This is a proof of concept where we use the IPFS protocol to serve our delicious Memes
decentralized.
Usually content is saved in a traditional database which is owned and controlled by a company which
can remove or edit any file.
Since our goal is to make Memes available for everyone we liked the idea of a Peer 2 Peer Network
where Users do not request data from a single server but from each other.
Why should you have to request data from hundreds of kilometers away when your neighbor downloaded
the same data 5
minutes ago? With IPFS your browser requests the data from the closest source which makes it a lot faster &
independent of providers.
At Gramstash we try to establish a .meme format where we save Memes in a text based format.
When we create a IPFS node we add a couple of hundred .meme objects into one big text file which we
serve over IPFS.
There is a plan to add images and gifs as IPFS nodes but that kind of clashes with our philosophie
to load images only once.
IPFS and the whole Web3 are relative new concepts and need more acceptance before we would consider
moving all our static images into IPFS nodes.
IPFS isn't widely supported yet. To use the IPFS protocol you have to download the "Brave" browser
and enable IPFS support.
We like to point out that this is a prototype, which was created to show our support for a Peer 2
Peer network and the actors pushing forward to a decentralized internet!
Due to the text based nature of .meme files we are able to store over 500 memes on a single IPFS node (max storage of 256kb) which makes storing content very efficient keeping the amount of total nodes required in the network low even when you serve thousands of Memes. If we to decide to go full P2P mode the users wouldn't have to carry a big network with an endless amount of nodes but could access everything with an efficient/small dataset.
What if the current node holder corrupted the files or other people manipulated and uploaded the edited version? IPFS is like a blockchain. Everything that is uploaded once will stay there. Forever. You can not edit or manipulate an IPFS node therefor you can be sure that the content you receive is trustworthy.