
Show HN: Hearth – A Dropbox-like, IPFS-powered personal website publisher - StavrosK
https://hearth.eternum.io/
======
tomcooks
Why not use Beaker[0] and achieve the same thing, but on linux and windows
too?

It has a great community too

[0]([http://beakerbrowser.com/](http://beakerbrowser.com/))

~~~
StavrosK
It's personal preference, some people will prefer Beaker, we personally liked
the "drag some files to a folder and that's it" UX.

By the way, I'll mention this here because it isn't evident on the Hearth page
right now: You can get your own username on Eternum for free, and it will
redirect to the latest hash that Hearth publishes (i.e. the latest version of
your website) automatically.

You can do this even if you don't use Hearth (we have an API for it), here's
an example with my username:

[https://www.eternum.io/user/stavros/](https://www.eternum.io/user/stavros/)

~~~
lucideer
> _we personally liked the "drag some files to a folder and that's it" UX._

Beaker does this...

In terms of getting a free username on a HTTP website,
[https://hashbase.io/](https://hashbase.io/)

Disclaimer: I haven't used Hearth, so I can't compare, but Beaker doesn't seem
like it could be much easier.

~~~
super_trooper
Am I missing something? Beaker requires you to use their browser? Not really
apples to apples

~~~
lucideer
Beaker is a browser that supports [http://](http://) and dat:// \- you can:

\- use Beaker to publish/"host" dat:// websites (as you can use Hearth to
publish ipfs websites)

\- use Beaker or any dat:// client to browse dat:// websites

\- use any browser to browse dat:// websites via http through hashbase.io
(similar to eternum.io)

~~~
mirimir
OK, but IPFS sites are just HTTP/S via a gateway. So any browser works.
Indeed, there are IPFS gateways on Tor onion services.

~~~
zaarn
The last point mentioned has that too, hashbase.io is a HTTPS gateway for
dat://

------
indigodaddy
Never having used or looked into Beaker, dat, ipfs, etc, some immediate
questions about security implications come to mind:

1) Someone accesses your "site" directly on your computer via ipfs/dat
whatever it is. This is static content I guess? And it's like your computer is
just running a static webserver (kinda/sorta? if not, or something more
dynamic please advise). So, are there security implications here? Is there an
attack surface that a client/viewer of your content could leverage?

2) Sort of opposite question as in 1. You are the client/viewer of the "site,"
directly connected to some dude's computer via ipfs/dat or whatever. Obviously
I should use standard security measures and not just go clickity on
anything/everything I see, but beyond that, are there any other security
implications for the client? I could download a virus I'm sure by clicking or
downloading a malicious file, but beyond that, could I get hacked by the
target in a more dynamic way than that?

3) How do I "navigate" in ipfs/dat-land? How do I know what URL to go to, and
if this "URL" might be a safe site, or like what the hell is this URL if it's
just some kind of hash? Is there a "google" of ipfs/dat sites/content?

Stuff like this. :) Any feedback would be muchly appreciated!

~~~
StavrosK
1) Yep, exactly. There shouldn't be security implications, as long as the IPFS
daemon is secure.

2) Again, as long as the IPFS daemon is secure, standard security practices
apply. It's just static files.

3) It's all just static files. You get linked to from other files. Same as you
navigate the rest of the web. It's not hard to wrap your head around it,
really, just imagine that the web was all static files. That's it.

~~~
patmorgan23
For number 3 literally the web 20( 30?) years ago

~~~
StavrosK
We definitely had dynamic websites in 1998, guestbooks, forums, etc. Mostly
via CGI. But yes, it's very close to that.

------
bmcusick
Fantastic. The web falling into the AmaGooBookSoft silos has been convenient,
but it hasn't been good for censorship or personal sovereignty. Making it
push-button easy to publish to IPFS a great way to return editorial control
and ownership to individuals, without the downsides of needing to run and
maintain servers.

I hope Hearth or someone like them expands beyond websites to self-publishing
of store front ends, crypto payment, social feeds, real time video, and all
the other services we expect AmaGooSoftBook to provide today. And to integrate
Tor as necessary.

~~~
52-6F-62
> _but it hasn 't been good for censorship or personal sovereignty._

On this subject—

I'm going to be _that guy_ this time because I haven't yet seen a good
solution to the problem, and I ask with sincerity:

What happens when somebody decides they're going to start an illicit
website/content of some kind? (let's avoid semantics because I'd rather not go
down that path)

Everybody then has a forced part in hosting it, and there are just some
subjects that do not have any redeeming aspects.

Is there a resolution built in for those scenarios?

~~~
atrus
I'm not sure why you'd say that everyone has a forced part in hosting it,
since IPFS only pulls files you request to your computer.

