8 ms·

Library Genesis Desktop app, now with IPFS support

370 points by janandonly 5y ago

agilob 5y ago
Will not support linux or Mac.
- nine_k 5y ago
  If it's not open source, how can one trust it in such a sensitive question as accessing libgen? If it is open source, then the support may eventually materialize.
  - margalabargala 5y ago
    The source is available: https://github.com/libgenapps/LibgenDesktop https://github.com/libgenapps/LibgenDesktop However, the repo has no license, and therefore is not free and open source. Technically that code is still proprietary. How much someone writing a libgen app would care if you forked their proprietary app is left as an exercise for the reader.
  - tkot 5y ago
    I think it uses WPF for the interface, so Linux support would pretty much require a fork unless WPF starts supporting Linux.
- burtness 5y ago
  Ive had luck running it in wine on linux
ajvs 5y ago
No commits in over a year, and developer has announced the next release will be the "final version".
- 0des 5y ago
  While this is a warning sign in general, there does exist software that is simply 'done'.
  - hbn 5y ago
    Not really for programs that connect to the internet
capableweb 5y ago
Title is wrong, the updated configuration (https://wiki.mhut.org/_media/software:libgen_desktop_mirrors_update.zip https://wiki.mhut.org/_media/software:libgen_desktop_mirrors...) is using ipfs.com and cloudflare-ipfs.com, so it's still being fetched over HTTP(S), not IPFS.
- eminence32 5y ago
  This is an interesting point. In my experience, it's very common for HTTP(S) to be used for the "last mile" for content that originates from IPFS. Generally this is done via public or dedicated IPFS gateways. Even when you have a local IPFS node (which is not common), the "last meter" delivery is still done using HTTP too, via a local gateway
  - capableweb 5y ago
    > it's very common for HTTP(S) to be used for the "last mile" for content that originates from IPFS Indeed, it seems very common, but that doesn't make my original point less true. > the "last meter" delivery is still done using HTTP too, via a local gateway Yeah, that seems common too, but less "wrong" to call it "IPFS support" in that case, in my opinion. Running your own IPFS gateway at least makes the content actually fetched from the network (internet) via IPFS while using ipfs.com/cloudflare-ipfs.com is not any different than just using a CDN (except usually you have to pay for CDNs, IPFS gateways seems to be free (for now)).
    - Datagenerator 5y ago
      Depending on centralized CDN's with logging is not using native IPFS, correct if wrong
      - capableweb 5y ago
        I don't understand what you mean, what's the question?
    - eminence32 5y ago
hagbard_c 5y ago
The ´Books' tool [1] has been doing the same for a long time as well, can be used anywhere where Bash runs and - given its shell-based nature - is eminently hackable. It comes with a CLI (named 'books'), TUI ('nbook' and 'nfiction') and GUI ('xbook' and 'xfiction') and supports both IPFS, Bittorrent as well as direct download. It can search on all fields. Source: I wrote this about 6 years ago and maintain it every now and then [1] https://github.com/Yetangitu/books https://github.com/Yetangitu/books [2] https://forum.mhut.org/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=7816 https://forum.mhut.org/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=7816
- agilob 5y ago
  That is really cool project, but I can't give this to non technical people
  - anshumankmr 5y ago
    Non technical people aren't the ones who use LibGen though, right? There are things like PDFDrive that has found some popularity in my country.
    - davidivadavid 5y ago
      Not a "technical" person. Use LibGen all the time.
    - selectodude 5y ago
      Sure they do. College students become highly technical when it’s paying for textbooks vs beer.
      - davidivadavid 5y ago
        I mean, using LibGen requires all of knowing how to visit a website and type words in a text input field. Not exactly technical?
        5y ago
WFHRenaissance 5y ago
LOL, I prefer to keep my acts of piracy in the browser.
nynx 5y ago
Why is this not a locally running webapp? Running an unsandboxed app like this would not be smart.
- lijogdfljk 5y ago
  Why is this person being downvoted? I thought the same - aren't local webapps prone to portscanning and effective cross origin (for lack of a better description?)?
lyndons 5y ago
