Nostr Web Client

https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/37735

Brave is deprecating IPFS support.

What lessons can be learned from this?

Well, first off, that IPFS is effectively a failed project. I was and still am a big fan of IPFS, but anyone that's ever tried to integrate IPFS into an application knows how badly it is maintained. There are some interesting projects using it, such as libgen and various archives and libraries, there is https://github.com/mrusme/superhighway84#connectivity which is a pretty cool idea if you can get it to work. But overall for multimedia and general file distribution, Torrents have continued to work for everyone just fine. And an aside, if you've seen what protocol labs is up to these days as an IPFS user you probably feel like you need a shower.

Second and more importantly, we learn that we can never really rely on other people to maintain software for us. That goes for both IPFS and brave. You want IPFS in your application, well good luck having a low maintenance codebase. You want a browser that supports IPFS, well it works until it doesn't.

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Discussion

Carlos 1y ago

Please expand.

mister_monster 1y ago

...? What would you like me to expand on? I've said what I said, is is there some particular detail you'd like to have a conversation about?

Carlos 1y ago

Well, you talked of Protocol Labs and various integration problems, so I was curious for a bit more detail. Maybe an example or two for why it's bad and why you can not see light at the end of the tunnel. Am just curious to hear more.

mister_monster 1y ago

Here's a pretty good example of a really silly problem that is common with IPFS https://github.com/mrusme/superhighway84/issues/38 if you integrate IPFS into your software you run into all kinds of silly compatibility issues when IPFS updates that really a library shouldn't have, that one issue is interesting but if you look at the other issues for that project, closed and opened, you'll find a bunch that are just caused by IPFS doing silly shit.

Just go to their website and look https://protocol.ai/ it's a bunch of hype buzzwords, AI, neurocomputing... it seems they're just following the noise of the day.

Carlos 1y ago

Actually, the main reason I never bought into filecoin was what appeared to be an overly complex / engineered system.

I didn't know IPFS had version compatibility problems. I thought the protocol was relatively fixed / predictable.

I heard IPFS has some scalability issues, but I don't know why that is. I mean, torrents have been around for ages and AFAIK they don't have scalability issues.

mister_monster 1y ago

Yeah it is mostly feature complete which is why this is a silly problem. You update your IPFS version, your software that relies on it says it needs an older version, the software needs to be updated to change the IPFS version even though it can already probably worm with it.