Privacy-focused Brave becomes first browser to support IPFS

Privacy-focused browser Brave has added support for the peer-to-peer network and protocol InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), the team behind the browser announced Tuesday. 

According to the announcement, the collaboration will allow Brave's 24 million monthly users to access content directly from IPFS by resolving ipfs:// URLs via a gateway or by quickly installing a full IPFS node. 

Users can download content using a content hash called the content identifier (CID). When installing a full node, Brave users can load content over IPFS's peer-to-peer network, hosted on their own node. 

The integration will provide users with "a significantly enhanced browsing experience" by increasing access to content, cutting down on server costs from the content provider, and improvising the overall Internet user experience, according to a press release. 

Brave CTO and co-founder Brian Bondy said Brave is the first browser to offer a native IPFS integration. "Integrating the IPFS open-source network is a key milestone in making the Web more transparent, decentralized, and resilient.”