[HN Gopher] Ceno, browse the web without internet access
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Ceno, browse the web without internet access
Author : mohsen1
Score : 110 points
Date : 2026-03-13 06:30 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (ceno.app)
(TXT) w3m dump (ceno.app)
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Am I reading this right? You do still need internet access, to
| actually retrieve the page from someone else. Also I'm not sure
| how this will reduce data costs. Do providers charge different
| amounts for getting data from different servers? The same amount
| of data is still going into your device, it's just coming from
| somewhere else than usual
| mlnj wrote:
| It seems to be a way to circumvent censorship.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| They probably want to tone down their marketing claims then,
| since it doesn't let you browse the web without internet
| access. It lets you browse webpages that would be blocked in
| your area
| johnisgood wrote:
| I agree. "Cut off" and "without internet access" !=
| censored. They should have worded it better. The title is
| the worst.
| behehebd wrote:
| I thought this was going to be some kind of wifi or
| bluetooth mesh
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Me too, or some kind of offline caching system that
| automatically downloads your commonly visited websites or
| something
| mexicocitinluez wrote:
| I had the exact same thought and it wasn't until navigating
| to their FAQ did it become apparent what they were actually
| selling.
|
| "Browse the web without internet access" is either
| purposely misleading or written by someone who doesn't
| understand the tech they're marketing.
| mohsen1 wrote:
| in Iran there's a funny situation where you're connected
| but not to the internet. if that makes sense.
| voidUpdate wrote:
| Are you still able to access Iranian servers, or is all
| traffic blocked? I'd class "The servers in Iran" as still
| a part of the internet
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| "Ceno, browse the censored web if BitTorrent isn't
| censored."
| pentagrama wrote:
| Yes, I was confused as well. The current Hacker News title is
| "Ceno, browse the web without internet access", but on the
| official site the headline/<title> reads "Ceno Browser | Share
| the Web!".
|
| That mismatch is likely what is causing the confusion. The HN
| title probably should be updated to reflect the current title
| used on the site.
|
| Another possibility is that the original title actually was
| "browse the web without internet access" and the developers
| later changed the site headline after the post was submitted to
| HN.
| keyle wrote:
| In Public mode, Ceno will look into the BitTorrent network to see
| if another Ceno user has recently shared the requested page. If
| the service can identify the requested page, it will retrieve
| that page from another user's device. If the content is not
| available, Ceno will contact several Injectors to request that
| website and have it delivered to you. In Personal
| mode, you will only contact the Injectors to have that website
| fetched and delivered to you. The search will not connect to the
| BitTorrent network and will not attempt to locate the content on
| other users' devices. To ensure that your Ceno
| client can always contact an Injector, we have also created
| Bridges. If the Injectors are blocked on your network, the Ceno
| app will look for available Bridges, who will forward your
| request to the Injectors. The Ceno network currently features
| around 6,000 Bridges. Their number is always growing.
|
| So on the one side it's some kind of shared cache of website
| resources, and on the other some kind of distributed tor-like
| edge network?
|
| Quite clever! I wonder if it works well though, and if there is a
| risk of content injection by adversaries.
| jadbox wrote:
| I wonder why BitTorrent was picked rather than IPFS?
| karel-3d wrote:
| How is Ceno making sure someone is not poisoning the cache?
|
| edit: I try to read the paper and it's just referencing some RFC,
| which is not making me smart at all.
|
| Again, how am I sure that when I am reading something from the
| cache, it's really serving what the site was serving somewhere
| else, and the person saving it there didn't modify it? Is it
| signed by the original page SSL cert?
|
| edit2: ahh the "injector server", which is run by Ceno, retrieves
| the page and signs it. So you are moving the trust to Ceno and
| the central Ceno server actually does the browsing...? So the
| injectors can just see all the traffic? But that's inevitable I
| guess, _someone_ needs to see the traffic
| gr__or wrote:
| thinking out loud: it'd be great if web servers could sign their
| responses+timestamp, so you could guarantee getting the right
| content even through such intermediaries
| 0x62 wrote:
| This already exists in a limited form as Signed HTTP Exchanges.
| It's intended primarily for caching and serving content from
| CDNs, but associating with the origin host.
|
| https://www.ietf.org/archive/id/draft-yasskin-http-origin-si...
| lxgr wrote:
| "Browse the web with partially censored Internet access" would be
| more honest, it seems.
| DoctorOW wrote:
| > _What 's the difference between using the Tor and Ceno
| browsers?_
|
| > _Unlike Tor Browser, Ceno Browser is not a tool for anonymity,
| which is Tor 's primary purpose. In the Tor network, network
| traffic is encrypted and routed through a network of relays run
| by volunteers, and appears to originate from the IP address of an
| exit node. Tor is an excellent option for privacy from Internet
| surveillance and website operators. If it works in your network
| environment, we recommend it, provided that you've also read
| their support documentation._
|
| > _Ceno 's primary distinction from a VPN is that it does attempt
| to route all of your website requests through the decentralized
| network. When a website is available without restriction, Ceno
| will simply connect to it like a normal web browser. Also, Ceno
| users cache and share content with each other. This reduces the
| strain on censorship circumvention nodes and improves
| deliverability._
|
| source: https://ceno.app/en/faq.html
| delfinom wrote:
| >Ceno users cache
|
| Good way to get in trouble for cp
| charcircuit wrote:
| It isn't a good way. You are fearmongering.
