Firefox is working to protect users from censorship and government control of the Internet. Firefox 59 will recognize new peer to peer internet protocols such as Dat Project, IPFS, and Secure Scuttlebutt, allowing companies to develop extensions which
will deliver the Internet in a way governments will find difficult to control, monitor and censor. Mozilla believes such freedom is a key ingredient of a healthy Internet, and has sponsored other projects which would offer peer to peer wireless
internet which cuts out Internet Service Providers. While a peer to peer system would never be as fast and easy as a client-server system as we have at present, it does provide a baseline level of service which government and ISPs could not go
below, or risk increasing number of users defecting, which means the mere existence of these systems helps everyone else, even if they never become widespread. Mozilla writes: Mozilla has always been a
proponent of decentralization , recognizing that it is a key ingredient of a healthy Internet. Starting with Firefox 59, several protocols that support decentralized architectures are approved for use by extensions. The newly approved protocols are:
- Dat Project
- IPFS
- Secure Scuttlebutt
Firefox itself does not implement these protocols, but having them on the approved list means the browser recognizes them as valid protocols and extensions are free to provide implementations.
|
