Read more from Author Rachel Maga here: https://globelivemedia.com/author/rachel-maga/
The web is no longer very young and we have realized in recent years that its infrastructure would benefit greatly from being decentralized. A titanic project that some have already undertaken.
At present, the vast majority ofinternet is hosted on dedicated servers. This means that, when you want to access a website, the content of that site is retrieved from this server (s) before being displayed on your device. Today, Brave, a browser that does a lot for privacy, has decided to take another step towards a decentralized web.
Brave takes another step towards a decentralized web
The latest browser update introduces a new feature called InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). The idea here is that, more than hosting the contents of a site on a centralized server, they are now decentralized and hosted on many nodes, which can be disseminated anywhere in the world. To use the Motherboard analogy, it is very similar to BitTorrent, sites like The Pirate Bay do not host the content of torrent files but rather rely on groups of individuals to help share the content in question.
by integrating the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) functionality
The very concept of a decentralized web is not new, but the integration of IPFS in Brave takes us a further step towards this reality. For those who wonder why we need a decentralized web so badly, know that the advantages are numerous. One of them would be to enjoy a faster experience. Which makes sense since the content would have a good chance of being served to you from a node near you.
It would also reduce operational costs for publishers who no longer need to spend a lot to host their services. This would also greatly complicate any censorship that governments want to put in place. How do you prevent content from appearing when it can be anywhere on the globe?
Of course, there are also drawbacks to such a system. The lack of a centralized server means that it would also be more difficult for the authorities to track down possible illegal sites and content. In any case, those who are interested, and the most curious, can test it all in the latest version of the browser. Download from the official Brave website.