Hyphanet, formerly Freenet, is a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant, anonymous communication. It uses a decentralized distributed data store to keep and deliver information, and has a suite of free software for publishing and communicating on the Web without fear of censorship.
Reviewed by Marco Wollank
Hyphanet
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Threat level
Targeted
A targeted-tier tool. Built for a real, capable adversary. Overkill for everyone below. Threat levels
Our take
Now called Hyphanet, this is a censorship-resistant distributed datastore, which is a very specific thing: you publish content into the network and it persists and stays reachable even under pressure. The trade is that it’s slow, unusual to operate, and nothing like a normal browsing experience, so the learning investment is real. It earns its place for resilient publishing where takedowns are the threat. Don’t approach it expecting a faster or friendlier Tor.
GitHub at a glance
hyphanet/fred
Stars
1,191
+ 11 this week
Last commit
2mo ago
healthy
License
GPL-2.0
Latest release
build01506
5mo ago
Stars, last 30d
Website at a glance
hyphanet.org
D- score 25
Weak website security headers
Graded by Mozilla HTTP Observatory, tested 13d ago
Inspect this site yourself
Measures the security configuration of the tool's own website, not the privacy of the product itself. A strong tool can still score low here.
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I2P The Invisible Internet Project (I2P) is an anonymous network layer that allows for censorship-resistant, peer-to-peer communication. Anonymous connections are achieved by…
GNUnet For decentralized, peer-to-peer networking and an official GNU package. The framework offers link encryption, peer discovery, resource allocation, communication over many…
Orbot Free, open-source Tor VPN app for Android and iOS that routes device traffic through the Tor network. Supports per-app Tor routing and access to .onion services on Android.
Retroshare Peer-to-peer communication and file sharing app based on a friend-to-friend network built on GNU Privacy Guard (GPG). Optionally, peers may communicate certificates and IP…
Hyphanet license, in plain English
GPL-2.0 Strong copyleft
Free to use and modify, but anything you distribute that is built on it must also be open under the same license.
Permits
- Commercial use
- Modification
- Distribution
- Private use
Requires
- Disclose source
- Same license
- State changes
- License and copyright notice
Does not provide
- Liability cover
- Warranty
Why it matters: Strong copyleft keeps every distributed version open. A vendor cannot fold this into a closed product and ship it without releasing their changes.
Plain-language summary of the project's license, not legal advice. Read the full text for the exact terms.
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