Can we create decentralized library (catalog) protocol, so it can't be taken down? I'm thinking about libgen/sci-hub/whatcd(RIP), but entirely decentralized, protocol-based. We already have basically all necessary tools: BitTorrent/IPFS to distribute files, magnet links to link them, DHT to discover peers. We just need to combine them together in a smart way and maybe add some bits of missing functionality, like: - categorization and search; - voting for every entry; - maybe reputation system. Where peers regularly publishing good, high quality content get their 'karma'[1] upvoted. So when downloading you can choose people with higher reputation. Or when building catalog of materials in certain area of interest, you can filter only peers with certain threshold karma. - incentive for peers to keep seeding whatever they downloaded at least until achieving certain ratio (say, 2:1). Maybe by rewarding with 'torrent tokens' that you can spend on downloading, commenting etc.[2] - comments to every entry (published torrent). With means to combat spam, insults, irrelevant stuff etc. E.g. with voting system, where comments with, say, -3[3] votes become collapsed. Or/and with aforementioned 'tokens' that you spend when comment. - personal blacklists to block people whose torrents/comments you don't want to see. Maybe I'm reinventing the wheel here and something similar already exists, but for some reason not popular (since I never heard of it)? In that case we need to figure out why it didn't shoot and fix it to make it work. [1] Your ID will be a cryptographic key a la cryptocurrency wallet. [2] With rare but sought after torrents rewarding you with more tokens. [3] Personally adjustable.
- lifeformed 5y ago
  I am just a layman with all this, but could this be an actually useful application of blockchain? Create a DAO where reputation is earned through votes, and tokens are distributed to people who upload new good content that people want (a bounty system??), and you can spend them on downloads. I have no idea how any of this works so maybe it's a terrible idea.
- tribler 5y ago
  Yes, this is exactly what we are working on for 16 years now. Longest running torrent, trust and Tor-fork project: https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki Its as hard as making a decentralised Google and decentralised YouTube at the same time. Over 75 master students and PhDs put their coding efforts in it at Delft University.
willmeyers 5y ago
I'm probably ignorant to how this app uses IPFS (and IPFS in general), but from what I remember IPFS has a fairly strict code of conduct on copyrighted material. I'm more curious than anything, but what's stopping the legal team over at Protocol Labs from shutting this down?
- prophesi 5y ago
  It's not really feasible to remove content from IPFS. You would need all of the nodes hosting the content to remove it. The most likely scenario would be for common IPFS gateways like ipfs.io, cloudflare, and pinata.cloud to not host the content. That would make it much harder for that material's CID to resolve in a timely manner, if any other nodes are hosting it.
  - willmeyers 5y ago
    Ah, makes sense. Thanks for explaining
Samin100 5y ago
I wanted a dead-simple Library Genesis Mac app so I released one called Alexandria (https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria) a while ago, and recently just updated it to use IPFS via the Cloudflare gateway. Compared to the previous Libgen servers, book downloads are nearly instant. When IPFS works, it works really well.
- amiantos 5y ago
  This is cool but "loading sources..." never seems to complete on my machine. Great icon.
  - Samin100 5y ago
    Which book did you search for? Sometimes the Library Genesis servers take a while to respond.
    - amiantos 5y ago
      For my test searches I did "Donnie Darko" and clicked on the first result, and then "Diana Spencer" and tried a few results. Doesn't seem like sources ever load for me. I have a much better experience just going to whatever libgen URL Safari auto-completes for me.
      - Samin100 5y ago
        Ah, I figured out what went wrong. Libgen has two different databases, a fiction and non-fiction one, and right now Alexandria only queries Libgen's non-fiction DB. I'll update it to search both databases later this week. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
        arthurcolle 5y ago
        It is a really nice app! I have been meaning to get into Mac OS native app development but haven't had the time. Did you implement it in Objective C or Swift?
sva_ 5y ago
Does somebody know of a plugin for Zotero to automatically fetch a file from LibGen? I tried writing one but it seems like libgen does something weird to not show the download link... s.t. I gave up.
- ohbleek 5y ago
  Just commenting to say how great site to is and I’m always surprised at how little I hear about it in the wild.
  - sva_ 5y ago
    Not sure what you mean? Typo?
- test245 5y ago
  Perhaps modifying https://github.com/ethanwillis/zotero-scihub https://github.com/ethanwillis/zotero-scihub would be a nice starting/continuation point. Also, if you can write the stuff around fetching an ISBN from Zotero, and getting the right LibGen entry, perhaps someone else can fix the issue of converting the right LibGen entry into the actual link.
Animats 5y ago
Does IPFS really work? As I understand it, it's sort of like a pay version of BitTorrent. In theory, you're supposedly renting space on hard disks of random users. In practice, you're probably renting space from AWS at a markup. I was interested in IPFS as a possible asset storage system for assets for virtual worlds. Not for piracy, but as a way to sell virtual world assets with no ongoing obligation to host the content. You store the ownership on some blockchain and the content in some storage system with pre-paid "perpetual care". I'd seen one offer at $5/gigabyte/forever. The idea is supposed to be that Filecoin is a derivative of future declines in storage pricing, and profits on that derivative pay for the storage. Unclear if this works. There's one seller offering "perpetual storage" for a one-time fee. But their terms of service say "Data will be stored at no cost to the user on IPFS for as long as Protocol Labs, Inc. continues to offer free storage for NFT’s." No good. (Just once, I'd like to see an application for NFTs that actually did something besides power a make-money-fast scheme.)
- dannyobrien 5y ago
  I think it's worth separating what IPFS provides from what Filecoin offers (note that I work at the Filecoin Foundation/Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, but I'm hopefully being sufficiently technical here that the description is as objective as I can be.) IFPS is a model for providing a content-addressable storage system -- so if you have a particular hash (the CID) of a piece of content, you can obtain it without having to know where or who (or how many people) are storing it. Obviously one site on the IPFS network you're using has to have stored that data, but it only needs to be one site. More sites make it easier and quicker to access. Almost all IPFS nodes are run and offered for free, either by volunteers, major services like Cloudflare or Protocol Labs' dweb.link (which act as gateways so that you can access that file network over http/https) or web services that you pay to host your content on IPFS and manage it through a traditional API, like Textile or Fleek, or Fission.codes. The key point here for someone with your use case, is that you have lots of flexibility as to who is hosting your files. You can start off just running your own node, or pay someone else, or pay lots of providers that are geographically diverse, or just do it among a bunch of volunteers. You're not tied to a single provider, because wherever your data is stored, you or your users will be able to find it. Filecoin is a project to fix the incentive issues that can affected historical decentralizing projects like bittorrent, and can lead to decentralizing attempts like this collapse into just a single centralized service like AWS. Storage providers on the Filecoin network negotiate directly with customers to store files -- they receive payment directly from those customers, but they are also incentivized to offer storage, and also store those files over the long term, because Filecoin has a proof-of-storage setup where storage providers get utility coins in return for proving that they're either making space available, or storing customers' files. It's all very zero-knowledge-proof and fancy, but the important thing is that with this in place, and a flat, competitive market for storage, storage provides on this network have good commercial reasons to offer low prices, and don't care if you're not tied directly to them (in the way that Amazon and other traditional storage providers are tempted to lock you in.) Filecoin isn't so much a derivative of future declines, but a way to establish pricing in an environment where there actually is a free(r) market for online storage. And IPFS is a protocol that establishes one part of that freer market, which is to decouple who is storing your files, from how you might access them in the future. So far, this seems to be working, with prices being much cheaper than the alternatives, and with some degree of geographical and organizational diversity: https://file.app/ https://file.app/ Storage providers are also now also competing on other aspects, such as ecological impact (see https://github.com/protocol/FilecoinGreen-tools https://github.com/protocol/FilecoinGreen-tools ), speed of access, etc, which is what you might expect in a flatter market. We also see larger storage providers providing separate markets for large, >1 Pebibyte customers. Happy to talk about this more, I'm danny@fil.org. Big fan of your work, etc, etc.
fnord77 5y ago
As I understand it, if you view something in IPFS, you end up serving it. seems like a legal liability the same way other p2p networks are a liability - digital rights owners see your ip address serving their content and they can take you to court.
comeonseriously 5y ago
Never knew this existed. The web site has always been perfectly fine.

