To you techies out there: would it be possible to create a peer-to-peer web browser that allows users to access information on the worldwideweb through each other (something like Napster or Kazaa)? For example, a user using the browser in China could access YouTube by relaying data through a peer using the browser in the USA?

ummm proxy?

VPN?

Yeah, I have those. I was thinking about sort of like a peer-to-peer web browsing experience. It would be faster and more reliable than proxies and VPN as you could grab bits of data from multiple users using the browser. Could be a way to make the internet a bit more accessible to people who live in sh!tholes like China.

I mean, I guess technically everyone using the browser would become a 'proxy' of sorts.

Anyways, I'm not a tech guy at all so this idea has probably already failed somewhere.

I think proxies, VPNs, and tunnelling do that kind of thing, but not web browser-specific. If I remember correctly what I read on some geeky stuff a long while ago, you can set up a network, like VPN, with peers. You then share your connection, bandwidth, etc.

I probably do not understand you perfectly, though. Do you want a web browser (e.g., IE, Firefox, Safari) that you can share [only] with your family/friends? Base from your initial post, I take it that you are looking for a specific browser that will allow you to "tunnel" data through another's connection/network. I haven't heard of such a technology yet.

What you're talking about is called Tor. It's not a browser--I've never used it, but it's a networking technology. It's not faster--in fact, it's much slower. People use Tor to attempt to use the internet without their activities being detected.

Proxies, VPNs, and SSH tunnels cannot be considered Peer to Peer. For your purpose, a VPN would be best suited.

You could possibly try a Citrix access gateway to set up a P2P connection to a remote server or pc, and browse away. It works in the UK, but I don't know the intricacies of the great firewall of China...

Thanks for the posts, guys. Yeah, I am not so technically inclined myself so I do not think I articulated my question very well. I'm not really looking for a VPN or 'tunnel' (I have one, and it works great). I was more just thinking of some way to open up the internet to everyone on the planet. Do you remember Kazaa (or LimeWire or any of those P2P file sharing programs)? If I wanted to download My Heart Will Go On, Kazaa would find maybe 100 or more users and grab very small fragments of My Heart Will Go On from each user and recompile the fragments on my computer. Thus, it didn't take the entire song from ONE user, more took parts of the same song from many users. I was thinking it would be cool if there was a browser that also did this. So basically: I try to access YouTube in China (impossible), the browser finds 1000 other people using the browser in parts of the world that can access YouTube and takes fragments of what I want to see from each of them, before recompiling it on my screen.

Anyway, I'm sure it's already been tried. Maybe it would be too slow to actually provide an attractive online experience, but I think it would be a cool way to open up the internet to all areas of the planet currently behind firewalls.

Yes, I've heard of Tor (and used it - it sucks!) lol

I wasn't aware it was a P2P thing. OK, I guess that's the best that's been developed in this area. Maybe if more users used Tor it would be faster?

Guru Pitka wrote:Yes, I've heard of Tor (and used it - it sucks!) lol

I wasn't aware it was a P2P thing. OK, I guess that's the best that's been developed in this area. Maybe if more users used Tor it would be faster?

i believe there was a firefox app that was ment to do browser p2p but i dunno what happened. Regarding tor, its not about more users but nodes, you can use tor without being a node, and yes, it sux, but its great for malicious purposes.
You can try yourself starting up your own tor node and run a sniffer, maybe after 1 month you will have a lot of hotmail passwords, credit cards, and god knows what else

Guru Pitka wrote:Yes, I've heard of Tor (and used it - it sucks!) lol

I wasn't aware it was a P2P thing. OK, I guess that's the best that's been developed in this area. Maybe if more users used Tor it would be faster?

There is a quite brilliant young Californian cryptographer named Lance Cottrell (sp?) who developed an internet anonymizer for dissidents in Iran. Without him, the student prοtests would never have happened - most of their communications was via twitter and fb and the comms kept alive by him & his team.

He's been talking for a while about rolling out anonymizer to other states with internet censorship, but last I heard he was still focussed on helping the Iranians.

Check out anonymizer.com for the latest progress in their project - not sure how fast the connection is (if its primarily twitter and fb, I suspect that multi-media is dog slow).

traveler2 wrote:

Guru Pitka wrote:Yes, I've heard of Tor (and used it - it sucks!) lol

I wasn't aware it was a P2P thing. OK, I guess that's the best that's been developed in this area. Maybe if more users used Tor it would be faster?

i believe there was a firefox app that was ment to do browser p2p but i dunno what happened. Regarding tor, its not about more users but nodes, you can use tor without being a node, and yes, it sux, but its great for malicious purposes.
You can try yourself starting up your own tor node and run a sniffer, maybe after 1 month you will have a lot of hotmail passwords, credit cards, and god knows what else

Sniffers are the work of the devil, you naughty, naughty man...

Sisyphus wrote:

Guru Pitka wrote:Yes, I've heard of Tor (and used it - it sucks!) lol

I wasn't aware it was a P2P thing. OK, I guess that's the best that's been developed in this area. Maybe if more users used Tor it would be faster?

There is a quite brilliant young Californian cryptographer named Lance Cottrell (sp?) who developed an internet anonymizer for dissidents in Iran. Without him, the student prοtests would never have happened - most of their communications was via twitter and fb and the comms kept alive by him & his team.

He's been talking for a while about rolling out anonymizer to other states with internet censorship, but last I heard he was still focussed on helping the Iranians.

Check out anonymizer.com for the latest progress in their project - not sure how fast the connection is (if its primarily twitter and fb, I suspect that multi-media is dog slow).

Why do you trust anonymizer, god knows if they are logging or not

Thanks for the leads. I'll check out anonymizer. To me, it seems like an obvious product so I'm not sure why an effective tool hasn't been developed yet. I'm sure I'm overlooking some obvious catch on the whole thing, though.

And yes, security would be a huge issue. With my technical skills, I'm sure I'd end up with maxed out credit cards and the FBI after me within hours of installing such a product (not to mention an email box full of gay fluffy). lol

Fluffy?

I think I know what you are asking for, and I think there would be significant reasons why it would be difficult. Most peer to peer are just dealing with files ( jpg, avi, mp3..etc.)

Say 100 user have a site pages from a site cached on their local machine in a folder used by this amazing browser. You click and instead of going to the site, it looks up these users and pulls from their cache.

The software to manage the sharing would have to be somewhat of a webserver. In many cases, it would have to be able to run server side apps in order for the site to work properly.

Theoretically possible, but it probably has not been done because there are so many different ways of doing a site and to work right in most cases, it would have to be extremely complex. How would your browser serve sites done in php and using apache server.. how would it then react to sites done in asp?

Security has mentioned.

Yeah, good point Michael. I think the whole 'online experience' would definitely be diminished/destroyed (especially, as you pointed out, if the browser simply pulls cached info).

P2P sites that are still working - Ares and Frostwire.