11 ms·

The Impervious Browser: Your Portal to the P2P Internet

140 points by janandonly 5y ago

drexlspivey 5y ago
How do P2P video calls work? For a 10 people call do you need N*(N-1)/2 = 45 connections? Do residential internet connections have that much upload bandwidth ?
- mhitza 5y ago
  Skype used to be P2P before the Microsoft acquisition. HN tread when it was switched off https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3915479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3915479 It offloaded routing to peers that had better hardware/bandwidth. The downside was that many people were not aware of that at the time, myself included, thus on some computers Skype would seemingly consume more resources than expected.
  - dmitriid 5y ago
    The reason wasn't Microsoft acquisition but the rise of mobile. P2P does not work well on mobile devices.
egberts1 5y ago
Wow. An impressive write-up (albeit from a marketing POV). While, I am vaguely familiar with the various P2P and its protocol specs, the other protocols are newer and was not able to “quickly” find its protocol specs. Now we wait for various 3rd party evaluators to assess and audit (and of course, publish). Be nice to see a demo ISO or something for evaluation.
- janandonly 5y ago
  There is a waiting list on their website: https://www.impervious.ai/contact/ https://www.impervious.ai/contact/ I signed up for it just now... Indeed, it sounds very good, but the proof is in the pudding.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
bob55 5y ago
rvz 5y ago
Not to be confused by: https://impervious.com https://impervious.com creators of another browser called Beacon. [0] As for this, Lightning is not even Bitcoin, so what is the point of even mentioning 'decentralization'? Lightning is known to be significantly (and growing to be) more centralized and defeats the whole point of it all since there is a relentless push for people to use that instead of using Bitcoin on-chain. Lightning's centralization is inevitable. Hence this, does that also mean Bitcoin has failed in its original purpose if everyone is going to use Lightning? [0] https://impervious.com/beacon https://impervious.com/beacon
- haswell 5y ago
  Given the similarities (they're both browsers, both focused on decentralization, etc) it seems like a pretty major naming conflict. Very confusing.
- bongodrum 5y ago
  And we have uninformed comments on Lightning Network (LN - have you ever tried to run on its own? As Elizabeth Stark said Friday - “LN has its own native token called sats and it will be work stacking some”! Education is critical
  - rvz 5y ago
    > And we have uninformed comments on Lightning Network So the Lighting Network is Bitcoin and it is all working on chain then? Furthermore, we also have 1 day old accounts created for the purpose of attempting to refute my comment with themselves having ZERO counter evidence. So when are you going to refute this research paper which evidently highlights the Lightning Network's centralization problem? [0] [0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba062 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba062
- bongodrum 5y ago
  And FUD - try running Lightning Network (LN) separate from Bitcoin - it’s called a NETWORK, not token / shitcoin! As Elizabeth Stark Said Friday: “LN has its own native token called sats, and it’s maybe just worth stacking some”!
jccalhoun 5y ago
All of these "X without X" claims seem to be misleading. I thought it was actually able to communicate to people using zoom but it looks like it is just their own conferencing software and so on?
mftb 5y ago
Keep your marketing, just show us the code.
petesergeant 5y ago
As someone not embedded in “web3” or whatever they’re calling it these days, this just reads like parody? Is there anything of value behind it all?
- yayr 5y ago
  If this stack gives the control over data back to the users, there will be some value. But I assume, even with this stack there will again be tendencies towards centralization driven by convenience, efficiency and simply bargaining power...
- can16358p 5y ago
  If the browser has actual native support for interacting with EVM chains and IPFS, supporting user-friendly features like ENS or UD domains, allowing anyone to publish a page or an app in a decentralized manner, it certainly has value especially with the current centralization (e.g. FB/Twitter/Google: censorship, banks: control over money etc).
throwmeariver1 5y ago
Yeah, sorry I believe it when I see it. That just reads like a fever dream especially when looking at the credentials of their 11 employees on LinkedIn and reading their "API" documentation.
black7375 5y ago
Among the P2P browsers, beaker looked pretty good. - https://beakerbrowser.com/ https://beakerbrowser.com/ Although their journey has stopped. - https://github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker/discussions/1944 https://github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker/discussions/1944
- anderber 5y ago
