Building a better IPFS download method

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I am a loyal user of IPFS and have built a Web3.0 image sharing community (Web3IMG) based on IPFS. However, I recently found that the IPFS public gateway is becoming more and more difficult to use. Many gateways will suddenly become inaccessible, and some will even be flagged as dangerous by Chrome. This means that if the public gateway is directly referenced in some websites, the entire website will be flagged as dangerous.

I have always felt that file downloading is a very good application scenario for IPFS, just like BT. And the IPFS gateway can make IPFS downloads as simple as possible without relying on a client.

Imagine that when your friend shares a file with you and gives you an IPFS CID, how can you get this file as quickly as possible? The first method is to find an IPFS gateway that is available to you and splice it yourself to get the download. This is what the Public gateway checker can provide you with. The second method is to install an IPFS client and enter the corresponding CID for download. Obviously, gateway downloads will be the most convenient way. But there is a premise here: you need to find an available IPFS public gateway.

However, due to its characteristics, the availability of IPFS public gateways cannot be guaranteed in the long term. It may stop service for a short or long time due to various reasons, depending on the maintainer behind each gateway. Although the Public gateway checker provides an availability detection service for gateways, it is still very complicated for ordinary users. They need to find a gateway, copy the corresponding gateway address, and then splice their own CID to download.

I hope to simplify this step so that gateway detection and CID splicing can be completed at the same time. This will greatly simplify their download process for many users.

So if such a service exists, when you receive the CID shared by your friend, you only need to enter the CID into this platform, just like searching on Google. At this time, you will get the best download link and quickly get the corresponding file. Of course, if your friend directly gives you this corresponding link, you may even save this step of searching.

I am trying to build such a service and I named it BestIPFS. If you are interested, please feel free to contact me: contact@web3img.com

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Take a look at RAPIDE

and this

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Bestipfs is officially launched, which is an unofficial list of public gateways with some new features. The entire access path is compatible with IPFS gateways, such as https://bestipfs.net/ipfs/hash, which looks like a gateway path. When you open it, it will sort the public gateways according to their response time, and you can find the most suitable gateway for you and quickly jump to download your data.

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I also made a homepage for this, which looks like Google’s search. You can enter any IPFS CID here, and BestIPFS will help you splice all the public gateways.

Many people may like to collect IPFS gateways by themselves. Congratulations, 4EVERLAND provides an interesting feature for this. I use their Hosting template function and include the entire BestIPFS in it. You only need to simply enter the IPFS gateways you have collected, and you can deploy a BestIPFS that belongs to you with one click. All functions are exactly the same as bestipfs.net. Go and try it.

If you have a better gateway that you want to be included in bestipfs.net, please contact me: contact@web3img.com

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I’ve always thought it would be nice if gateways would publish their availability on some well known pub/sub topic when they become available but I’m not sure what the future of pub/sub is so :person_shrugging: