I’m excited for peer to peer technology, because it brings us closer to what the internet was originally supposed to be like.
I’ve recommended Keet (chat app) a bunch of times on lemmy earlier, which works really well and that is cool, but that is just a showcase of what’s possible with p2p.
Streaming media, sharing files, communication, browsing wikipedia, etc etc - this can be done without spying middlemen or data centres in between. Some cool demos here 09:45 https://youtube.com/watch?v=BTCsSwCpGP8&t=776
Same!! P2p and self hosting is getting better and better!
I’ve been searching for an alternative chat platform for a while now and I’m yet to find anything I think I can use with friends and Grandma alike, ya know? 😅 so hearing about this p2p keet app got me really excited!
Sadly, after a bit of reading and such, I’m not so sure… 😕
play-store or github seem to be the only install methods
the github is release-delivery only; source code doesn’t appear to be public?
Keet uses Holepunch’s (the company behind keet) “HyperDHT”, a distributed hash table, to connect peers. So it seems that, while the comms themselves might be p2p, the app still relies on some server(s) to facilitate their initial connection.
good news (kinda) though! You can self host a ‘p2p server’! But the phrasing on that doc page reinforces that the network itself isn’t fully p2p= “Creates a new server for accepting incoming encrypted P2P connections”
Installed it anyway just to see. Immediately prompted to enable Google’s push notifications via MicroG 😭
the splash page of the app proudly announces “no servers!” - documentation says otherwise 😕
creation of a username first checks whether the username is available… Where is that being checked? No servers, right? 🤔
I want this to be cool, but no source code and foggy talk about servers has my sus-dar goin off a little 🤔 if anyone knows more I’d love to be persuaded!! The app itself is definitely very beautiful and responsive 🙂
You raise a lot of points here, I recommend you join the community room in the app, you’ll get every detail from the developers there.
they haven’t opensourced it yet, but they say they will do so, and they have done so with all the components that keet is built on top of. So given that track record, I think it’s just a matter of when.
I asked a developer about the dht, in this context a “server” is just a dht node that you can connect to with its public key (but agree it’s confusing they use the same word). the wording might be confusing, but its definitively not what anyone understands as a server in a centralized network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table
as i’ve understood, all push notifications on android has to pass through googles servers (but they are encrypted)
and they don’t need a server to check for duplicates in usernames
so I recommend you continue to explore and ask around in the chat rooms, figure out if this is for you!
Cheers for the response! Extremely excited to hear you’ve heard about open sourcing from the devs, I’m gonna keep my eye out for sure!! Excited to read about dht!
yea🤘 the tech is really fascinating. Like yea, the p2p-approach introduces some new challenges, but it solves so many existing ones:
For example costs. The more popular an app gets, the more traffic it gets, the more it costs to run it. I’ve heard telegram spends hundreds of millions of dollars on servers, with hundreds of developers.
P2P is the complete opposite. Keet is made by a small team, and the more people use it, the better it runs (because more peers can relay data). It can scale with no such restrictions.
someone should do the math of what would be the environmental impact if all communication went p2p instead of datacentres.
One thing that seemed interesting in that vein is the Dat software / protocol, and the Beaker web browser.
The aim was basically to create a distributed, peer-to-peer web. When I saw a presentation on it, I thought “hmm, if this works it will be really cool, but I don’t think this is going to take off”. It seems I was right because the Beaker browser is now gone, and Dat doesn’t seem to be getting updates anymore.
But, I still think there’s hope for a distributed web. It just needs something like a killer app.
Unless powerful antitrust breaks up these monopolies, I agree. Trump obviously isn’t going to do anything about it, but under Biden, Lina Khan was making really headway. At least Europe and a few smaller countries are now challenging these monopolies, but it probably won’t be enough.
I’m excited for peer to peer technology, because it brings us closer to what the internet was originally supposed to be like.
I’ve recommended Keet (chat app) a bunch of times on lemmy earlier, which works really well and that is cool, but that is just a showcase of what’s possible with p2p.
Streaming media, sharing files, communication, browsing wikipedia, etc etc - this can be done without spying middlemen or data centres in between. Some cool demos here 09:45 https://youtube.com/watch?v=BTCsSwCpGP8&t=776
Same!! P2p and self hosting is getting better and better!
I’ve been searching for an alternative chat platform for a while now and I’m yet to find anything I think I can use with friends and Grandma alike, ya know? 😅 so hearing about this p2p keet app got me really excited!
Sadly, after a bit of reading and such, I’m not so sure… 😕
I want this to be cool, but no source code and foggy talk about servers has my sus-dar goin off a little 🤔 if anyone knows more I’d love to be persuaded!! The app itself is definitely very beautiful and responsive 🙂
You raise a lot of points here, I recommend you join the community room in the app, you’ll get every detail from the developers there.
they haven’t opensourced it yet, but they say they will do so, and they have done so with all the components that keet is built on top of. So given that track record, I think it’s just a matter of when.
I asked a developer about the dht, in this context a “server” is just a dht node that you can connect to with its public key (but agree it’s confusing they use the same word). the wording might be confusing, but its definitively not what anyone understands as a server in a centralized network https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distributed_hash_table
as i’ve understood, all push notifications on android has to pass through googles servers (but they are encrypted)
and they don’t need a server to check for duplicates in usernames
so I recommend you continue to explore and ask around in the chat rooms, figure out if this is for you!
Cheers for the response! Extremely excited to hear you’ve heard about open sourcing from the devs, I’m gonna keep my eye out for sure!! Excited to read about dht!
Thanks again for sharing the app! 🙂
yea🤘 the tech is really fascinating. Like yea, the p2p-approach introduces some new challenges, but it solves so many existing ones:
For example costs. The more popular an app gets, the more traffic it gets, the more it costs to run it. I’ve heard telegram spends hundreds of millions of dollars on servers, with hundreds of developers.
P2P is the complete opposite. Keet is made by a small team, and the more people use it, the better it runs (because more peers can relay data). It can scale with no such restrictions.
someone should do the math of what would be the environmental impact if all communication went p2p instead of datacentres.
One thing that seemed interesting in that vein is the Dat software / protocol, and the Beaker web browser.
The aim was basically to create a distributed, peer-to-peer web. When I saw a presentation on it, I thought “hmm, if this works it will be really cool, but I don’t think this is going to take off”. It seems I was right because the Beaker browser is now gone, and Dat doesn’t seem to be getting updates anymore.
But, I still think there’s hope for a distributed web. It just needs something like a killer app.
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Unless powerful antitrust breaks up these monopolies, I agree. Trump obviously isn’t going to do anything about it, but under Biden, Lina Khan was making really headway. At least Europe and a few smaller countries are now challenging these monopolies, but it probably won’t be enough.