Bonum Certa Men Certa

IPFS: The Good, the Bad, and the Exceptionally Ugly

Video download link | md5sum 43c1ae14359c4ba2d4adc78cc9e4601a



Summary: A personal and occasionally arduous experience with a whole year of IPFS; it may come across -- on the surface at least -- as an unconstructive rant, but IPFS is still a promising technology, albeit it has severe limitations that need to be properly understood (some can be technically overcome, too)

THE Web is generally not decentralised. The Internet is not decentralised, either. DNS is centralised, certificates are centralised (if you rely on the concept of 'trusted' CAs), and with most services you rely on just one address to work (for things to become accessible; it's possible to have multiple servers assigned/connected to the same address, but that's redundancy, not decentralisation).



Peer-to-peer (P2P) technologies and BitTorrent are OK, but they too have their limitations, including privacy- and censorship-related limitations. There are single points of failure.

IPFS is a bit different. We started using it about a year ago, starting with daily bulletins and then adding IRC logs, both in the form of HTML and plain text (the latter was added months later).

"We started using it about a year ago, starting with daily bulletins and then adding IRC logs, both in the form of HTML and plain text (the latter was added months later)."IPFS is generally good; when it works, it sure works well (albeit not quickly, the latency is incredibly high, ranging from seconds to minutes, which is unsuitable for some use cases). As I noted in the video above, this week has been more eventful than usual because the IPFS daemon started respawning endlessly and was still malfunctioning. Last night it just completely stopped working all of a sudden. With DHT traffic taking up the lion's share of the pie (unless you serve something such as video), IPFS does not scale well. It's very costly, requiring a lot of energy and bandwidth for relatively small returns. To make matters worse, it occasionally can and would become inaccessible, it can use up all the bandwidth (requiring further configuration), and it's difficult to debug. So adopting IPFS for site-related delivery of content can become a lot of work devoted to maintenance, not to mention CPU cycles and bandwidth. We have a few thousands of objects in it and it's stretching it to the limits, at least for a device with a residential connection. Several other people have reported similar issues, so we know we're not alone. What's ugly is that many of those reports -- like much of the code -- are still hosted by proprietary software (Microsoft GitHub) and are "GitHub Issues", i.e. vendor lock-in. That sends across a negative message; GitHub is an enemy of decentralisation, it's proprietary, and it is a den of arbitrary censorship on behalf of Hollywood, governments, etc.

IPFS can very quickly become utterly wasteful, just like Bitcoin and other digital (or crypto) 'coins'. But unlike coin mining, timeliness matters. IPFS can become completely inaccessible for long periods of time, with no fallbacks in place. That means downtime. We've been spending hours on IPFS this past week and it's not even serving the content (it times out); it is failing for long periods of time. It's almost impossible to debug because it is decentralised and diagnosing a swarm is incredibly difficult, akin to guesswork or "hocus pocus". One time it works, the next time it might not...

"IPFS can very quickly become utterly wasteful, just like Bitcoin and other digital (or crypto) 'coins'."As noted at the end of this video, adding a new object scales poorly (but linearly, not quadratically/exponentially) as the index of objects needs to be rebuilt from scratch (in the Go implementation at least), which means that when the number of objects doubles it can take twice as long to add new ones. If this carries on for a few years it can take an hour if not hours just to add our daily objects. Hours of CPU cycles! Maybe future/present versions tackle this issue already, so we can be patient and hope IPFS will mature/evolve gracefully. Otherwise, it is untenable for the purposes/work we've assigned to it originally (last October).

The video isn't an admission of mistake or regret; I don't personally regret pouring so much energy into IPFS, I just hope to express my thoughts on things that can be improved and probably should be improved. IPFS isn't a very young project (it has been around for quite a while), but its releases are considered not stable and work in progress. If we're part of a large experiment and the risk we take is occasional downtime (over IPFS, not Gemini or HTTP), then so be it.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Reboots Should Never be Necessary
"BUT WHAT ABOUT SECURITY!!"
There's Still Hope for the World Wide Web
Let's hope that the trajectory of the Web won't be leading us to over-reliance on Google, nor will it reward worthless slopfarms
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Smolweb and Alhena 5.1.7
Links for the day
XBox is Rapidly Turned Into a Slopfarm by Microsoft
Slop isn't about efficiency and saving money
Microsoft's Halloween Documents and systemd, Wayland, Etc.
Maybe one day Wayland will be widespread. Or maybe not.
 
