TorrentFreak reports on the April 10th public release of BitTorrent Inc's torrent-powered browser Maelstrom:
In short, Maelstrom takes Google's Chromium framework and stuffs a powerful BitTorrent engine under the hood, meaning that torrents can be played directly from the browser. More excitingly, however, Maelstrom also supports torrent-powered websites that no longer have to rely on central servers.
By simply publishing a website in a torrent format the website will be accessible if others are sharing it. This can be assisted by web-seeds but also completely peer-to-peer.
Project Maelstrom's stated primary goal is to keep the Internet open and neutral:
If we are successful, we believe this project has the potential to help address some of the most vexing problems facing the Internet today. How can we keep the Internet open? How can we keep access to the Internet neutral? How can we better ensure our private data is not misused by large companies? How can we help the Internet scale efficiently for content?
TorrentFreak notes that it's not an all-in-one solution, though:
While Maelstrom can bypass Internet censors, it's good to keep in mind that all shared files are visible to the public. Maelstrom is caching accessed content to keep it seeded, so using a VPN might not be a bad idea. After all, users leave a trail of their browsing history behind.
Unfortunately, it seems that the project is closed-source, and the beta is currently Windows-only, with a Mac version announced. The devs have stated that a Linux version is planned, but is a low priority.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Gravis on Monday April 20 2015, @01:49PM
what's the point in keeping it closed source? it certainly won't help security. seems more likely that like utorrent, you are going to end up with advertisements.
it's closed source garbage, dont even bother with it.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by BTRE on Monday April 20 2015, @02:00PM
Yeah being closed defeats the point. If it's not peer-reviewed there's no reason to trust some unknown group not to spy on you. My bet is that they'll eventually commercialize the project or just outright sell it off to one of the big corps looking for a way to decrease loads on their servers.
(Score: 2) by Ryuugami on Monday April 20 2015, @03:00PM
Yeah.
I like the idea, but the execution leaves a lot to be desired :/
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 4, Informative) by JNCF on Monday April 20 2015, @03:39PM
Closed source, and from a company with curious bedfellows. [torrentfreak.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @02:30PM
And Windows only at the moment. Closed source and Secured by Windows®. What could possibly go wrong?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @04:16AM
Sounds better than OpenSSL at least.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @03:53PM
I don't mind them keeping it closed, especially during a beta. There are both logistical reasons to do that and possibly profitability reasons too.
But what they absolutely must do is publish the specs - ideally they would voluntarily set up a community organization to manage the development of the protocol. Its fine if they are the 800lb gorilla in the community but there is simply no way something like this catches on if the protocol is not publicly defined and the only implementation is proprietary. They own utorrent which is the most popular bittorrent client and that's closed source, but bittorrent works because the spec is public and there are plenty of cooperating implementations.
That said, maybe they have done all the above for the maelstrom specs, I'm too lazy to research it.
(Score: 2) by tibman on Monday April 20 2015, @04:09PM
Not all of it appears to be closed source. The tool to actually package up the website is here: https://github.com/bittorrent/torrent-web-tools [github.com]
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 20 2015, @04:30PM
See my post below. The Maelstrom approach at first glance looks like it could be really easy to replicate for an open source browser. Especially if the browser already includes a torrent client.
bittorrent://3b1c91f8e95d8ce22558abc398f4a8e62c16bea5/index.html
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by nofish on Monday April 20 2015, @08:50PM
OpenSource alternative: https://github.com/HelloZeroNet/ZeroNet [github.com]
With support of real-time updated dynamic content, decentralized dns, tor network and works with any browser/os.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @04:03PM
A closed browser that only runs on slaveware platforms, to keep the web open? the "nvidia salute" to you bittorrent, inc.
(Score: 2) by PizzaRollPlinkett on Monday April 20 2015, @04:06PM
Wait, they torrent ... web pages? Not sure how that works. I hate torrents because they're almost always abandoned after a short time. You find what you want - er, someone finds what someone wants - and it's the perfect 1080p DVD rip - er, Linux ISO image - but there are no seeders. I even see - er, someone told me he saw - new torrents with 0 seeders that no one can ever download. And they want to use this technology to serve web pages? Maybe I'm missing something.
(E-mail me if you want a pizza roll!)
