Slashdot Mirror
Firefox Gets File Sharing Extension
Jonnty writes "Firefox finally has a good P2P extension.. "[It] incorporates peer-to-peer capabilities into the browser via a sidebar. AllPeers "combines the strength of Firefox and the efficiency of BitTorrent" to add media sharing to the long list of available extensions." "
Now you can view porn and download hentei at the same time!
This is interesting but I don't think that BitTorrent-style is the right way to go about it. The browser will definitely be the new "feel the pulse of society" provision, but what is going to be the best way to get that feel?
There are other protocols that, in my opinion, are better that BT. I've seen a few that use other (third party) users to mask both the sender and receiver from one-another. I believe this is going to be important especially when it comes to government regulation and censorship. I'm anti-copyright, so I couldn't care less about who owns what.
I believe the next step beyond the protocol will be the need to find a way to properly packet-ize information better. I guess ZIP or RAR is fine, but it isn't enough. A sender of any media (website, file, e-mail, etc) would need to implement the data into a packet and set that packet as public or private. Public packets could be dropped into the "Sharing" folder, which replaces the temporary internet files folder completely. Users would instantly share the webpage packets, the image packets and even the music or programs they download.
Popular files would be much easier to get, and the shortcomings of BitTorrent in terms of censorship would be greatly reduced. I could even see a future where we could do away with DNS in the long term as we could access webpages or other information through this network of shared temporary file folders. No need to host your own information on a server, just drop it into your share/temp folder and let others find it via whatever search engine or "torrent host" they use.
Now Firefox can be sued by the RIAA! Seriously, won't this draw unneeded criticism of Firefox while it is still establishing its place in the browser market?
Could this be expanded to create a mini-bittorrent type network where if the browser can't contact the server, it checks its peers to see if a cached copy exists, and download it from them?
no comment
They call it free software but I suspect they mean "free beer". It sounds like nothing more than another bittorrent client.
before you made this comment, what shape had the glass?
Since the allpeers site is just a bunch of pictures and promises, with no actual extension available, shouldn't the title be "Firefox MIGHT get file sharing extension"?
Ubuntu: If at first you don't succeed, blindly slap a sudo in front of it
Color me cynical, and unimpressed.
Since the allpeers site is getting bombed, here is the coral cache link: http://www.allpeers.com.nyud.net:8090/index_f.htm
46487 466780 252994 376409 96920 39622 205366 244315 622115 512361 668040 63608 259203 955314 811176 652718 166330 23922
That has to be one of the smartest ideas I've ever seen on slashdot. Obviously dynamic content won't work, and the developer would have to be _very_ careful not to make available personal information. But both these problems have been solved by caching proxies years ago.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Why would I run code written by morons that can't even get a webpage right? Here is a version of their index that works without javascript, not exactly rocket science is it?
n al.dtd">
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitio
<html>
<head><title>AllPeers browser detection</title></head>
<body>
<script>
if(navigator.userAgent.indexOf("Firefox") != -1)
{
window.location = "index_f.htm";
}
else
{
window.location = "index_nf.htm";
}
</script>
<noscript>
Firefox users, please <a href="/index_f.htm">click here.</a>
Users of other web browsers, please <a href="/index_nf.htm">click here.</a>
</noscript>
</body>
</html>
Now I can get sued by the RIAA AND use Firefox! Take that, Microsoft!
Actually, this might not be such a bad idea and it sort of makes sense. For webpages that heavily depend upon video or audio, this would work perfectly if implemented well. It makes sense that if you downloaded the file and played it in a built-in player in Firefox or other. I can also see it saving a lot of bandwidth for sites. It also saves the need of having to get another client, like Azureus, and downloading the .torrent file and all that extra stuff to download something, while having it just download in Firefox. This may be a new interesting to way spread content, so I think it should be watched closely.
So, Slashdot is reposting a short articled posted by an small tech news outlet about a non-existant plug-in for Firefox. Brilliant.
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Looking at the url for that message we can see what will probably bee shared the most: www.webpronews.com
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
could use some decentralized P2P technology.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
Here's the Coral Cache of the AllPeers web site since the original seems to be a smoking hole in the ground.
Forward, retransmit, or republish anything I say here. Just don't misquote me.
Firefox and Bittorrent teaming up? That might produce a black hole of memory suck that would tear a hole in the fabric of the universe and destroy the space-time continuum!
What you propose with users "instantly sharing webpage packets, image packets, and even the music/programs they download" by means of a public portion of a "Temporary Internet Files" type folder is interesting, in theory. But realistically, I don't see it happening any time soon.
Among other things, it makes the assumption that users have plenty of upstream bandwidth, so their Internet performance won't be drastically impacted by this process running in the background.
In reality, the ISPs have *no* interest in giving the "average user" very much upstream bandwidth at all, because that's still their cash cow. The people publishing content are the ones in the best position to pay a premium price to make the publication possible. That's why T1 and T3 circuits still cost hundreds or even thousands per month, while you can get DSL or cable broadband for between $19 and $50 a month. Ability to download (or in other words, view or receive content) is cheap. Ability to provide/distribute the content will cost you much more.
