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BitTorrent Launches Project Maelstrom, the First Torrent-Based Browser
An anonymous reader writes BitTorrent today announced the first torrent-based browser. Project Maelstorm, as the app is currently called, is being made available as an invite-only alpha to "a small group of testers." Although BitTorrent is in the very early stages of the project (testers are being asked to help assess for usability and reliability), the company strongly believes Maelstrom "is the first step toward a truly distributed web, one that does not rely on centralized servers." This is by no means a new idea from the company: it's the core behind the relatively successful synchronization tool BitTorrent Sync. "Centralized architectures have not scaled well to the volume and size of data moving across the Internet," a BitTorrent spokesperson told VentureBeat. Maybe, but building a file-sharing tool around the idea of decentralization is not the same as building a whole browser.
Obviously this works only for static resources. I can see this work as an alternative for CDN's, and as such it's really interesting. Cache invalidation is annoying. Distributed cache invalidation is a headache in a whole different ballpark
One of the reasons why the world-wide web is buried in a sea of advertising is that the costs associated with hosting a web-site increase as the site becomes more popular.
Costs per visitor are usually extremely small.
The main reason the www has so much advertising is that almost nobody wants to pay for content, yet content is not free to produce, and even if you come up with a schema for which some people will pay, your competitors will steal all your volume by offering something closer to free (or supported by advertising), and volume is essential for almost all internet-based businesses.
None of this will change because of the distribution method. Content is still not free to produce.
I don't think that the GP was indicating the *project* was shady, but more likely many of the visible uses.
Like many things, freedom affords benefits to both paragons and scoundrels, but the latter may often be more high-profile or visible.