Decentral Software
We need decentral software to live in peace and freedom. Decentral systems are immune to censorship, harder to manipulate by single actors and work offline.
Projects like Bitcoin and IPFS are first steps into a better future.
We need cryptographic user identities to verify it is us and we want to own our data (no more locking up data in foreign servers).
Existing Apps
Jami is a peer-to-peer messenger with end-to-end encrypted calls and messages. It can connect users directly without requiring a central account server.
BitTorrent distributes files between users instead of serving every download from one central server. Popular files become easier to download as more people share them.
Tribler is a privacy-focused BitTorrent client. It adds decentralized discovery and onion routing to make peer-to-peer file sharing harder to censor.
Bitcoin is a peer-to-peer payment system. Its public ledger lets users agree on transactions without relying on one central bank or payment provider.
IPFS addresses content by what it is rather than where it is hosted. Nodes can fetch the same content from any available peer, which makes the system useful for distributed publishing and storage.
Syncthing keeps folders in sync directly between devices. It does not require a central cloud provider to hold a copy of the data.
LocalSend sends files between nearby devices over a local network. It is useful when devices can reach each other but the internet is slow, blocked, or unavailable.
s@, the SAT Protocol, builds social networking on static websites. Each user can own a site that stores their data, rather than putting their profile and posts in one platform.
Missing Pieces
Marko Polo: broadcast your content and collab on projects P2P.
Decentral ID app: Nostr and OrbitDB look like a promising combination to realize this.
Interplanetary Memory System : use file embeddings to discover content instead of brittle crypto hashes (IPMS is a decentral search engine - Anyone can run a node and contribute content. Embeddings are verified by peers.)
Interplanetary Trust System: Rate and discover services based on your local peers you trust -> learn which services your peers (and peers of peers) praise or dislike.
Interplanetary Messaging System: A decentral, secure messenger that just works.