Introducing Hashbase

We’re Blue Link Labs, the creators of Beaker, a peer-to-peer Web browser. Today we’re thrilled to announce that we’ve launched Hashbase, a fungible hosting service for the peer-to-peer Web.

At Blue Link Labs, we’re on a mission to enable independent publishing on the Web. We believe the Web should be built and owned by its users, not by service providers. That’s why we created Beaker.

Beaker is a peer-to-peer Web browser and publisher. With one click, you can create a website and host it directly from your device.

Publishing with Beaker is made possible by Dat, a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol. Dat hosts websites directly from your device, and shares the cost of bandwidth with your audience. This keeps hosting cheap, even when your content goes viral.

But as a creator, it’s still important to make sure your content is always available. One option is to keep your device on all the time, but that’s not always practical.

That’s why we’ve created Hashbase, a fungible hosting service for the peer-to-peer Web.

Hashbase: a fungible hosting service for the peer-to-peer Web

Hashbase is a peer in the cloud that promises to host your content even when your device is turned off.

Here’s what Hashbase does for you:

• Keeps your Dat content online
• Gives your content nice, readable URLs like dat://pfrazee.hashbase.io
• Rehosts your Dat content over HTTPS
• Shows you what’s new in the network

We’ve created this as an independent, optional, FOSS service. We’ll never require Beaker users to use Hashbase, and it’ll always be easy to migrate to another deployment.

We call Hashbase a “fungible” service, because it’s impossible for us to lock you in. To switch to a different provider, there’s no cumbersome data export flow. Simply shut down your Hashbase account, then share the URLs for your Dat archives with another provider.

Using Hashbase is easy! You simply share a URL with us, and we automatically start syncing and hosting its files.

Hashbase syncs changes as you publish them, automatically and in real time. (You might forget Hashbase is even there!)

Of course, HTTPS is still the most popular way to get content, so Hashbase mirrors your content over both Dat and HTTPS. That way you can share your websites with everyone.

Our plans for Hashbase

Hashbase is an open source service (MIT-licensed) and it always will be. You can find it now on GitHub. If you prefer to self deploy, you can use DatHTTPD, a hosting daemon for Dat and HTTPS.

Our business model is to provide a convenient, well-run instance for our subscribers. Sign up for free and get 100 MB of storage. For more space, you can pay $7/month for 10GB of storage.

Thanks!

By subscribing to Hashbase, you help fund the development of the Beaker Browser. We chose this model instead of a Kickstarter or Patreon because we want our supporters to get something great in return. We know Hashbase is a service that the peer-to-peer Web needs, and we’re happy to provide it!

Also, our team of two is now Blue Link Labs, Inc. We’re excited about the possibility to grow a team that keeps producing open-source software like Beaker and Hashbase.

Try out Hashbase, view the source, and let us know what you think!