FreeNet: The Underground Internet
The Freenet Project is essentially an internet within the internet, but with absolutely no censorship. The information hosted on Freenet is encryted and routed through many different nodes, which makes it incredibly difficult to track who is providing and requesting the information on its servers. Thus Freenet accomplishes absolute freedom of speech! Something we shouldn’t have to strive for especially in the U.S., but nonetheless, it’s here. All you have to do to access Freenet is going here and download it, then it will be seamlessly integrated into a browser window.
What can you do on Freenet? A lot of things, as listed below, but the most fun is in just browsing around and looking at the bizarre content that just would not be found anywhere else.
- like Limewire or torrents, Freenet serves as a P2P sharing network allowing you to download massive files for free (and without worry of getting fined for pirating!)
- publish your own Freenet site with whatever content you want
- communicate via message boards
- send private emails to other users
- browse the large amount of information available on Freenet
What info/data is on Freenet?
- music, video, picture and application files
- many different texts, i.e. Bomb-Making Manual and Guide to Homemade Poisons (not all of the material is this dark in nature, don’t be discouraged)
- Freetube – the YouTube of Freenet, showing links to all videos uploaded to the server
Note:
Freenet will move pretty slowly at first, but it will pick up speed as your use it more because more of the information will already be stored in your cache. It will also ask you questions why you are configuring your settings like “How concerned are you that your computer will be seized and searched through?” Don’t be scared by that, it’s just configuring your security settings. Yes, it is that underground, some of the information on this server is pretty secretive. Enjoy!
Colin Wright said on 06.09.2009
Wow, I’m totally going to geek myself here, but this reminds me a lot of ‘Treehouse,’ which was a secret Internet within the Internet in the Otherland sci-fi series by Tad Williams. It’s where all of the hackers and anti-censorship folks hung out, and I imagine it will largely be the same in real life.
Great stuff!
Paul Schreiber said on 10.27.2010
@Colin: I believe that i called “nerd-sniping” yourself. I do it all the time lol.
josh said on 11.05.2010
is this the same as usenet services? I was told by a friend that it was the greatest thing he had found on the net, so I went onto it and all i could see was that it’s heavily polluted with crappy porn directories! so much so, it got too boring too fast and since then i have deleted it and never went back… any suggestions/recommendations for finding the best stuff on freenet? do you need a program to access it?
Jordan said on 11.11.2010
No FreenNet is different. Usenet is a paid P2P service that has pretty much every file you would ever want to download. Think of it as a private, SUPER Limewire without spam and a whole lot more HD Movies.
I found some interesting stuff on FreeNet like how to make bombs lol but nothing too amazing. I just like the idea that there is a directory where people can post things without being tracked. No you just need a web browser.