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Frequently Asked Questions

Important notice: These answers are provided by a variety of people involved in the Freenet project, however they should not be taken as the official position of the project. If you require a position statement on a particular issue you should contact Ian Clarke.


Questions

General

Installation

Usage Issues

Development Issues

Legal Issues

Controversial Issues

Digital Commons (Donating & Leeching)

Other Issues ?


Answers

General

What is Freenet?

Freenet is free software designed to ensure true freedom of communication over the Internet. It allows anybody to publish and read information with complete anonymity. Nobody controls Freenet, not even its creators, meaning that the system is not vulnerable to manipulation or shutdown. Freenet is also very efficient in how it deals with information, adaptively replicating content in response to demand. For more information please read What is Freenet?.

Who is behind Freenet?

Freenet grew out of a design for an anonymous publication system created by Ian Clarke while a student at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Since then many other people have contributed towards making Ian's proposal a reality.

Installation

Usage Issues

How do I allow connections to FProxy from other computers?

Add the following line to your freenet.conf or freenet.ini file:
fproxy.bindAddress=*

Development Issues

Why can't Freenet store data permenantly?

Because we can't find a way to do this without compromizing Freenet's other goals. For example, people often suggest that someone's node could just never drop data they want to cache permenantly. This, however, won't work because even if the data is still available on their node, there is no way to ensure that requests for that data will be routed to that node.

We have considered many other ways that Freenet could store data permenantly, but they either won't work, or compromize Freenet's core goals of anonymity, and scalability.



Legal issues

Is Freenet legal?

If by legal you mean not illegal, then yes it is. Of course, anything can be found to be illegal at some point in the future, and the law can be an ass sometimes, so we can make no guarantee about Freenet's future legality other than it should be legal in any fair and just society.

Can I get trouble if I run a node?

This is related to the previous question. We have done everything we can to make it extremely difficult for any sane legal system to justify punishing someone for running a Freenet node, and there is little precedent for such action in today's developed countries. Many legal systems recognise the importance of freedom of speech, which is Freenet's core goal. Having said that, there is risk in doing anything that your government might not agree with, you should make an informed decision as to whether to take that risk.

How about encryption export restrictions?

The Freenet Project has notified the US authorities (since the files are hosted on SourceForge, which is on US soil) that it will be exporting crypto. As long as your country doesn't prohibit the use of encryption you are fine.

Controversial issues

What about kiddie porn, offensive content or terrorism?

While most people wish that child pornography and terrorism did not exist, humanity should not be deprived of their freedom to communicate just because of how a very small number of people might use that freedom.

What about copyright ?

There are some excellent thoughts on this subject on the Philosophy page.

I don't want my node to be used to harbor kiddie porn, offensive content or terrorism. What can I do?

The true test of someone who claims to believe in Freedom of Speech is whether they tolerate speech which they disagree with, or even find disgusting. If this is not acceptable to you, you should not run a Freenet node.

There is another thing you can do. Since content in Freenet is available as long as its popular, you can help limit the popularity of whatever information you do not like. For example, if you do not want a file to spread you should not request it and tell everyone you know not to request that specific key.

Digital commons

1 c4n'T 63t n0 w4ReZ, f1L3z, mp3z, n07hiNg!?!

The current 0.4 version will soon evolve into a 0.5 version that will improve perfomance significantly, so stay in touch. In the meantime you may try donating more disk space and bandwith and making your node permanent. It is very important to always keep your node up to date, so download the latest snapshot often.

Do I have to donate disk space and bandwith?

You aren't really donating in the sense that you lose the disk space and the bandwith; but you aren`t really sharing either (at least not the same way as with filesharing programs). It is more like pitching in to the common Freenet resource pool.

All my friends donate very little space and bandwith. Why should I donate more?

If you are happy with what you are getting then no. But if you want more you should consider donating more, making your node permanent and you should ask your friends to do the same.

If I donate a lot will my experience improve significantly?

Your experience will definitely get better, but for a really great improvement we need more people to start thinking like you. Bandwith counts more than diskspace.

I don't have to donate anything when using filesharing application X and I get to leech more.

Freenet is designed with anonymity in mind, performance comes second. The situation will improve with version 0.5, so check back often.

Other issues??

What is the business potential of Freenet?

God only knows. For a possible business model for rewarding artists see FairShare ; for a business solution with characteristics similar to Freenet see this place.

I have nothing to hide and don't need anonymity. Is there anything else Freenet can offer?

Yes, in fact even without the anonymity feature Freenet is very useful because of its unique way it handles content distribution and information load. In simple terms that means you can publish a website without worrying about how big the site will be and without having to put someone elses ad banners on it. Over time that site may very well become more accessible and faster to load than a site on the ordinary web. For more info see Publishing.