One of the promises of blockchain technology is that it will enable Web3, what many call the next step in the evolution of the web. While it may not be here yet, there are decentralized services you can use today.
VPN: Orchid
Orchid bills itself as a decentralized bandwidth marketplace. People use the Orchid app to get protection from snooping ISP’s, unblock websites cutoff by firewalls, and for many other privacy benefits. Sellers receive payments in real-time as they provide service and stake OXT to compete for service requests. This is a pay-as-you-go VPN starting as low as a dollar to get started.
Cloud Storage: Internxt
Internxt is a decentralized cloud storage service that offers 2GB free to get started. Files uploaded to Internxt Drive are fragmented, client-side encrypted, and distributed all over the globe, so that a server never holds a complete file, but instead an encrypted shard. In my brief usage of Internxt Drive it was really slow to upload files, but it’s worth adding to your bookmarks folder as a service to consider in the future. Update: Also, be sure to unsubscribe to the flood of emails you’ll get from them begging you to sign up for the Lifetime Plan. Don’t believe the pricing; they once offered me lifetime for around €99.
Web: Unstoppable Domains
Unstoppable Domains is a company that provides domain names for people to purchase, like .crypto, .coin, .bitcoin, and others. Once a user claims a domain to a wallet, they have absolute control over that domain. Domains can be transferred, updated, and linked to other services without any involvement from Unstoppable Domains. Unstoppable Domains cannot deactivate, change, or transfer a domain’s records without a user’s permission. Unstoppable Domains supports 260+ cryptocurrencies. You can access these domains with browsers like Opera, Brave, and Firefox.
Social Media: Subsocial
Subsocial is a set of Substrate pallets with web UI that allows anyone to launch their own decentralized censorship-resistant social network. You can think of it as a decentralized version of Reddit or Medium, where a set of subreddits or blogs on Medium run on their own chain. Subsocial is a recipient of the two technical grants from Web3 Foundation. Built with Polkadot and IPFS.
Messaging: Adamant
ADAMANT blockchain belongs to users. Nobody can control, block, deactivate, restrict or censor accounts. All messages are encrypted with Diffie-Hellman Curve25519, Salsa20, Poly1305 algorythms and signed by SHA-256 + Ed25519 EdDSA. Private keys never leave your device. You don’t need to provide an email or phone number to start using it, either. The sequence of messages and their authenticity is guaranteed by the blockchain.
Wow, this is a really great article, thanks Andrew.