Freenet is a peer-to-peer platform that offers free Internet services. It is inspired by the libertarian ethos that infused much of the early Internet and is designed to minimize the possibility of censorship and maximize freedom of speech. It offers protection from spam and strong privacy protections and anonymity for activities such as browsing websites, blogging, publishing files, posting comments on forums, and downloading software. It epitomizes decentralized data storage systems. Freenet does not provide comprehensive functionality and is not an attempt to mimic the World Wide Web: Users can only access content that has been uploaded to its network.

Above all, Freenet prizes the anonymity of its users, who either upload or download information, preventing any possibility of any one group or person dominating the ...