~~~
52-6F-62
After your comment I did a quick bit of reading and realized I'd made a
fundamental mistake regarding how I thought I knew IPFS worked (vs. other
decentralized file system formats).

The mistake I'd made was thinking it worked more or less similar to Bitcoin
where every node holds the whole chain, where it really works more like
torrents in that you download the set of files and then reseed. Thanks for
pointing out the difference.

Because of my error I guess the question changes. It sounds like it may be
even more damning for those who regularly view illicit content, but at the
same time making it harder to shut down caches of the same illicit content. I
recognize this is already a problem with torrents, but then my question
becomes how do we not repeat the mistake?

Is there a mode of resolution outside chasing down every single bearer of the
node to try and remove the content?

~~~
gervase
This is the same question that applies to any other medium, context, or means
of interaction: who decides what is illicit?

Just because something CAN be used to commit a crime (say, the expectation of
privacy in your own home), we don’t eliminate it to avoid that edge case.

Not all technology needs a law enforcement backdoor, in my view.

~~~
52-6F-62
> _medium, context, or means of interaction_

The first analog that is at all comparable is hypertext and the web interface
to the internet. This is much the same except it's harder to clean up.

Who decides what is illicit? Like I said, I'm not trying to start a semantics
discussion. I'm not talking about morally debatable subjects. There are some
blatantly disgusting things out there that have ruinous effects on people
who've made no decision to take part. A platform like IPFS allows that to gain
a new root, and deeper this time.

Hence my posed question.

~~~
jake_the_third
When it comes to imposing your views on others, everything becomes a matter of
morals; What you and I may find irredeemable is acceptable to others. There
are many activities we engage in that have ruinous effects on others that are
accepted as necessary or even celebrated by society, so negative effect on
others isn't a meaningful criterium for moderation.

Without determining who decides what is illicit and what isn't, talking about
moderation is meaningless.

My expectation that moderation will be done by law enforcement, as is the case
with other protocols like bittorrent.

------
KirinDave
How does Hearth achieve the "decentralized" status? I assume Hearth is
offering a small-volume pinning service on the side as a charity right now? If
that's true, it's essentially no more "decentralized" than a normal website.

What am I missing?

~~~
jczhang
IPFS

~~~
KirinDave
IPFS doesn't actually distribute hosting unless someone else goes through the
trouble of doing pinning. Some gateways may keep local copies but they're also
free to destroy local copies.

In the typical deployment where nodes refer to their own local IPFS services,
it's often the case that the primary IPFS pin serves the majority of traffic.

If we're going to call that "distributed" then so are normal webpages with
random caching options.

~~~
swsieber
We call bittorrent distributed, I think IFPS counts too.

~~~
KirinDave
Bittorrent has a lot fewer single points of failure than IPFS.

~~~
swsieber
Does it though? I though IPFS only has gateways because browsers don't speak
it...

Which I guess makes you right.

Let me revise my opinion to say that if there was native browser support for
IPFS then we could call it distributed like bittorrent.

~~~
KirinDave
No, because the hosting problem really isn't solved and FileCoin was something
of a massive train wreck.

When the most charitable critique of your ICO is, "We don't think this is a
scam because the people involved aren't famous scammers but it certainly looks
scammy" you've failed to solve your problem.

~~~
swsieber
What are the points of failure in IPFS vs bitorrent? I'm curious now, because
it seems like you're dissing IPFS because you dislike FileCoin (which I don't
care for either)

Going back to the IPFS/But torrent analogy, I don't understand how bitorrent
hosting problem is any more solved than the IPFS hosting problem.

I bring this up because my orginal point that I think IPFS counts as
distributed, because bittorrent counts as distributed. So far you haven't
really convinced me that they're all that different.

~~~
KirinDave
Many IPFS nodes only serve local clients, never serve remote clients or the
larger network, and don't expect to be throttled by peers.

In short, IPFS is basically an alternative content addressed routing system
that tends to have some slight endpoint caching.

Bittorrent at least heavily penalizes nodes that don't play ball rather
quickly. So it rewards nodes that disseminate info as they acquire it, and
make it trivial for storage to participate.

I don't see IPFS as solving distributed storage problems at all. Neither do
the creators, which is why they started a related project called FileCoin to
help with that. Too bad about that.

If you think they're not "all that different" then I refer you to the white
papers. I'm disinclined to play a longer adversarial lecture game.

~~~
swsieber
OK. Now I get where you're coming from. I didn't realize that FileCoin was
started by the creators of IPFS. That is too bad. You really don't need crypto
as a vehicle for paying someone to mirror content.

