It would be very simple to add distributed websites for Tribler

General
#1

I see it as very possible that Tribler could have decentralized websites. There is no need to reinvent the wheel, because Tamas Kocsis invented ZeroNet, which is the same idea as the dead project Maelstorm by the Bittorrent company. The latest version has not been released to the ZeroNet bundle yet, which is 0.7.2. I see it as possible that ZeroNet could be linked with Tribler, since ZeroNet is also written in python, and ZeroNet uses Tor, which does not allow for UDP traffic, which Bittorrent works best with, Ipv8 supports python, Tor does not. I would also support the development of SecureSites: Distributed sites compressed into a .chm file, static website, no exploits. Browsing zSites could either be done with your normal web browser, or by imbedding Mozilla Gecko into Tribler.

#2

We almost added this feature, but decided against it for several reasons:

  • we can’t use the OS browser for security reasons (XSS, etc).
  • the alternative of packing the QT Web component would have increased the size of Tribler distribution by about 80 MB
  • the feature would have further diluted our focus on Channels and Tunnels performance, requiring more support, etc.
  • our developer resources are extremely limited, so we have to prioritize only one thing at a time
  • the feature is harmful to our goal of establishing crowdsourcing of metadata (different websites = different formats of data)
  • ZeroNet and other such projects have failed. Users don’t want to be able to build websites, they want to communicate easily (see Telegram, etc.)
  • we found no user interest in such kind of feature (aside from this forum post).
1 Like
#3

Zeronet failed because it had one developer who more or less only created it as proof of concept, not because people didn’t want to create websites (which is why there are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of them…). It was a pain in the ass to connect to the network AND the concept had gaping security and privacy holes…THAT is why it died.

Second, people want to share content privately more than communicate…that’s why anyone is using Tribler, not because they want another chat application…they use Telegram (see Telegram, etc) for that. :unamused:

Third: if you didn’t find use interest it’s because there aren’t honestly that many people interested in Tribler…¯_(ツ)_/¯. At the end of the day some people are going to want to compile and create a centralized location, aka a website, to share content. Not going to find it here, apparently. Guess someone could create a bridge to an IPFS, Filecoin, or i2P site since there’s not going to be happen here.

#4

So, what would be your suggestion for future Tribler development in regards to content sharing features?