Brave Becomes First Browser to Integrate Native Peer-to-Peer IPFS Protocol

Brave, the privacy-focussed browser, has become the first to incorporate native support for InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) protocol. IPFS is a lesser-known, peer-to-peer transport protocol designed to work as a decentralised storage system. The IPFS protocol — as opposed to HTTP or HTTPS — allows users to access decentralised or censored content on the web. The IPFS integration comes with the latest browser desktop version 1.19. This integration will allow Brave desktop users to access IPFS URLs directly through the browser without having to install an extension.

The company took to its blog to announce the rollout of IPFS in its latest Brave desktop version 1.19. After updating to the latest browser version, Brave users can access decentralised Web content by entering a URL in the form of ipfs://{content_hash_ID}. The update brings native support for IPFS, and no extension will be required to access URLs that start with ipfs:// moving forward.

“Integrating IPFS provides Brave users with a significantly enhanced browsing experience, increasing the availability of content, offloading server costs from the content publisher, and improving the overall resilience of the Internet,” the company wrote on its blog.

In more practical terms, Brave's new IPFS native integration will allow users to bypass national firewalls and access content that may be blocked in their region for multiple reasons. Only content that has been hosted on IPFS can be accessed.

“Today, Web users across the world are unable to access restricted content, including, for example, parts of Wikipedia in Thailand, over 100,000 blocked websites in Turkey, and critical access to COVID-19 information in China. Now anyone with an Internet connection can access this critical information through IPFS on the Brave browser,” said Molly Mackinlay, Project Lead at IPFS.

Brave claims to have 24 million monthly active users. Brian Bondy, CTO and Co-Founder of Brave, said, “We're thrilled to be the first browser to offer a native IPFS integration with today's Brave desktop browser release. Providing Brave's 1 million+ verified content creators with the power to seamlessly serve content to millions of new users across the globe via a new and secure protocol, IPFS gives users a solution to the problem of centralized servers creating a central point of failure for content access. Integrating the IPFS open-source network is a key milestone in making the Web more transparent, decentralized, and resilient."

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