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HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

ipfs.io

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Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#141

Post by acdha »

noman-land wrote: post #50
jeroenhd wrote: post #3

I like IPFS, I really do, but whenever I try to use it, it's either too slow to become usable or sometimes it plain doesn't work. I pinned a whole bunch of files on IPFS a while back to experiment with it and the system seems to work, but every time I try to fetch those resources from a location that hasn't cached the content yet, it takes several seconds to show me the HTML/JSON/PNG files. HTTP may be inefficient fo…

I love IPFS. It's one of my favorite recent technologies, but I think people have unrealistic expectations about such a young idea. Decentralized tech doesn't work well until the network effects build up. IPFS has the interesting quality that the more popular a piece of content is, the easier it is to get ahold of. If millions of people were using IPFS, the most popular content would be being served by many thousands…

> think people have unrealistic expectations about such a young idea.

This interesting given your description:

> IPFS has the interesting quality that the more popular a piece of content is, the easier it is to get ahold of. If millions of people were using IPFS, the most popular content would be being served by many thousands of people, and finding it and downloading it would be extremely fast.

This idea hasn’t been new since the turn of the century (BitTorrent offered exactly that in 2001) and nothing in that description explains why this is different than the many previous attempts. It’d be interesting to hear about how IPFS plans to maintain that without the problems with abuse and how it keeps competitive performance relative to non-P2P in a world where things like CDNs are much cheaper and easily available than they were around the turn of the century. Using P2P means giving up a lot of control for the content provider and that’s a challenge both from the perspective of the types of content offered and the ability to update or otherwise support it on your schedule.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#142

Post by Gigachad »

v_london wrote: post #139

Pretty interesting. A lot of people here are focusing on permanence, but for me the main difference on addressing by content vs by host name is the loss of authorship it opens up for the web. Since a research paper of essay is referred to by its hash, the owner effectively gives away all control of the work when it's first published. There will be no editing, no taking down unwanted work, and no real way to build an…

IPFS claims to solve this with their name service IPNS which can update to point to a new hash with a revised file. Where the original hash can be cached and used but users can refer to the NS version and get the latest version. But last I saw, the name on IPNS had to be frequently pushed by the original server or it would go away.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#143

Post by guntars »

jeroenhd wrote: post #3

I like IPFS, I really do, but whenever I try to use it, it's either too slow to become usable or sometimes it plain doesn't work. I pinned a whole bunch of files on IPFS a while back to experiment with it and the system seems to work, but every time I try to fetch those resources from a location that hasn't cached the content yet, it takes several seconds to show me the HTML/JSON/PNG files. HTTP may be inefficient fo…

Try browsing the IPFS example "website". I opens for me under a few hundred milliseconds.

    ipfs cat /ipfs/QmQPeNsJPyVWPFDVHb77w8G42Fvo15z4bG2X8D2GhfbSXc/readme

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#144

Post by Gigachad »

leesalminen wrote: post #6
jeroenhd wrote: post #3

I like IPFS, I really do, but whenever I try to use it, it's either too slow to become usable or sometimes it plain doesn't work. I pinned a whole bunch of files on IPFS a while back to experiment with it and the system seems to work, but every time I try to fetch those resources from a location that hasn't cached the content yet, it takes several seconds to show me the HTML/JSON/PNG files. HTTP may be inefficient fo…

I agree that the http caching layers are currently needed to achieve decent UX. But it’s also possible that won’t be necessary forever. The network could expand and get to the point where resolution time comes down to accessible levels. Only time will tell I suppose.

On what basis do you think this is likely? What part of IPFS gets faster when more users are online? If the file exists on a system in the network, it should make a connection and start fetching the file within milliseconds ideally. It's not like we are distributing multi gb files where more seeders means more speed, this is all just slowness in setting up a connection.