| O1111OOO wrote:
| > It isn't a good way. You are fearmongering.
|
| I think the user raises valid concerns that should be
| discussed.
|
| Freenet (~2000) did something similar. They distributed and
| cached content across all participating nodes. Users were
| storing encrypted fragments of other's data. It was
| notorious for distributing illegal content.
|
| I recall that at the time, users were concerned about
| illegal content winding up on their computers - even if
| they weren't directly - knowingly - downloading those
| resources.
|
| As I looked a little deeper just now, I'm discovering that
| courts have generally been lenient on unknowing
| participants - that intent and knowledge do matter. It's
| still a legal grey area (from some basic research I just
| did - maybe someone else can add to this).
|
| I would still be concerned about a corrupt agency (in some
| fascist environment) pressing charges or insinuating
| illegal activity regardless of intent.
| like_any_other wrote:
| It's interesting how effectively CP laws killed anonymity
| and free speech tools. All it takes is one bad actor (and
| a compliant media apparatus that will parrot "known for
| hosting CP" on command).
| rendx wrote:
| USA: DMCA 17 U.S. Code SS 512 (b) System Caching
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/17/512
|
| EU: Digital Services Act Article 5: Caching https://www.eu-
| digital-services-act.com/Digital_Services_Act...
| olalonde wrote:
| Isn't this essentially a "free" proxy where the install base also
| act as exit nodes? It's a common pattern among "free" VPN
| services and kinda risky.
| mohsen1 wrote:
| This is a life saver in Iran right now. Maybe only 0.01% have
| access to internet using Starlink
| HelloUsername wrote:
| Ceno still requires an internet connection
| Springtime wrote:
| I think the relevant use case for this are places like Russia
| (one is even quoted in the testimonials) where I've seen concern
| about the country isolating itself from the outside internet, due
| to the various regional tests actually trialling this.
|
| I've seen such users ask about ways to prepare storing outside
| data in the event it becomes permanent. Some have suggested mesh
| networks, others downloading Wikipedia and torrenting things.
|
| So it seems that this is useful where internet is still available
| but is restricted at say the ISP level. It seems to be a browser
| that when a page is unavailable it checks for Ceno torrents of
| the page from other users and serves that instead.
| mrbluecoat wrote:
| Bad title.
|
| Better executive summary: "A browser that lets you bypass
| censorship via BitTorrent-based residential proxies and Ceno-
| owned proxies"
| Sophira wrote:
| This looks like a great project, but there's one big problem that
| I can see...
|
| If it's based on BitTorrent, then surely that means that anybody
| who has the content that you want to see (or who _advertises_
| that they have the content you want to see...) will be able to
| see your IP address? Like how the movie industry can catch people
| who are sharing movies on BitTorrent?
|
| Obviously, an attacker wwould probably need to use a separate
| BitTorrent client to do this, because I'm sure the IP addresses
| won't be displayed in the app itself, but that seems like it
| could potentially be possible.
|
| I really hope I'm wrong on this, because other than that
| seemingly-big privacy flaw, this seems pretty great otherwise.
| john_strinlai wrote:
| they have "personal" and "public" modes.
|
| "personal mode" is (extremely briefly) described:
|
| " _Information requested and retrieved in a Personal tab is not
| shared with anyone else. No record of your activity is recorded
| on BitTorrent. Use Personal tabs for logging into social media
| and other accounts. Also use them if you do not want to be
| associated on BitTorrent with any of your browsing activity in
| Ceno._ "
|
| i wish the faq had even the tiniest bit of information on how
| this works, but it does not. they probably use their
| "injectors" to proxy the data or something. i am guessing it is
| discussed in more detail somewhere in the whitepaper (https://g
| itlab.com/equalitie/ouinet/-/blob/main/doc/ouinet-n...) but i
| dont have the time at the moment to read through it.
| pooplord69 wrote:
| Oh no not your IP address!
| sunshine-o wrote:
| Could there be an opportunity to use and contribute to the
| Internet Archive through this type of protocol or app?
|
| If I understand correctly the Internet Archive provides torrents
| for everything they archive.
| omoikane wrote:
| > route all of your website requests through the decentralized
| network
|
| I thought this sounded like Freenet. Searching for "ceno" and
| "freenet" together led to this repository, which said "CENO uses
| the Freenet censorship resistant platform for communications and
| storage":
|
| https://github.com/censorship-no-archive/ceno1
|
| Looks like they have since archived everything on github and
| moved to gitlab.
| ninalanyon wrote:
| Wouldn't this be better as a proxy? I don't want to install yet
| another browser. I already av Vivaldi in addition to Firefox so
| that I can access web sites that haven't been tested with
| Firefox.
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(page generated 2026-03-13 23:01 UTC)