Cloudflare runs a distributed web gateway to simplify, speed up, and secure access to IPFS without needing a local node.

Filecoin is an IPFS-based cooperative storage cloud.

IPFS was launched in an alpha version in February 2015, and by October of the same year was described by TechCrunch as 'quickly spreading by word of mouth.' Applications IPFS was created by Juan Benet, who later founded Protocol Labs in May 2014.

A list of these gateways is maintained on the IPFS GitHub page. Users may choose not to install an IPFS client on their device and instead use a public gateway. IPFS aims to replace protocols used for static webpage delivery by using gateways which are accessible with HTTP. This means that if two users publish a block of data with the same hash, the peers downloading the content from 'user 1' will also exchange data with the ones downloading it from 'user 2'.

In contrast to BitTorrent, IPFS aims to create a single global network.

Any user in the network can serve a file by its content address, and other peers in the network can find and request that content from any node who has it using a distributed hash table (DHT). As opposed to a centrally located server, IPFS is built around a decentralized system of user-operators who hold a portion of the overall data, creating a resilient system of file storage and sharing. IPFS allows users to host and receive content in a manner similar to BitTorrent. Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients.

Nfs 2015 free torrent