Links 15/07/2025: Press Freedom at Risk and New Facebook Blunders
Links for the day
The Danes Want GNU/Linux
David Heinemeier Hansson recently moved to GNU/Linux
Cory Doctorow Explains Why Software Freedom Matters, Whereas "Open Source" Misses the Point and Helps Monopolies
It's a very long article
BillPR (EpsteinGate-Bribed NPR) is Turning Into a Partial Slopfarm that Promotes Slop
"I went on a date with a chatbot!"
Two Weeks Passed Since Latest Large Wave of Microsoft Layoffs, More Expected Next Month
Blaming the debt on "AI" is just self-serving storytelling
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, July 14, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, July 14, 2025
Gemini Links 15/07/2025: Gemini "Style Sheets" and Switching From Microsoft GitHub to Codeberg
Links for the day
Coming Soon: Another OSI Scandal, This One Implicating Molly de Blanc
OSI has been fairly quiet lately
Outreachy & Debian pregnancy cluster, Meike Reichle evidence
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Again, "Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People"
Microsoft Lunduke is not trying to "protect" Linux
One of the Most Hilarious Things About the Microsoft SLAPPs
It's so ridiculous
Financial Support for the Free Software Foundation or the GNU Project
The FSF has extended until Friday its fund-raising campaign
Illegally Hiding (or Demanding Secrecy Around) Illegal Requests or Attempts at Extortion
unlawful communications like threats
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: BOFH Archive, Updating Old Palm PDAS, and Nginx vs Slop Bots
Links for the day
Ubuntu is Becoming GAFAM-Like
What does that say about Canonical and Ubuntu?
Slopfarms Which Take Real Articles About GNU/Linux and Turn Them Into Copycats Which Are False
Even before the LLM hype those were quite common
The Firm That Picks on Techrights is Accustomed to Working With Criminals
Techrights never did anything illegal. So why is it being picked on by people who work with criminals?
Microsoft Said the Mass Layoffs Were for "Investment" in "AI", But It's Also Laying Off the "AI" and "Copilot" Staff
Months ago we showed many so-called "AI" people were getting the boot and this time it's the same
DryDeadFish is Dead, Long Live DryDeadFish
We kept checking, hoping it can recover from some temporary technical issue
For Quite Some Time Already Microsoft Attracts Crackpots, Scams, and More
Occasionally we talk about the situation at IBM as there are many parallels
Links 14/07/2025: Chatbots Broken Again, McHire LLM Shows Limits of the Hype
Links for the day
Changing One's Name Won't Change One's Past
People who have earned a bad reputation are not magically "entitled" to reset
People Who Assault Women Are Not Victims of "Distress"
It seems like an American tradition. In a country with almost 50 presidents, not even one was a female.
Slashdot Media Turned Linux Journal Into a Slopfarm and Now Slashdot Actively Promotes Anti-Linux Slopfarms
Yes, "no-nonsense" apparently means actual nonsense
Adoption of Gemini Protocol Still Growing
Gemini Protocol is being obscured by the media - it doesn't help that Google 'hijacked' the word "Gemini" - but people still manage to find out about it, download a client, and use it
Links 14/07/2025: Arresting Photographers, Threats to Revoke US Citizenship Over Criticism
Links for the day
More EPO Leaks on the Way
We hope that Mr. Rowan will actually try to refute what we say and show, not merely point the finger at the messengers
Decommodification is a Corporate Strategy Against Communities
systemd is led by Microsoft and hosted by Microsoft
copyleft.org 'Hijacked' by the People Who Attack the Person Who Created Copyleft
So far there's nothing "tasteless" in copyleft.org, but that can change at any time in the future
Asking People to Take Down Articles and Videos Only Makes These More Popular and "Viral"
If you do something bad, one of the worst things you can possibly do it try to silence those who speak about it
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 13, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 13, 2025
Two-Thirds Towards FSF Goal, Richard Stallman to Give Talks in Europe
There are 67 left before reaching the target
Brett Wilson LLP "Takes it Personal" (Character Assassination, Not Professionalism). Everybody Can See That.
On behalf of violent men
Gemini Links 14/07/2025: Politicised Tech and "Leaving GitHub"
Links for the day
Pissing Contests and Pissing Off Everyone
people who came from Microsoft are trying to vex and divide the community
Microsoft Repeats the Mistakes Made by the EPO After We Exposed a Major Microsoft/EPO Scandal 10 Years Ago
That scandal was all over the media, not just in English
The Demise of LLMs
We've just checked BetaNews again. They've dropped all the slop and went back to human authors.
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Sonpo Museum of Art and FCEUX
Links for the day
Links 13/07/2025: UnitedHealth's Censorship Campaign, Australia Wary of China
Links for the day
Firing Away With Nonsense
Or fighting fire with fire
Links 13/07/2025: Climate Crisis, GAFAM Poisoning the Water
Links for the day
Turns Out LLMs for Code Don't Save Time and Don't Improve Quality
Neither legal nor useful
The Microsofters Will Have an Obligation to Compensate Us
This story isn't just about Microsoft. It's also about corruption, there are many women victims, there is abject "abuse of process", and many more scandals to be illuminated in years to come.
Reproducing at the EPO Instead of Producing Monopolies for Foreign Monopolies With Their Price-Fixing Cartels
Does the EPO recognise the need of well-educated Europeans to bear kids?
Valnet Inc. Dominates Real (Not LLM Slop) GNU/Linux Coverage in 2025
And likely in prior years, too
Free Software Foundation (FSF) Fund Raiser Goes on
Later this month we'll expose another OSI scandal
EPO Staff Representatives Issue a Warning About Staff's Health and Inadequate Care
Even the EPO's own stakeholders (money sources) are openly protesting against what the EPO became
Links 13/07/2025: Partly Assorted News From Deutsche Welle and CBC
Links for the day
Gemini Links 13/07/2025: Board Games and Battle Styles
Gemini Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 12, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 12, 2025