  I loved Beaker Browser and I'm sad when it stopped being worked on. Such a great tech (and not crypto currency related P2P)!
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
chaostheory 5y ago
Are all the features actually decentralized? If not, what’s the point of X without Y if it’s just another centralized service.
- ibz 5y ago
  They say it's built on top of the Lightning Network, so yes.
  - chaostheory 5y ago
    Doesn’t the lightning network help centralize the bitcoin platform in exchange for efficiency and speed?
    - ibz 5y ago
      How so? It doesn't trade decentralization for speed, but rather it just achieves speed in another way (requiring on-chain consensus only on channel open/close rather than every transaction). The decentralization is still there, except it moves from miners to nodes run by users. Am I missing something obvious?
      - chaostheory 5y ago
        Because not all nodes are equal. 10% of the nodes are responsible for 80% of the transactions.
jeroenhd 5y ago
I was hoping this would be a browser with better IPFS/IPNS/Tor/I2P support, but sadly it's just another Bitcoin project. They seem to use IPFS, so that's nice, but the cryptocurrency side makes me very wary of this project.
- rmbyrro 5y ago
  Would there be a better way to implement P2P payments without a cryptocurrency? The fact they're using Bitcoin, instead of Ethereum or another altcoin, is a positive for me.
  - zamadatix 5y ago
    Why is it suddenly a requirement the browser also handle P2P payments in the first place?
    - freedomben 5y ago
      It's not a "requirement" but monetizing content is a really hard problem that hasn't been solved real well. The most common strategy is ads, but everybody involved (by that I mean the producer and the consumer of the content, not an unnecessary third part like ad sellers) hate that solution. There are some attempts like Medium and their subscription model and Brave's BAT. These solve the problem of "micro payments" but they still require a third party and they have significant limitations (especially that content providers don't have any say on "price"). Direct payments so far suffer from the "micro payments" issue in that small payments aren't feasible since credit card companies and other third parties take a non-trivial portion. So yeah, if a browser can fix this problem with P2P payments, that would be huge.
      - zamadatix 5y ago
        There are a lot of really hard problems and as big as fixing any such really hard problem would be the question is why this needs to be handled by the browser itself not why this would be a good problem to have solved.
unfocussed_mike 5y ago
Sounds more like it's going to be: browser, without the ease of use
root_axis 5y ago
An interesting concept in theory, minus the cryptocurrency nonsense. Unfortunately, a browser is already a pretty ambitious project even using an open source engine, adding in a gigantic bespoke productivity suite on top of it is a massive undertaking - it's a certainty that this software is going to suck hard compared to the alternatives, but... maybe an MVP is enough to gain traction, if they have a shitton of funding and the project stays alive it might be worthwhile with a few years of engineering time.
binarymax 5y ago
Finally something that looks interesting and useable coming from the “web3” crowd. But I’m a skeptic. I’ll remain a skeptic until I see something that works as well as our existing tools. I’ll also remain a skeptic if I need to join the cryptocurrency cult for it to be usable. Most of the things listed here are worthwhile ideas. I want safety and privacy on the web for everyone. But I don’t want to get involved with Bitcoin if that’s a prerequisite. The world needs this in a way where they can install a browser like any other, and just start using it. No wallets, no angle. Just let it be a free tool of communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing.
- legrande 5y ago
  Ethereum et al are toy systems. We're only barely scratching the surface of what we can do with them. The early Internet was a toy system, and look how it blossomed into this marvel we call the The (modern) Internet. Failure is an opportunity to start again more intelligently. I have no doubt the Internet will eventually become distributed and decentralized. Just add time and political will.
  - koehr 5y ago
    The misconception here is that the internet is not decentralized. The original idea of the internet is to be decentralized. There are just very large centralized silos built on top of its structure.
    - freedomben 5y ago
      I think you and GP are both right. The original idea and design of the internet is decentralized, but we're at a point where it's pretty hard to do that. Email being the best example. I'm quite the self-hoster and I've self-hosted email before, but even I pay for it now because unless you own your IP address and have invested years into building reputation, deliverability is abysmal. And one accidental click of "this is spam" by a recipient and your reputation is shot to hell. So philosophical you're right, it's decentralized. But practically, it's more complicated.
