Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant communication

The release this year adds streaming video on demand over Freenet and fixes the pitch black attack.

And confidential Friend-to-Friend Chat over Freenet as Android App.

Last year saw Freenet ported to Android.

There are a lot of changes still in the pipeline to be released this year.

But you are not safe to discuss anything on most Chinese smartphones regardless of the App, because common input methods in China (optimized software keyboards) send all your keystrokes to their servers.

Freenet actually warns you about that during installation.

> I'm not whitewashing

Of course you are, you're outright denying people's reported experiences - "to see something outrageous one had to actively look for something outrageous."

As for the rest, I'm not making any particular claims here, just pointing out that yours seem to be driven by agenda more than reality.

The original claims that freenet is mostly used for CSAM might not be supportable either (in fact they may never be supportable, given the nature of freenet and how it works), but you go too far the other way.

I've used Freenet and I2P heavily on and off for years. It still baffles me how people don't understand the mentality behind using Freenet. Censorship resistant platforms help keep society free, yes. And they are sometimes abused by bad people just like any other tool, yes. But they are so much more than that.

Do you remember the early internet? The Internet before JavaScript, ads, and commercialization was everywhere? Do you remember surfing through homemade webpages that someone put a lot of thought and effort into? Do you remember usenet? Do you remember not even imagining that some corporation or government was collecting your data in-bulk?

That's Freenet. It's the internet that should have been.

I came for the memes and I stayed for the community. FMS and WoT (Freenet Message System and Web of Trust) use trust lists to decide what I see and most people who use FMS and Sone (sort of like Twitter) are decent. Pedo's and generally bad people typically use Frost-Next, a third party application that the Freenet Project does not endorse that is susceptible to spam. I have had so many in-depth, thought-provoking discussions on FMS over the years. Far more than any other clearnet website today, Reddit included. There is a real sense of community on Freenet you'll be hard pressed to find elsewhere.

I enjoy making websites and writing. Freenet hosts numerous websites (freesites) I have made over the years and a ton of my political and philosophical writings. I just finished making a Super Mario 64 Freesite in honor of one of my favorite video games. I spent a lot of time working on it and I'm proud of it. That's just for Freenet. I live in the United States too, and this is what I use Freenet for. I also host the Astronomy Picture Of the Day freesite I update everyday. You don't have to need censorship resistance to use Freenet, it's existence merely safeguards the prerequisite to all real civil liberties in the digital age-- privacy. I am convinced that the existence of Freenet and tools like it (especially Tor) are necessary for a free society to exist.

I2P is great too and I'm just as passionate about that, though it's been awhile since my servers have been up. Same philosophy of censorship resistance, but with I2P you have to run a server 24/7 to host content and can have dynamic content as well. Freenet is more distributed. I2P is like Tor but is more used by nerds than criminals. Both I2P and Freenet are amazing tools. I highly recommend people to check them out.

I've used heavily I2P and Freenet both.

To answer your question, better? Neither I2P nor Freenet claim to be inherently better than the other. It depends entirely on what you are using Freenet or I2P for.

I2P is like Tor but internal (it does not mainly anonymize clearnet traffic, think onionland) and it is anonymous by default. How anonymous? Theoretically as anonymous as Tor. You can use I2P for torrents and filesharing, pretty fast irc, etc. To host an eepsite (I2P site) you have to run a server and keep it running as long as you want the site to be up, similar to running a Tor hidden service or any server on the clearnet.

Freenet has a lot more static content (no JavaScript), reminds one of the early internet (in a good way, mostly). Hosting of freesites (Freenet sites) and files is distributed, no need to run a server to have your site up. There is no 'delete' button on Freenet either. Files/ sites are deleted when no one accesses them for a time. Popular content stays forever. Sites under 2MB in size typically stay forever. Freenet is not anonymous by default, you need to know people IRL who use it to create a friend-to-friend darknet for it to be anonymous. I use mine with a VPN.

Both networks are great, lots of cool people use them. I use FMS a lot (Freenet Message System, similar to Usenet) and Sone. When I use I2P I usually host a few eepsites and hang around Irc2p (I2P's irc). I recommend installing and using both. They're both great.