BitTorrent Launches Beta of Torrent-Based Browser Project Maelstrom

An anonymous reader writes BitTorrent today launched Project Maelstrom, the company's distributed browser, in beta. The company also released new tools on GitHub that let developers and publishers build content for the browser. Announced in December, Project Maelstrom, then just an invite-only alpha, was described as "the first torrent-based browser." The launch today is an open beta, meaning anyone can now try an early version of Maelstrom. You do, however, need a Windows computer. Windows users can download the beta now from here. Since the alpha, BitTorrent says it has improved stability, integrated support for automatic updates, and added DHT visualization for users when loading torrents.

Comments

Seriously thinking

[jfdavis668]

if there is a way to build a Beowulf cluster this way.

windows waaat?

[tomxor]

Was so looking forward to seeing this public beta, lame to be stuck on windows.

Re:windows waaat?

[Anonymous Coward]

They couldn't get the included NSA & RIAA spyware virus to run on Linux, so Windows only.

Re:windows waaat?

[NotInHere]

I was so looking forward they released this as open source. Now its just another piece of closed source non-improvable non-free pay-here software.

Re:windows waaat?

[KGIII]

Yup. No Linux version, I've been running nothing but a mix of Linux OSes on my myriad machines and I prefer it. If there's no Linux version there then there is no use for it here. I could boot to Windows but I see no reason to do so simply for a browser that probably spies on me, has few (if any) plug-ins meaning no ad blocker, and will likely eventually try to charge me money, I gave the site a good going-over and did discover an interesting slide show app and will look at that more later as it appears to be similar to to PowerPoint which may have some value at a later date.

Re:windows waaat?

[Mephistro]

... its just another piece of closed source...

Chromium (on which Maelstrom is based) is open source. Regarding the "non-free pay-here" part... "citation needed".

Re:windows waaat?

[tomxor]

its based on the chromium project it should have plugins... just annoying they go for windows first, it's chromium after all.

Re:windows waaat?

[thunderclap]

No its logical. Chromium has one one hundredth of a percent of market share and visibilty. If they were launching it for tablets and phones yes, I would agree. THEY ARE NOT. It was rolled out on the most visible, most popular, most used platform first. If you decide that isn't your rig then its your loss, But don't desparage them when they want the largest group of people looking at it.

Freenet

[Mantrid42]

Isn't this basically what Freenet tried to do back in the day?

Re:Freenet

[Anonymous Coward]

Not really, freenet has many features that this lacks, such as encryption and deniability.

This has some features, such as being distributed and every download is bit perfect.

This is primitive compared to things already available, really.

See IPFS.io for something that builds off the ideas of git, bittorrent, freenet, camlistore for a more permanent solution. In fact, they call it The Permanent Web.
https://github.com/ipfs/ipfs
https://sourcegraph.com/blog/ipfs-the-permanent-web-by-juan-benet-talk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fa4pckodM9g

Re:Freenet

[Em Adespoton]

No, because the concept behind freenet is that it's impossible to track from source to destination, and more popular content gains redundancy while unwanted content vanishes from the network -- and the entire thing is encrypted making it virtually impossible to track what anyone's looking at.

This project, while using DHT, is otherwise completely orthagonal to Freenet -- it's all about using nearby/fast nodes to get you the content you're looking for as quickly as possible via a distributed mechanism. There's no privacy involved (you're broadcasting what you want to view to a huge number of nodes), and the distributor of content (and anyone else who wants to help) have control over seeding the content being viewed.

Re:Freenet

[Fwipp]

I'm excited for when they'll be able to focus their efforts on the javascript implementation - imagine transparently serving all the heavy-weight media assets for your site in a p2p fashion, without the user having to do anything besides click "Play" on the video.

And if you're not excited at that level; imagine being able to run an imageboard and use only a fraction of the bandwidth you currently do.

It's already pretty impressive, but the demos & writeup are certainly not user friendly at this point.

Windows only

[Kevin Fishburne]

You do, however, need a Windows computer.

I do? All this time I thought I was pretty happy with Mint 17.1 Cinnamon.

Re:Windows only

[Zero__Kelvin]

What does that make the guy watching the retard, happily focusing on the retard, trying to determine if he is happy?

Re: Windows only

[Kevin Fishburne]

A Windows user. There, the circle has been completed.

Rimshot. Is it just me, or does /. seem to have more trolls these days? I've been using the site for probably ten years now and it seems like this last year has had its fill of them.

Re: Windows only

[Zero__Kelvin]

There have always been a pretty steady stream of trolls (at least since around 1999 when I got here), but what has changed is the quality of the trolling. In general the mean skill level has plummeted so you tend to get a lot of really clueless people trolling a bunch of other really clueless people. The difference is that in the old days you could read a whole flame war and actually learn something, possibly even being amused in the process. That kind of high level knowledge exchange is not just less common, but almost non-existent on Slashdot circa 2105.

Re:Oh yeah....

[KGIII]

It is probably less time to install, play with, discard or learn it, than one spends on /. daily or, most certainly, cumulatively.

I remember suggesting this years ago....

[mark-t]

.. almost as long ago as when biittorrent was invented, as a means to abate so-called

flash crowds

on the internet... more colloquially known in these parts as the slashdot effect... If everyone visiting a web page with a large quantity of multimedia content helped to distribute the data that would otherwise have to be supplied by the website, the web server would be generally able to tolerate larger numbers of people simultaneously accessing it.

ZeroNet

[nofish]

Similar project, but OpenSource and works on any OS/Browser: https://github.com/HelloZeroNe... (Decentralized websites using Bitcoin crypto and the BitTorrent network)

Chromium

[rn10950]

Must every new browser released be based on Chromium?