370 points by janandonly 5y ago

agilob 5y ago

Will not support linux or Mac.

nine_k 5y ago
If it's not open source, how can one trust it in such a sensitive question as accessing libgen? If it is open source, then the support may eventually materialize.
- margalabargala 5y ago
  The source is available: https://github.com/libgenapps/LibgenDesktop https://github.com/libgenapps/LibgenDesktop However, the repo has no license, and therefore is not free and open source. Technically that code is still proprietary. How much someone writing a libgen app would care if you forked their proprietary app is left as an exercise for the reader.
- tkot 5y ago
  I think it uses WPF for the interface, so Linux support would pretty much require a fork unless WPF starts supporting Linux.
burtness 5y ago
Ive had luck running it in wine on linux

ajvs 5y ago

No commits in over a year, and developer has announced the next release will be the "final version".

0des 5y ago
While this is a warning sign in general, there does exist software that is simply 'done'.
- hbn 5y ago
  Not really for programs that connect to the internet

capableweb 5y ago

Title is wrong, the updated configuration (https://wiki.mhut.org/_media/software:libgen_desktop_mirrors_update.zip https://wiki.mhut.org/_media/software:libgen_desktop_mirrors...) is using ipfs.com and cloudflare-ipfs.com, so it's still being fetched over HTTP(S), not IPFS.

eminence32 5y ago
This is an interesting point. In my experience, it's very common for HTTP(S) to be used for the "last mile" for content that originates from IPFS. Generally this is done via public or dedicated IPFS gateways. Even when you have a local IPFS node (which is not common), the "last meter" delivery is still done using HTTP too, via a local gateway
- capableweb 5y ago
  > it's very common for HTTP(S) to be used for the "last mile" for content that originates from IPFS Indeed, it seems very common, but that doesn't make my original point less true. > the "last meter" delivery is still done using HTTP too, via a local gateway Yeah, that seems common too, but less "wrong" to call it "IPFS support" in that case, in my opinion. Running your own IPFS gateway at least makes the content actually fetched from the network (internet) via IPFS while using ipfs.com/cloudflare-ipfs.com is not any different than just using a CDN (except usually you have to pay for CDNs, IPFS gateways seems to be free (for now)).
  - Datagenerator 5y ago
    Depending on centralized CDN's with logging is not using native IPFS, correct if wrong
    - capableweb 5y ago
      I don't understand what you mean, what's the question?
  - eminence32 5y ago

hagbard_c 5y ago

The ´Books' tool [1] has been doing the same for a long time as well, can be used anywhere where Bash runs and - given its shell-based nature - is eminently hackable. It comes with a CLI (named 'books'), TUI ('nbook' and 'nfiction') and GUI ('xbook' and 'xfiction') and supports both IPFS, Bittorrent as well as direct download. It can search on all fields. Source: I wrote this about 6 years ago and maintain it every now and then [1] https://github.com/Yetangitu/books https://github.com/Yetangitu/books [2] https://forum.mhut.org/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=7816 https://forum.mhut.org/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=7816

agilob 5y ago
That is really cool project, but I can't give this to non technical people
- anshumankmr 5y ago
  Non technical people aren't the ones who use LibGen though, right? There are things like PDFDrive that has found some popularity in my country.
  - davidivadavid 5y ago
    Not a "technical" person. Use LibGen all the time.
  - selectodude 5y ago
    Sure they do. College students become highly technical when it’s paying for textbooks vs beer.
    - davidivadavid 5y ago
      I mean, using LibGen requires all of knowing how to visit a website and type words in a text input field. Not exactly technical?
      - 5y ago

WFHRenaissance 5y ago

LOL, I prefer to keep my acts of piracy in the browser.

nynx 5y ago

Why is this not a locally running webapp? Running an unsandboxed app like this would not be smart.

lijogdfljk 5y ago
Why is this person being downvoted? I thought the same - aren't local webapps prone to portscanning and effective cross origin (for lack of a better description?)?

