This is the freenet-core repository. To learn more about Freenet please visit our website at freenet.org.

Decentralize Everything

Freenet is the internet as it should be—fully decentralized, designed to put you back in control. Imagine a global shared computer where you can communicate and collaborate freely, without reliance on big tech. Freenet lets you regain your digital independence.

Freenet is a peer-to-peer network that transforms users’ computers into a resilient, distributed platform on which anyone can build decentralized services. Every peer contributes to a fault-tolerant collective, ensuring services are always available and robust.

Today’s web is a series of siloed services, but every system built on Freenet is fully interoperable by default. Freenet apps can be built with popular web frameworks, accessed through any browser just like the web.

Whitepaper

For an architectural overview — covering the contract model (idempotent commutative monoids on application state), summary/delta synchronization, small-world adaptive routing, and the delegate model for private state — see the Freenet whitepaper. Source: github.com/freenet/paper-1.

Build Instructions

Before installing anything you need to run the following in the repository, or the commands will fail:

$ git submodule update --init --recursive

To install the Freenet core:

$ cargo install --path crates/core

Or for the fdev utility:

$ cargo install --path crates/fdev

Contributing

We welcome contributions, but feature PRs opened without a prior approved issue will be auto-closed — reviewer attention is our scarcest resource. Bug fixes and non-overreaching performance improvements are accepted without prior discussion; anything that adds or changes behavior needs an issue and a maintainer's sign-off first.

Read CONTRIBUTING.md before opening a PR.