The protocol has several advantages over HTTP. One of the big ones is that it will browse the internet faster, as you can access websites via nearby nodes, instead of servers in remote locations. It can also lower the operating costs for publishers, as they do not have to invest so much in expensive server hosting. However, the most important way IPFS can change the Internet is by making it more difficult for governments to censor specific websites.
“Today, web users around the world do not have access to restricted content, including for example parts of Wikipedia in Thailand, more than 100,000 blocked sites in Turkey and critical access to COVID-19 information in China,” said Molly Mackinlay, IPFS project , said. lead. “Now anyone with an internet connection can access this critical information via IPFS in the Brave browser.”
Similarly, IPFS would also make websites more resilient to the kind of enforcement action Amazon saw against Parler earlier this month. Of course, more browsers will have to adopt and implement the protocol before it becomes a realistic possibility. With 24 million active users per month, Brave is a growing player in the browser space, but it is by far not the largest. It will take a giant like Chrome, which has 1 billion users since 2016, to make the decentralized web a real possibility.
You can start accessing IPFS content by installing version 1.19 of Brave, which is available for download from today.