  - 5y ago
labrador 5y ago
• Zoom, without Zoom. • Google Docs, without Google. • Medium, without Medium. • WhatsApp, without WhatsApp. • Payments, without banks. • Identity, without the state. A few quick points - The percentage of internet users who care that the above services are centralized is likely less than 1% and probably much less - If the open source movement is any indication, the percentage of people in that small group who want to pay to build such decentralized services is also very small - There is no mention of a moderation slash policing mechanism. The idea that "The State" will allow people to trade child porn or buy and sell ghost guns without interference is ludicrous My intuition tells me that there is a network law that hasn't been formulated yet that says that decentralized networks trend towards centralized super nodes when certain contraints and requirements are placed on the decentralized network (or maybe there is one and I haven't heard about it)
- SkyMarshal 5y ago
  > My intuition tells me that there is a network law that hasn't been formulated yet that says that decentralized networks trend towards centralized super nodes when certain contraints and requirements are placed on the decentralized network (or maybe there is one and I haven't heard about it) There’s a generalized version, if not one specific to blockchains and cryptocurrencies: In complex, non-linear dynamic systems, the critical resources of the system tend to concentrate and consolidate over time, due to positive feedback, winner-take-all, and similar effects inherent in these systems. Decentralized systems are subject to these dynamics too, as we’re seeing with both mining/validating concentration and ownership of the wealth in these systems. People are aware of the problem, but it’s probably unsolvable, deterministically at least. In broader society, in the past, such trends have tended to eventually result in some kind of collapse or revolution (French, Bolshevik, etc). It’s like there’s a natural asymptote to the concentration of resources, that forces a (painful) reset once they become too concentrated.
  - webmaven 5y ago
    > In complex, non-linear dynamic systems, the critical resources of the system tend to concentrate and consolidate over time, due to positive feedback, winner-take-all, and similar effects inherent in these systems. Decentralized systems are subject to these dynamics too, I've come across various essays and posts that make this point tangentially, but not much that investigates it directly. If you are aware of any, links would be appreciated. > It’s like there’s a natural asymptote to the concentration of resources, that forces a (painful) reset once they become too concentrated. Likewise, if you know of work to determine how concentrated is too concentrated, that would be interesting.
DoItToMe81 5y ago
Is this another Chromium fork?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
can16358p 5y ago
Don't know whether it succeeds or not, but we definitely need more projects like this supporting the decentralized Internet, especially dApps, for better adoption.
al2o3cr 5y ago
What's the business model? A "traditional finance" version of this would likely be aiming to get lots of transactions it could extract a couple basis points out of, but that seems impossible with a p2p architecture. All those "MSCS required, PhD preferred" hires they're making ain't working for free...
TeeMassive 5y ago
As with all these initiatives, I salute them and morally support their development. However how do I go installing it and start using it right away like very other piece of software I use? If I, a tech savvy guy, can't do it, then how do I even tell my normie friends how to use it?
olah_1 5y ago
They desperately need to rebrand if they hope to succeed. The knight helmet logo and the name are not appealing in the slightest to any normal person. The whole brand image just screams "edgelord".
marcodiego 5y ago
Did they release it? If it is not FLOSS, I wouldn't trust it.
sirmike_ 5y ago
I am not clear or see the obvious problem this would solve? Could someone help me understand the user story/user case for the problem this solves today for a user? I honestly have a hard time with these p2p/decentrialized/ blockchain/*xyzcoin items. After you have seen one, they all kinda cast the same shadow.
- 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
  > I am not clear or see the obvious problem this would solve? Web3-type projects in a nutshel
encryptluks2 5y ago
> Zoom, without Zoom. > Google Docs, without Google. > Medium, without Medium. > WhatsApp, without WhatsApp Trademark lawsuit, without adequate funding to defend against
koreanguy 5y ago
SrslyJosh 5y ago
> The Impervious Browser will be publicly released April 7th, during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference, in Miami. Well, that tells me everything I need to know. =)