Even torrents take 1-10 seconds to initiate downloads with an absolutely massive network.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#146

Post by Gigachad »

abecedarius wrote: post #51
unnouinceput wrote: post #37

So, they reinvented torrents? Or old timers, do you remember the peer-to-peer connection from 90's called DC++ ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DC%2B%2B )? Like this IPFS, you'd connect to a hub (IPFS calls this a node) and get what people were sharing. This IPFS only takes that step a little further with hashing and distributing. Also, if this gets implemented widely, hash collision is going to be wild

BitTorrent was invented to cut down the scope of an earlier IPFS-ish system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mnet_(peer-to-peer_network)#Ev... It's reasonable to try again at the bigger goals now that there's more infrastructure / theoretical progress / audience.

I see this kind of claim posted a lot, but what does IPFS actually do that torrents do not? What is a new use case which has been enabled?

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#147

Post by Gigachad »

noen wrote: post #48
sergiotapia wrote: post #14

Is there a way to install something on my local machine and host IPFS content to help "the swarm". If they combine this with some kind of crypto monetary incentive it would go a long way for people to help "the swarm". Odysee is looking into adding crypto to your balance when you serve content that helps viewers.

No. I tried. For weeks. Filecoin is the mechanism for this. And they do everything humanly possible to both technically keep the ecosystem open, while at the same time making it practically impossible for any non-data center vendor to take part. The min hardware specs are absurdly large. Most of the services required are not prepackaged alum any way, the exercise is left to the implementer for almost everything. If y…

Yeah I looked in to filecoin as well and it's not nearly as simple as setting up a raspberry pi with a 1tb HDD attached. You have to have a latest gen array of GPUs sitting there constantly cryptographically proving the entire content of the HDD every minute.

As with all crypto tech, its insanely inefficient and you may as well use google drive or s3.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#148

Post by acdha »

jeroenhd wrote: post #89
Jasper_ wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They won't cache your stuff forever, but they'll cache it as long as someone requests the content again before the content gets removed from cache. "It stays in the cache as long as it stays in the cache" ??? What on earth does this mean?

Content is cached for a certain amount of time (default is 24 hours, I think?) before it gets deleted. If the content is requested again, the timer is reset. This is opposed to long-term caches like Cloudflare's that'll cache the contents of your website regardless of how many requests come in. Cloudflare will happily just refresh the contents of your website even if nobody has been to your website for weeks, and qui…

That’s not how Cloudflare normally works: the HTTP cache is demand based and does not guarantee caching. What you’re describing sounds like their Always Online feature which regularly spiders sites to serve in the event of an error.

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#149

Post by muxator »

echelon wrote: post #93
BiteCode_dev wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine if we said that about web sites at the begining. The Web needs to decide what it want to be? A plaftorm to sell stuff? Contact people? Write? Listen to music?

> Imagine if we said that about web sites at the begining. The web was fast (for documents on 56k) and extremely useful almost immediately. It was obvious to everyone watching that the technology was going to change everything.

I do not understand the downvotes here. "It was obvious to everyone watching that the technology was going to change everything": how to disagree?

Re: HTTP is obsolete – it's time for the distributed, permanent web (2015)

#150

Post by pfraze »

somenewaccount1 wrote: post #28
CharlesW wrote: post #23

The author claims that IPFS enables a "permanent web" and eliminates 404-like experiences. How does IPFS guarantee that all published content will be available forever? (In my beginner-level knowledge of IPFS, this is the first I've heard that claim. It seems absurd.)

And quite annoyingly, it's the opposite of how IPFS works. IPFS nodes only cache the content as long as it's actively requested. Depending on the cache policy of the node, this can be as short as 24 hours. Yes, it could still exist on your private node that your running from your laptop, but this is the equivalent of saying that all published content is available forever because it's on your hard drive . Honestly, I…

To be fair, this is all hard work to get right. I think there’s a third, much larger category of people who are pursuing the idea but just haven’t solved all the problems yet.
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