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https://github.com/freenet/freenet-core

Declare your digital independence
https://github.com/freenet/freenet-core

cryptography decentralized distributed-hash-table freenet p2p privacy rust

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Declare your digital independence

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# Freenet



The Internet has grown increasingly centralized over the past two decades, such

that a handful of companies now effectively control the Internet infrastructure.

The public square is privately owned, threatening freedom of speech and

democracy.



Freenet is a software platform that makes it easy to create decentralized

alternatives to today's centralized tech companies. These decentralized apps

will be easy to use, scalable, and secured through cryptography.



To learn more about Freenet as a developer read [The User

Manual](https://docs.freenet.org/). For an introduction to Freenet watch **Ian's

talk and Q&A** - [YouTube](https://youtu.be/d31jmv5Tx5k) /

[Vimeo](https://vimeo.com/manage/videos/740461100).



## Status



Freenet is currently under development. Using our [development

guide](https://docs.freenet.org/tutorial.html), developers can experiment with

building decentralized applications using our SDK and testing them locally.



## Applications



Examples of what can be built on Freenet include:



- Decentralized email (with a gateway to legacy email via the @freenet.org

  domain)

- Decentralized microblogging (think Twitter or Facebook)

- Instant Messaging (Whatsapp, Signal)

- Online Store (Amazon)

- Discussion (Reddit, HN)

- Video discovery (Youtube, TikTok)

- Search (Google, Bing)



All will be completely decentralized, scalable, and cryptographically secure. We

want Freenet to be useful out-of-the-box, so we plan to provide reference

implementations for some or all of these.



## How does it work?



Freenet is a decentralized key-value database. It uses the same [small

world](https://freenetproject.org/assets/papers/lic.pdf) routing algorithm as

the original Freenet design, but each key is a cryptographic contract

implemented in [Web Assembly](https://webassembly.org/), and the value

associated with each contract is called its _state_. The role of the

cryptographic contract is to specify what state is allowed for this contract,

and how the state is modified.



A very simple contract might require that the state is a list of messages, each

signed with a specific cryptographic keypair. The state can be updated to add

new messages if appropriately signed. Something like this could serve as the

basis for a blog or Twitter feed.



Freenet is implemented in Rust and will be available across all major operating

systems, desktop and mobile.



## What is Locutus?



Locutus was the working title used for this successor to the original Freenet,

in March 2023 it was renamed to "Freenet", this repository was

renamed from `locutus` to `freenet-core` in September 2023.



## What is Hyphanet?



The original Freenet codebase is now called Hyphanet. It is still actively

developed by the same maintainers as before, and is available

[here](https://www.hyphanet.org).



## Stay up to date



[![Twitter

Follow](https://img.shields.io/twitter/follow/freenetorg?color=%2300EE00&logo=twitter&style=plastic)](https://twitter.com/FreenetOrg)



## Chat with us



We're in [#freenet-locutus](https://matrix.to/#/#freenet-locutus:matrix.org) on

[Matrix](https://matrix.org/). If you have questions you can also [ask

here](https://github.com/freenet/freenet-core/discussions).



Many developers are active in [r/freenet](https://www.reddit.com/r/Freenet/),

but remember that Reddit engages in political and ideological censorship so

don't make this your only point of contact with us.



## Acknowledgements and Funding



### Protocol Labs



In addition to creating the excellent

[libp2p](https://github.com/libp2p/rust-libp2p) which we use for low-level

transport, Protocol Labs has generously supported our work with a grant.



### FUTO



FUTO has generously awarded Freenet two Legendary Grants to support Freenet

development.



### Supporting Freenet



If you are in a position to fund our continued efforts please contact us on

[twitter](https://twitter.com/FreenetOrg) or by email at _ian at freenet dot

org_.



## License



This project is licensed under either of:



- Apache License, Version 2.0, ([LICENSE-APACHE](LICENSE-APACHE) or

  )

- MIT license ([LICENSE-MIT](LICENSE-MIT) or

  )