140 points by janandonly 5y ago

How do P2P video calls work? For a 10 people call do you need N*(N-1)/2 = 45 connections? Do residential internet connections have that much upload bandwidth ?

mhitza 5y ago
Skype used to be P2P before the Microsoft acquisition. HN tread when it was switched off https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3915479 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3915479 It offloaded routing to peers that had better hardware/bandwidth. The downside was that many people were not aware of that at the time, myself included, thus on some computers Skype would seemingly consume more resources than expected.
- dmitriid 5y ago
  The reason wasn't Microsoft acquisition but the rise of mobile. P2P does not work well on mobile devices.

egberts1 5y ago

Wow. An impressive write-up (albeit from a marketing POV). While, I am vaguely familiar with the various P2P and its protocol specs, the other protocols are newer and was not able to “quickly” find its protocol specs. Now we wait for various 3rd party evaluators to assess and audit (and of course, publish). Be nice to see a demo ISO or something for evaluation.

janandonly 5y ago
There is a waiting list on their website: https://www.impervious.ai/contact/ https://www.impervious.ai/contact/ I signed up for it just now... Indeed, it sounds very good, but the proof is in the pudding.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

bob55 5y ago

rvz 5y ago

Not to be confused by: https://impervious.com https://impervious.com creators of another browser called Beacon. [0] As for this, Lightning is not even Bitcoin, so what is the point of even mentioning 'decentralization'? Lightning is known to be significantly (and growing to be) more centralized and defeats the whole point of it all since there is a relentless push for people to use that instead of using Bitcoin on-chain. Lightning's centralization is inevitable. Hence this, does that also mean Bitcoin has failed in its original purpose if everyone is going to use Lightning? [0] https://impervious.com/beacon https://impervious.com/beacon

haswell 5y ago
Given the similarities (they're both browsers, both focused on decentralization, etc) it seems like a pretty major naming conflict. Very confusing.
bongodrum 5y ago
And we have uninformed comments on Lightning Network (LN - have you ever tried to run on its own? As Elizabeth Stark said Friday - “LN has its own native token called sats and it will be work stacking some”! Education is critical
- rvz 5y ago
  > And we have uninformed comments on Lightning Network So the Lighting Network is Bitcoin and it is all working on chain then? Furthermore, we also have 1 day old accounts created for the purpose of attempting to refute my comment with themselves having ZERO counter evidence. So when are you going to refute this research paper which evidently highlights the Lightning Network's centralization problem? [0] [0] https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba062 https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/aba062
bongodrum 5y ago
And FUD - try running Lightning Network (LN) separate from Bitcoin - it’s called a NETWORK, not token / shitcoin! As Elizabeth Stark Said Friday: “LN has its own native token called sats, and it’s maybe just worth stacking some”!

jccalhoun 5y ago

All of these "X without X" claims seem to be misleading. I thought it was actually able to communicate to people using zoom but it looks like it is just their own conferencing software and so on?

mftb 5y ago

Keep your marketing, just show us the code.

petesergeant 5y ago

As someone not embedded in “web3” or whatever they’re calling it these days, this just reads like parody? Is there anything of value behind it all?

yayr 5y ago
If this stack gives the control over data back to the users, there will be some value. But I assume, even with this stack there will again be tendencies towards centralization driven by convenience, efficiency and simply bargaining power...
can16358p 5y ago
If the browser has actual native support for interacting with EVM chains and IPFS, supporting user-friendly features like ENS or UD domains, allowing anyone to publish a page or an app in a decentralized manner, it certainly has value especially with the current centralization (e.g. FB/Twitter/Google: censorship, banks: control over money etc).

throwmeariver1 5y ago

Yeah, sorry I believe it when I see it. That just reads like a fever dream especially when looking at the credentials of their 11 employees on LinkedIn and reading their "API" documentation.

black7375 5y ago

Among the P2P browsers, beaker looked pretty good. - https://beakerbrowser.com/ https://beakerbrowser.com/ Although their journey has stopped. - https://github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker/discussions/1944 https://github.com/beakerbrowser/beaker/discussions/1944

anderber 5y ago
I loved Beaker Browser and I'm sad when it stopped being worked on. Such a great tech (and not crypto currency related P2P)!
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

chaostheory 5y ago

Are all the features actually decentralized? If not, what’s the point of X without Y if it’s just another centralized service.

