Load the Game

BitTorrent, the company behind uTorrent is working on its own P2P browser

• Egon Kilin
• December 12th, 2014

As you’ve already gathered from the suggestive title, the company behind the uTorrent client is working on its own web browser. The company in question goes by the name of BitTorrent Inc. and the their recently announced project is entitled Malestrom. The main goal here is to create an internet “powered by people” using a peer-to-peer browser that works much like the company’s BitTorrent protocol. Project Malestrom aims to bring forth a new age of open internet in which nothing can be censored by big corporations or even governments. In addition, the creators of uTorrent are saying that their new project will also be able to ensure faster websites and maximum privacy for its users.

“If we are successful, we believe this project has the potential to help address some of the most vexing problems facing the Internet today,” reads a recent statement on the BitTorrent blog. “How can we keep the Internet open? How can we keep access to the Internet neutral? How can we better ensure our private data is not misused by large companies? How can we help the Internet scale efficiently for content? The power of distributed technology that underpins BitTorrent and all of our products has long been an example in this regard and bringing more of this power to the web is only natural as these challenges loom.”

Malestrom is in the early stages of development at the moment and BitTorrent is inviting those interested to sign-up for the closed Alpha testing phase. There are still a lot of details we don’t know yet about the browser but the idea itself sounds very interesting, to say the least. If successful, the browser will be able to recognize websites as torrents which will be seeded by users. This is a concept that’s very similar to how uTorrent or other P2P clients work. The main benefit of this will be that internet providers will no longer be able to censor or block access to certain websites like they do now. We’re not sure if BitTorrent will be able to make it so that you can visit any website from the browser as it sounds like the pages would have to be configured in a certain way to work with Malestrom. Hopefully the company will be able to shed some more light on this intriguing project soon.