gustavofsantos / ipfs-share

Share files with IPFS in your browser

IPFS SHARE

You can share files direct in the browser. Also, you can download files using the protocol defined below.

Technologies

• React Hooks (React 16.8.0-alpha.1)
• React Router
• IPFS

Obervation

Theres two versions of ipfs libraries that can be used. The best version is used when the user has the IPFS Companion extension in his browser. IPFS Companion inject a ipfs object into the window object and this ipfs librarie is more stable, because it uses a hosted node.

The other version use the alpha version of the IPFS. It uses discovery servers that sometimes can't find peers and the application will not work as expected.

Protocol

To share a file you will first add a file as a buffer into IPFS, it will generate a hash. Then, create a JSON with these properties:

{
  "name": "File name.ext",  // name of the raw file
  "size": 292212,           // size of the raw file
  "hash": "Qm..."           // hash of the raw file
}

The json like above is called metadata and is used to keep a file name with the raw data of the file.