ibz 5y ago
They say it's built on top of the Lightning Network, so yes.
- chaostheory 5y ago
  Doesn’t the lightning network help centralize the bitcoin platform in exchange for efficiency and speed?
  - ibz 5y ago
    How so? It doesn't trade decentralization for speed, but rather it just achieves speed in another way (requiring on-chain consensus only on channel open/close rather than every transaction). The decentralization is still there, except it moves from miners to nodes run by users. Am I missing something obvious?
    - chaostheory 5y ago
      Because not all nodes are equal. 10% of the nodes are responsible for 80% of the transactions.

jeroenhd 5y ago

I was hoping this would be a browser with better IPFS/IPNS/Tor/I2P support, but sadly it's just another Bitcoin project. They seem to use IPFS, so that's nice, but the cryptocurrency side makes me very wary of this project.

rmbyrro 5y ago
Would there be a better way to implement P2P payments without a cryptocurrency? The fact they're using Bitcoin, instead of Ethereum or another altcoin, is a positive for me.
- zamadatix 5y ago
  Why is it suddenly a requirement the browser also handle P2P payments in the first place?
  - freedomben 5y ago
    It's not a "requirement" but monetizing content is a really hard problem that hasn't been solved real well. The most common strategy is ads, but everybody involved (by that I mean the producer and the consumer of the content, not an unnecessary third part like ad sellers) hate that solution. There are some attempts like Medium and their subscription model and Brave's BAT. These solve the problem of "micro payments" but they still require a third party and they have significant limitations (especially that content providers don't have any say on "price"). Direct payments so far suffer from the "micro payments" issue in that small payments aren't feasible since credit card companies and other third parties take a non-trivial portion. So yeah, if a browser can fix this problem with P2P payments, that would be huge.
    - zamadatix 5y ago
      There are a lot of really hard problems and as big as fixing any such really hard problem would be the question is why this needs to be handled by the browser itself not why this would be a good problem to have solved.

unfocussed_mike 5y ago

Sounds more like it's going to be: browser, without the ease of use

root_axis 5y ago

An interesting concept in theory, minus the cryptocurrency nonsense. Unfortunately, a browser is already a pretty ambitious project even using an open source engine, adding in a gigantic bespoke productivity suite on top of it is a massive undertaking - it's a certainty that this software is going to suck hard compared to the alternatives, but... maybe an MVP is enough to gain traction, if they have a shitton of funding and the project stays alive it might be worthwhile with a few years of engineering time.

binarymax 5y ago

Finally something that looks interesting and useable coming from the “web3” crowd. But I’m a skeptic. I’ll remain a skeptic until I see something that works as well as our existing tools. I’ll also remain a skeptic if I need to join the cryptocurrency cult for it to be usable. Most of the things listed here are worthwhile ideas. I want safety and privacy on the web for everyone. But I don’t want to get involved with Bitcoin if that’s a prerequisite. The world needs this in a way where they can install a browser like any other, and just start using it. No wallets, no angle. Just let it be a free tool of communication, collaboration and knowledge sharing.

legrande 5y ago
Ethereum et al are toy systems. We're only barely scratching the surface of what we can do with them. The early Internet was a toy system, and look how it blossomed into this marvel we call the The (modern) Internet. Failure is an opportunity to start again more intelligently. I have no doubt the Internet will eventually become distributed and decentralized. Just add time and political will.
- koehr 5y ago
  The misconception here is that the internet is not decentralized. The original idea of the internet is to be decentralized. There are just very large centralized silos built on top of its structure.
  - freedomben 5y ago
    I think you and GP are both right. The original idea and design of the internet is decentralized, but we're at a point where it's pretty hard to do that. Email being the best example. I'm quite the self-hoster and I've self-hosted email before, but even I pay for it now because unless you own your IP address and have invested years into building reputation, deliverability is abysmal. And one accidental click of "this is spam" by a recipient and your reputation is shot to hell. So philosophical you're right, it's decentralized. But practically, it's more complicated.
- 5y ago

