Freenet 0.7 alpha officially released

4 April 2006 Apophis Miscellaneous

The alpha is going around for quite some time over the lists of the project, as you already have seen Fuqid is already ready for 0.7. The compatibility with the new Client Protocol (FCPv2) was implemented some time ago.

But I want to warn you: turning on, starting, downloading won't work. First of all its a complete Darknet version (which will change soon hopefully) and of course there is no content at all in the new network. All content of the old network is only reachable from the old Network. You have to remember its just an alpha, so the old 0.5 network will be the preferred network for quite some time.

I am not very interested in the new Version, I think the main focus was set wrong. The Darknet should be a new feature, now its the new center of the Project. We will see where we go with the project, but upto now there is no real enthusiasm around, not even in the freenet community. I dont know if there will be more users attracted with the new version.

freenetproject.org

Freenet is a decentralised "peer-to-peer" system designed to allow the anonymous sharing of information on the Internet. After many months of work, the first alpha version of Freenet 0.7 is ready for testing.

Freenet 0.7 represents a major new approach to peer-to-peer network design. To protect the network, and the user's anonymity, Freenet users will now have the ability to connect directly to other people that they know and trust, together forming a "global darknet" making it extremely difficult for any third party, whether a government or another powerful organisation, to determine that a user is participating in Freenet, let alone what they are doing with it. This new version is a complete rewrite of the Freenet software, representing numerous other improvements, including:

    * Freenet now operates over UDP rather than TCP
    * Freenet can transparently operate through firewalls
    * Freenet's core architecture and algorithm has been redesigned for simplicity and efficiency
    * A new and even simpler API allowing the rapid development of third party software that interacts with Freenet

The new Freenet employs a simpler and more flexible routing model than previous versions, which in the future may allow diverse applications ranging from efficient search, to near-real time instant messaging and chat between anonymous participants. Initially Freenet 0.7 will be a "pure darknet" model, in that all connections must be trusted, however future versions will permit a mixed opennet/darknet approach where the user can opt to allow untrusted connections to their node, which will improve connectivity and convenience at the expense of security.

Note that this release is still a very early alpha; users should neither expect it to be secure, nor user friendly. Rather, the purpose of this release is to facilitate wider testing, to inform people of the progress we have made, and to attract fresh development talent, both to Freenet itself, and to third party applications that use Freenet as a platform.

This release would not have been possible without the work of numerous volunteers, and Matthew Toseland, Freenet's full time developer. Matthew's work is funded through donations via our website, we ask that anyone who can help us to ensure Matthew's continued employment by visiting our donations page and making a contribution at:

http://freenetproject.org/index.php?page=donate

The new version of Freenet may be downloaded from:

http://freenetproject.org/index.php?page=download-new

Freenet 0.7 alpha officially released

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