addition to simple SHASUMS files.
| joshuakelly wrote:
| Massive. I have a project that assumed ipfs:// would eventually
| exist natively within a mainstream(-ish) browser, and I'm very
| pleased to discover that after updating to 1.19.x it all just
| works.
|
| Excited for the forthcoming DNSLink support too, even if it's
| just a bridge to something even better. Best of luck to everyone
| who wants the web to stay bundled inside of the corporate state.
| justsee wrote:
| It really is great to see challenger browsers pushing the web
| forward like this.
|
| Along with IPFS it's nice to see Tor integration, low-level
| content blocking, a privacy-respecting Zoom alternative
| (https://together.brave.com/) and integrated MetaMask for Web3.
|
| Brave still has a small userbase (~24 million), but hopefully
| it creates the space / incentives for Firefox and others to
| play catch-up so we see a lot of these features standardised
| for the benefit of all users, regardless of browser preference.
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(page generated 2021-01-19 23:00 UTC)