On another note, I'm becoming convinced that as things stand right now, your best bet for "safe sharing" of copyrighted content lies in the realm of private servers and sites which require passwords to use them. P2P will never really be the "optimal" method for distributing content covertly or without fear of legal punishment. Ultimately, any software that can mask the sender and/or receiver's IP addresses still has to have a way to know how the data *really* gets from point A to B and back. That means, someone can always "unmask" it again with some sort of clever reverse-engineering.
The nice thing about a strictly private server, message forum, etc. is that by its very nature, it's not sharing content to the public. If enough different "private sites" were put up that each happened to contain a lot of the same content anyway, law enforcement would have a very difficult time dealing with them. (EG. They can't just connect up, grab a file from your IP, and thereby prove you're "guilty of distributing copyrighted content on a massive scale". For all they know, you could have only a select group of friends using your private site who all own legal licenses for the music they're putting up there, etc.)
Since it is a plugin and not a part of Firefox, no. This is one of the best advantages of a plugin architecture. You can allow controversial functionality, like adblock, to be added and avoid consequences. They may go after the plugin writers, but so what? Even if they stop them, 10 more would probably be released, especially if the original implementation is open source.
I usually use anime to denote certain qualities.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anime
covers the topic nicely
Uh... could someone download and share the article via another P2P system? I'm having trouble downloading the new extention due to the Slashdot effect. Thanks.
7h3$3 4r3n'7 7h3 Ðr01Ð$ ¥0 4r3 £00|{1n9 f0r. M0v3 4£0n9. --OB1
This could be really useful if the protocol was NOT BT.
It would make great sense to have a p2p protocol that sucked down the first part of the file first, allowing the user to stream straight into the browser.
BT has two attributes that make it a very poor choice for browser integration--the order of downloaded packets is random and BT should stay up long after the file has finished downloading--it's lifetime should not be bound by the lifetime of the browser.
But good concept, but just not quite worth it.
Hoping not to start a flame war, but what is the security implications of installing various FF extensions? Isn't this a bit like IE's ActiveX security problems waiting to happen? Or are extensions sandboxed or protected in some way (beyond just not running as root/admin, still a lot malicious software you install can do). I know it's not "drive-by" install, but IMHO most IE/ActiveX problems aren't either, users willingly install a lot of the stuff. Like we do with FF extensions..? :)
For something that is already in development, check out http://moztorrent.mozdev.org/screenshots.html
I don't see any mention of this being open-source, and some features will not be free:
"How can it be free? There must be a catch.
Nope. Because we're using P2P technology, we don't need to maintain a large server farm for managing huge files collections as our network grows. On top of that, we don't think people should have to pay to share with friends. Of course, we are still a company and we need to make money to pay for the luxurious lifestyle of our development team. That's why we will be deploying new services on AllPeers, some of which will require payment."
If they had the idea for this in 2003 or earlier, it's a bit odd it isn't wasn't shipping some time ago.
Domain Name: ALLPEERS.COM, Record created on 15-Mar-2003
Administrative Contact : RWCM LTD SAINT TROPEZ, 83990 FR (I edited out other details)
Tried doing a "Whois" of the website. Got nothin, though it is registered. Googled the CEO, Cedric Maloux. Found some interesting things about him and his past web activities, but nothing that gives insight to this new "allpeer" extension for Firefox. I'm just not sure how he plans to make money off of this because extensions are "usually" free. *cough*advertising*cough*
What a stupid name. Can't they call it AllPerens instead ? :\
We have it now. They are called servers -- FTP servers, web servers, etc. I can put an image up with one command and anybody in the world with internet access can see it with a simple text string called a URL. The same goes for a Kubuntu DVD image or pictures of my ex-girlfriend naked.
That's an already solved issue. What this guy wants is lack of accountability. Which, while nice in a "I don't want to pay for music" way, is really scary in "the CIA and that now-stalker ex-girlfriend have it too" way. Not to mention the traditional criminals engaged in fixing prices of garbage collection, covering up hazmat dumping and running drugs and desperate families across borders.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be good, just that it's not some sort of warm and fuzzy "it's just better" thing -- there are some drawbacks with lack of accountability and some of them are named Enron II, domestic spying, and annoying 15 year old jackasses, not just the traditional and fringe bogeymen of child molestors and terrorists.
The pros and cons of accountability are pretty heavy on both sides.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
I've tried lots of firefox extensions, some I love, some I hate, few work correctly, or as described. Such is life with open source, but I'm not complaining about that!
I honestly want to know, why do people want some of these things in their browser? I like firefox because it's relatively clutter free, and fast. I don't want to add bloat. I want a web browser. Luckily these things don't come standard so I can be happy, and the gadget people can be happy too--but isn't it better to have seperate applications for specific purposes? Are these the people that want their alarm clocks to make toast for them, or their cars to wash their clothes, etc?
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