labrador 5y ago

• Zoom, without Zoom. • Google Docs, without Google. • Medium, without Medium. • WhatsApp, without WhatsApp. • Payments, without banks. • Identity, without the state. A few quick points - The percentage of internet users who care that the above services are centralized is likely less than 1% and probably much less - If the open source movement is any indication, the percentage of people in that small group who want to pay to build such decentralized services is also very small - There is no mention of a moderation slash policing mechanism. The idea that "The State" will allow people to trade child porn or buy and sell ghost guns without interference is ludicrous My intuition tells me that there is a network law that hasn't been formulated yet that says that decentralized networks trend towards centralized super nodes when certain contraints and requirements are placed on the decentralized network (or maybe there is one and I haven't heard about it)

SkyMarshal 5y ago
> My intuition tells me that there is a network law that hasn't been formulated yet that says that decentralized networks trend towards centralized super nodes when certain contraints and requirements are placed on the decentralized network (or maybe there is one and I haven't heard about it) There’s a generalized version, if not one specific to blockchains and cryptocurrencies: In complex, non-linear dynamic systems, the critical resources of the system tend to concentrate and consolidate over time, due to positive feedback, winner-take-all, and similar effects inherent in these systems. Decentralized systems are subject to these dynamics too, as we’re seeing with both mining/validating concentration and ownership of the wealth in these systems. People are aware of the problem, but it’s probably unsolvable, deterministically at least. In broader society, in the past, such trends have tended to eventually result in some kind of collapse or revolution (French, Bolshevik, etc). It’s like there’s a natural asymptote to the concentration of resources, that forces a (painful) reset once they become too concentrated.
- webmaven 5y ago
  > In complex, non-linear dynamic systems, the critical resources of the system tend to concentrate and consolidate over time, due to positive feedback, winner-take-all, and similar effects inherent in these systems. Decentralized systems are subject to these dynamics too, I've come across various essays and posts that make this point tangentially, but not much that investigates it directly. If you are aware of any, links would be appreciated. > It’s like there’s a natural asymptote to the concentration of resources, that forces a (painful) reset once they become too concentrated. Likewise, if you know of work to determine how concentrated is too concentrated, that would be interesting.

DoItToMe81 5y ago

Is this another Chromium fork?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

can16358p 5y ago

Don't know whether it succeeds or not, but we definitely need more projects like this supporting the decentralized Internet, especially dApps, for better adoption.

al2o3cr 5y ago

What's the business model? A "traditional finance" version of this would likely be aiming to get lots of transactions it could extract a couple basis points out of, but that seems impossible with a p2p architecture. All those "MSCS required, PhD preferred" hires they're making ain't working for free...

TeeMassive 5y ago

As with all these initiatives, I salute them and morally support their development. However how do I go installing it and start using it right away like very other piece of software I use? If I, a tech savvy guy, can't do it, then how do I even tell my normie friends how to use it?

olah_1 5y ago

They desperately need to rebrand if they hope to succeed. The knight helmet logo and the name are not appealing in the slightest to any normal person. The whole brand image just screams "edgelord".

marcodiego 5y ago

Did they release it? If it is not FLOSS, I wouldn't trust it.

sirmike_ 5y ago

I am not clear or see the obvious problem this would solve? Could someone help me understand the user story/user case for the problem this solves today for a user? I honestly have a hard time with these p2p/decentrialized/ blockchain/*xyzcoin items. After you have seen one, they all kinda cast the same shadow.

0xdeadb00f 5y ago
> I am not clear or see the obvious problem this would solve? Web3-type projects in a nutshel

encryptluks2 5y ago

> Zoom, without Zoom. > Google Docs, without Google. > Medium, without Medium. > WhatsApp, without WhatsApp Trademark lawsuit, without adequate funding to defend against

koreanguy 5y ago

SrslyJosh 5y ago

> The Impervious Browser will be publicly released April 7th, during the Bitcoin 2022 Conference, in Miami. Well, that tells me everything I need to know. =)