(Score: 2) by Tramii on Monday April 20 2015, @04:16PM
Right in the summary: "By simply publishing a website in a torrent format the website will be accessible if others are sharing it. This can be assisted by web-seeds but also completely peer-to-peer."
So if the website is popular, it should be completely peer-to-peer. If the website isn't visited that frequently, then the web owner can keep a web-seed up and running so that it's still available. Which in theory, works out fine. Your bandwidth costs won't shoot through the roof if you suddenly get slashdotted... er, soyled?
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Ryuugami on Monday April 20 2015, @06:38PM
I look at it this way: if there are no visitors, it's functionally the same as hosting a web page on your own server. But as soon as someone visits your page, they become another host for it (at least until the cache gets overwritten; they recommend 5~10 GB, so it should be a while).
So really, at it's worst, it's as good as serving static web pages from your home server. But if suddenly a million people try to access your page, instead of getting soyled... er, DDoSed, you get a million servers helping you host - the more people access your page, the more effective bandwidth you have.
If a shit storm's on the horizon, it's good to know far enough ahead you can at least bring along an umbrella. - D.Weber
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @04:26PM
One application for this would be to run a webserver on your phone.
Instead of using facebook or instagram, you could just keep your photos and wall updates on your phone. Since social networks are basically swarms, as long as you have enough active 'friends' your data would be available, cached on their phones and laptops so if you were off-line or just away from wifi chances are some of your friends would still be available to take up the slack. Or you could hire a VPS for less than $5/month [lowendbox.com] to cover you when offline.
(Score: 4, Informative) by takyon on Monday April 20 2015, @04:29PM
I read a little bit. It seems like you package your files as a torrent as usual, but add an index.html into the root of the torrent that would be rendered as a Web page by the Maelstrom browser (and the HTML could link to other files in the torrent). The decentralized nature comes from using DHT/PEX to get seeds, like any torrent client these days. The Register [theregister.co.uk] has links to 4 Maelstrom sites:
bittorrent://5d2b81e49095b0ae19e55a635861d72bde7bcbbc/index.html
bittorrent://e88b2511043f4b32d09393ab92dedb4bd7ae00d9/index.html
bittorrent://d23e60e28e6c1de9a52ad60fd5d86b30b3e27171/index.html
bittorrent://3b1c91f8e95d8ce22558abc398f4a8e62c16bea5/index.html
The protocol handler is intended to launch/use Maelstrom, the hex in the middle appears to be a 160-bit SHA-1 hash to identify the torrent in the DHT/PEX cloud, and then the /index.html opens a page inside the torrent. Presumably you can link to any file within the torrent, and don't necessarily need an index.html file.
Your concern that nobody will seed niche content is not unfounded. But you have to build it before they can come. There will obviously be certain torrents that get a lot more reliable seed counts, like link 4 above, a copy of The Internet's Own Boy with a splash page AFAICT. What we might see is all major release groups putting index.html in their torrents, especially ones that already included a screenshot or a txt file before. Downloaders that don't have Maelstrom will just download a couple KB of extra HTML along with their file. If it catches on. I also don't see how this concept is very complicated or couldn't be replicated by open source browsers. Maelstrom put a torrent client and browser in one package... it's not hard to put a simple torrent client in an existing web browser and include a few lines of code to check for an index.html file in to any torrent processed by the browser.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday April 20 2015, @06:24PM
Since you actually read the specs, let me ask you this. How does the torrent handle dynamic content, like what's generated here? Also, given the distributed nature, is there a prevision in the spec to maintain control and authorship of your site?
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Monday April 20 2015, @06:42PM
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. You'd have to create a new torrent for a single change. That's not so terrible for Game of Thrones, but pretty bad for any decentralized collaborative or ongoing effort. So this is focused on static content (which could include AJAX or link to files on the open Web, with obvious privacy implications). It's a weakness common to all torrents.