lyndons 5y ago

Can we create decentralized library (catalog) protocol, so it can't be taken down? I'm thinking about libgen/sci-hub/whatcd(RIP), but entirely decentralized, protocol-based. We already have basically all necessary tools: BitTorrent/IPFS to distribute files, magnet links to link them, DHT to discover peers. We just need to combine them together in a smart way and maybe add some bits of missing functionality, like: - categorization and search; - voting for every entry; - maybe reputation system. Where peers regularly publishing good, high quality content get their 'karma'[1] upvoted. So when downloading you can choose people with higher reputation. Or when building catalog of materials in certain area of interest, you can filter only peers with certain threshold karma. - incentive for peers to keep seeding whatever they downloaded at least until achieving certain ratio (say, 2:1). Maybe by rewarding with 'torrent tokens' that you can spend on downloading, commenting etc.[2] - comments to every entry (published torrent). With means to combat spam, insults, irrelevant stuff etc. E.g. with voting system, where comments with, say, -3[3] votes become collapsed. Or/and with aforementioned 'tokens' that you spend when comment. - personal blacklists to block people whose torrents/comments you don't want to see. Maybe I'm reinventing the wheel here and something similar already exists, but for some reason not popular (since I never heard of it)? In that case we need to figure out why it didn't shoot and fix it to make it work. [1] Your ID will be a cryptographic key a la cryptocurrency wallet. [2] With rare but sought after torrents rewarding you with more tokens. [3] Personally adjustable.

lifeformed 5y ago
I am just a layman with all this, but could this be an actually useful application of blockchain? Create a DAO where reputation is earned through votes, and tokens are distributed to people who upload new good content that people want (a bounty system??), and you can spend them on downloads. I have no idea how any of this works so maybe it's a terrible idea.
tribler 5y ago
Yes, this is exactly what we are working on for 16 years now. Longest running torrent, trust and Tor-fork project: https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki https://github.com/Tribler/tribler/wiki Its as hard as making a decentralised Google and decentralised YouTube at the same time. Over 75 master students and PhDs put their coding efforts in it at Delft University.

willmeyers 5y ago

I'm probably ignorant to how this app uses IPFS (and IPFS in general), but from what I remember IPFS has a fairly strict code of conduct on copyrighted material. I'm more curious than anything, but what's stopping the legal team over at Protocol Labs from shutting this down?

prophesi 5y ago
It's not really feasible to remove content from IPFS. You would need all of the nodes hosting the content to remove it. The most likely scenario would be for common IPFS gateways like ipfs.io, cloudflare, and pinata.cloud to not host the content. That would make it much harder for that material's CID to resolve in a timely manner, if any other nodes are hosting it.
- willmeyers 5y ago
  Ah, makes sense. Thanks for explaining

Samin100 5y ago

I wanted a dead-simple Library Genesis Mac app so I released one called Alexandria (https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria https://github.com/Samin100/Alexandria) a while ago, and recently just updated it to use IPFS via the Cloudflare gateway. Compared to the previous Libgen servers, book downloads are nearly instant. When IPFS works, it works really well.

amiantos 5y ago
This is cool but "loading sources..." never seems to complete on my machine. Great icon.
- Samin100 5y ago
  Which book did you search for? Sometimes the Library Genesis servers take a while to respond.
  - amiantos 5y ago
    For my test searches I did "Donnie Darko" and clicked on the first result, and then "Diana Spencer" and tried a few results. Doesn't seem like sources ever load for me. I have a much better experience just going to whatever libgen URL Safari auto-completes for me.
    - Samin100 5y ago
      Ah, I figured out what went wrong. Libgen has two different databases, a fiction and non-fiction one, and right now Alexandria only queries Libgen's non-fiction DB. I'll update it to search both databases later this week. Thanks for bringing this to my attention!
      - arthurcolle 5y ago
        It is a really nice app! I have been meaning to get into Mac OS native app development but haven't had the time. Did you implement it in Objective C or Swift?

sva_ 5y ago

Does somebody know of a plugin for Zotero to automatically fetch a file from LibGen? I tried writing one but it seems like libgen does something weird to not show the download link... s.t. I gave up.

ohbleek 5y ago
Just commenting to say how great site to is and I’m always surprised at how little I hear about it in the wild.
- sva_ 5y ago
  Not sure what you mean? Typo?
test245 5y ago
Perhaps modifying https://github.com/ethanwillis/zotero-scihub https://github.com/ethanwillis/zotero-scihub would be a nice starting/continuation point. Also, if you can write the stuff around fetching an ISBN from Zotero, and getting the right LibGen entry, perhaps someone else can fix the issue of converting the right LibGen entry into the actual link.