With regards to Bittorrent... I guess where you and I differ is that I think
Bittorrent is just as broke as IPFS when it comes down to it. Or maybe same
type of broke, but less so than IPFS. While the seeding incentives certainly
help bittorrent, I don't think it fundementally makes it better than IFPS. I
know what when I've torrented things, I've always seeded less than I leeched.
Long-lived torrents are either a) pretty popular or b) have some people
intentionally keeping it alive... which is what I would expect in IPFS too.

I will have to go read those white-papers. If I'm reading your comment right,
it sounds like you consider the broken-ness of IFPS to be so much worse than
that of Bittorrent that you think it deserves its own category.

Or perhaps that the expectations of IFPS compared to its own broken-ness puts
it in its own category. I think of Bittorrent and IPFS as distributed
distribution, not storage. And while Bittorrent people see Bittorrent as
distributed distribution (caching), IPFS markets itself as distributed
storage. Which, that makes sense given the use cases IPFS seems to want to
fill - it wants to replace static http stuff, whereas bittorrent seems to
serve small more canonical files, stuff that's already always identical
independent of the source. Like ISOs or other things that people were
generally sending each other directly anyways.

I think it too until you last comment for all of the above thoughts to
congeal. And I'm sorry it came off as adversarial. Thanks for taking the time
to respond.

~~~
KirinDave
> I guess where you and I differ is that I think Bittorrent is just as broke
> as IPFS when it comes down to it

With all due respect...

> I will have to go read those white-papers.

Yes.

------
Xeoncross
I need to leave my mac running (or install IPFS on a VPS) so that if anyone
wants to read my personal site there is a source online that can provide the
content right?

~~~
bmcusick
Not necessarily. IPFS is sort of like Bittorrent on steroids. You can think of
yourself as the first seeder of your website, but as long as there are other
network participants that have a full copy of your site, your home PC doesn't
need to be online for people to access it.

~~~
iagovar
I'm a layman in this stuff, can IPFS sites be accesible from http?

~~~
zeta0134
Yes, through any of the publically available IPFS gateways. ipfs.io is one of
the more common official ones, but since they're all connected to the same
network, in theory the content should be available from any of them. You can
also host your own gateway (locally or publically) and point your browser at
it.

If you're wanting to make something with DNS in front of it to mask the long
IPFS content hashes, you can do that too, there's a good overview of the
process in their examples:

[https://ipfs.io/docs/examples/example-
viewer/example#../webs...](https://ipfs.io/docs/examples/example-
viewer/example#../websites/README.md)

------
sprice
Can this be used for simple IPFS file hosting with pinned files?

I'm building a small web app and want to use IPFS for image storage. In
testing I was able to create the files but after a few months of not running
the IPFS daemon the images are lost as they are no longer pinned.

Edit: Just saw [https://www.eternum.io/](https://www.eternum.io/) in other
comments. Perfect!

~~~
StavrosK
To answer your question, yes, it can. Just put the files in there, it'll pin
them.

------
mcjiggerlog
Looks interesting, but I can't get it to work.

I've added some files to my Hearth folder, the menu bar icon changed to the
"syncing" state and then seems to have got stuck like that. The finder
integration doesn't work either, so I can't copy the Hearth link.

~~~
stelabouras
Hey there, the on-going 'syncing' state means that the Hearth daemon still
processes your changes.

How many files have you tried to add and how big were they?

If that doesn't stop after a while, consider restarting Hearth app.

Regarding the Finder integration, if neither the context menu item to be shown
nor the Hearth toolbar button then make sure the Hearth Finder extension is
enabled (Visit the System Preferences > Extensions > Finder and enable Hearth)
and the restart Finder by option+right clicking the Finder icon in your Dock
and selecting 'Relaunch'.

Hope that helps!

------
woodandsteel
IPFS seems to be really taking off lately in terms of people building useful
things on top of it.

------
Sephr
Peerweb¹ will be much more user-accessible since it works with normal browsers
and retains your current URL structure (even for user-generated content).
Additionally, our optional resource sharing permission manager app (which
supports Windows, macOS, and Linux) enables fully decentralized websites with
far superior performance than IPFS.

ETA later this year

1\. [https://peerweb.net](https://peerweb.net)

~~~
swsieber
Please elucidate the timing.

Your link redirects to twitter, and I can't find anything about it following
links to the [https://oswg.oftn.org/](https://oswg.oftn.org/) or on your own
website. So it looks completely non-existent, which makes me skeptical of
"soon"

~~~
Sephr
It's described in the first tweet on that twitter link. It will be out this
year.

~~~
swsieber
Your first twwet is what makes everybody skeptical. Your post here makes it
sound like you're just polishing things up. Your tweet makes it sounds like it
might not have even started.