http://www.cio.com/article/2859377/internet/project-maelstrom-detailed-more-info-about-bittorrents-vision-for-a-peer-to-peer-web.html [cio.com]
Maybe they could combine this with a modified protocol like BitTorrent Sync [wikipedia.org] but then the whole idea might fall apart. About control and authorship, you cache the site (torrent contents) when you download them, seed it to other users looking for those contents, and the Maelstrom browser has a user-settable limit on the amount of cache space used. All you would have to do is save what you downloaded and you could republish it in the form of your choice. Of course that is the same as any static content found on the Web.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Common Joe on Monday April 20 2015, @07:07PM
I have a website or two that is static in nature, but I occasionally update or fix a typo. It sounds like a torrent-based browser would not be good with the occasional update. It requires that it be very static. Which implies that one would still have to go to a regular http / https site for most things. The best thing about a torrent-based browser that I've seen so far is the sudden-spike high volume scenario. I really like that.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @11:22PM
On the contrary, the occasional change is nearly perfect for a torrent distribution. If you are making changes every hour, then no. But an update like once a week? Perfect.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by takyon on Monday April 20 2015, @04:45PM
We all hate BitTorrent Inc. and acknowledge uTorrent is dead. But this Maelstrom thing doesn't necessarily require Maelstrom itself. It looks like Web browsers could easily adopt this approach to handling torrent files.
http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=7102&cid=173169 [soylentnews.org]
http://soylentnews.org/comments.pl?sid=7102&cid=173171 [soylentnews.org]
From this [wikipedia.org], it looks like no Web browser really has an integrated torrent client anymore. I don't think Konqueror has one, I think it just diverts them to KTorrent. Opera dropped theirs, but Vivaldi might bring the feature back (it is closed source freeware though). It looks like plans to put a torrent client in Firefox were abandoned a decade ago.
It was done before (Opera) and it can be done again.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Monday April 20 2015, @06:41PM
Good!
"I don't think Konqueror has one, I think it just diverts them to KTorrent."
As it should.
"It looks like plans to put a torrent client in Firefox were abandoned a decade ago."
Yes, even Firefox has made good decisions on occasion.
"It was done before (Opera) and it can be done again."
You say that like it's a good thing. It's not. 'Integration' is a pointless obsession. Good programs do one thing and do it well.
A web browser should parse and display HTML. It should NOT try to be a torrent client too, or an email client, a word processor, a pdf reader, or an ecmascript interpreter.
I have a torrent client, and it's much better at its job than the browser will ever be. If I hit a torrent link, dont be an idiot, just do your damn job and pass it to the torrent program!
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by takyon on Monday April 20 2015, @06:44PM
Well if you don't integrate a torrent client and a Web browser, you aren't going to get what Maelstrom offers. Luckily, what Maelstrom can do is very limited and everyone here seems to hate the idea already.
I actually liked the Opera torrent client the few times I used it. It was dead simple and got the job done.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 21 2015, @10:23AM
Actually, one could argue that getting the data (i.e. http) and parsing the data (i.e. html) should be separated. Why should the web browser have to know all the possible protocols? Why should you not be able to switch the renderer without switching the fetching code or vice versa?
The browser could have a "getter" registered for each protocol; and if it reads "http:" then it requests the getter registered for http to fetch that page, and then displays it.
Currently, if e.g. browser 1 starts including HTTP/2, but doesn't support the newest CSS, and browser 2 supports the newest CSS, but doesn't support HTTP/2, then you cannot have both until one of the browsers supports both.
In the separated model, you'd update the getter to one that supports HTTP/2, and the browser to one that siupports the newest CSS, and have both.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday April 21 2015, @11:43PM
Simple solution. Implement it all in proxy client? and as a bonus whack these Microsoft fanboyz with closed shit.
I like the idea. Oh and add that E-two-pe. ;)
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @07:11PM
A web browser should parse and display HTML. It should NOT try to be a torrent client too, or an email client, a word processor, a pdf reader, or an ecmascript interpreter.
One of these is not like the others.
All of your examples are document formats.
Bittorrent is just another protocol, like http, https, ftp, gopher, etc. New protocols absolutely should be considered for inclusion into a web browser. The original concept of the web was not protocol specific.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @08:55PM
Please no. I don't want web browsers to become even more bloated than they already are. There are plenty of torrent clients out there; this would just be redundant, and it would simply add more useless bloat.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 20 2015, @06:37PM
I used to play Maelstrom all the time. I've got to find an executable because it was a lot of fun. "Aw crap!"
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday April 22 2015, @05:18PM
So...they've reinvented a small portion of Freenet, well over a decade later? The only difference I see here is that they have the server and client as one application instead of separated. Otherwise it looks like basically the same idea -- just less secure, less versatile, and closed-source. Probably loads pages a bit faster though.