Animats 5y ago

Does IPFS really work? As I understand it, it's sort of like a pay version of BitTorrent. In theory, you're supposedly renting space on hard disks of random users. In practice, you're probably renting space from AWS at a markup. I was interested in IPFS as a possible asset storage system for assets for virtual worlds. Not for piracy, but as a way to sell virtual world assets with no ongoing obligation to host the content. You store the ownership on some blockchain and the content in some storage system with pre-paid "perpetual care". I'd seen one offer at $5/gigabyte/forever. The idea is supposed to be that Filecoin is a derivative of future declines in storage pricing, and profits on that derivative pay for the storage. Unclear if this works. There's one seller offering "perpetual storage" for a one-time fee. But their terms of service say "Data will be stored at no cost to the user on IPFS for as long as Protocol Labs, Inc. continues to offer free storage for NFT’s." No good. (Just once, I'd like to see an application for NFTs that actually did something besides power a make-money-fast scheme.)

dannyobrien 5y ago
I think it's worth separating what IPFS provides from what Filecoin offers (note that I work at the Filecoin Foundation/Filecoin Foundation for the Decentralized Web, but I'm hopefully being sufficiently technical here that the description is as objective as I can be.) IFPS is a model for providing a content-addressable storage system -- so if you have a particular hash (the CID) of a piece of content, you can obtain it without having to know where or who (or how many people) are storing it. Obviously one site on the IPFS network you're using has to have stored that data, but it only needs to be one site. More sites make it easier and quicker to access. Almost all IPFS nodes are run and offered for free, either by volunteers, major services like Cloudflare or Protocol Labs' dweb.link (which act as gateways so that you can access that file network over http/https) or web services that you pay to host your content on IPFS and manage it through a traditional API, like Textile or Fleek, or Fission.codes. The key point here for someone with your use case, is that you have lots of flexibility as to who is hosting your files. You can start off just running your own node, or pay someone else, or pay lots of providers that are geographically diverse, or just do it among a bunch of volunteers. You're not tied to a single provider, because wherever your data is stored, you or your users will be able to find it. Filecoin is a project to fix the incentive issues that can affected historical decentralizing projects like bittorrent, and can lead to decentralizing attempts like this collapse into just a single centralized service like AWS. Storage providers on the Filecoin network negotiate directly with customers to store files -- they receive payment directly from those customers, but they are also incentivized to offer storage, and also store those files over the long term, because Filecoin has a proof-of-storage setup where storage providers get utility coins in return for proving that they're either making space available, or storing customers' files. It's all very zero-knowledge-proof and fancy, but the important thing is that with this in place, and a flat, competitive market for storage, storage provides on this network have good commercial reasons to offer low prices, and don't care if you're not tied directly to them (in the way that Amazon and other traditional storage providers are tempted to lock you in.) Filecoin isn't so much a derivative of future declines, but a way to establish pricing in an environment where there actually is a free(r) market for online storage. And IPFS is a protocol that establishes one part of that freer market, which is to decouple who is storing your files, from how you might access them in the future. So far, this seems to be working, with prices being much cheaper than the alternatives, and with some degree of geographical and organizational diversity: https://file.app/ https://file.app/ Storage providers are also now also competing on other aspects, such as ecological impact (see https://github.com/protocol/FilecoinGreen-tools https://github.com/protocol/FilecoinGreen-tools ), speed of access, etc, which is what you might expect in a flatter market. We also see larger storage providers providing separate markets for large, >1 Pebibyte customers. Happy to talk about this more, I'm danny@fil.org. Big fan of your work, etc, etc.

fnord77 5y ago

As I understand it, if you view something in IPFS, you end up serving it. seems like a legal liability the same way other p2p networks are a liability - digital rights owners see your ip address serving their content and they can take you to court.

comeonseriously 5y ago

Never knew this existed. The web site has always been perfectly fine.