ENS unveils easier way to build decentralized websites on Ethereum

By Alexander Behrens

The Ethereum Name Service has released a new feature that allows users to set up a decentralized website within the ENS Manager, its web-based interface. The feature makes it easier than ever to upload and access censorship-resistant content using Ethereum.

ENS Manager now allows content uploads via integration with Temporal, an interplanetary file system (IPFS) enterprise platform similar to web server providers such as Amazon Web Services. Unlike centralized AWS servers however, Temporal hooks into IPFS which uses a decentralized protocol across many different data storage nodes. That means no singular authority can delete or block the data stored in the IPFS network. IPFS is also much more resistant to hacking and provides some efficiency improvements over HTTP protocols.

The olden days

ENS users formerly were only able to upload small amounts of content to their account—such as addresses for non-ETH cryptocurrencies—using the ENS Manager. Before the integration, ENS users would need to manually upload files to IPFS, then take the resulting hash and add it to their ENS content records.

Now, after uploading website files via Temporal within ENS Manager, users simply save the IPFS hash address to their ENS account. After that, anyone can access the website by appending .link to the end of their ENS address—for example “ethhub.eth.link.”

“Any kind of website can benefit from the reliability and censorship-resistance of a decentralized website,” ENS director of operations Brantly Millegan told Decrypt.  “As you can see on Almonit (almonit.eth.link), there are all kinds of decentralized websites: personal blogs, games, political websites, even the Bible.”

The redundancy of the IPFS protocol also offers enhanced reliability compared to protocols such as HTTP by storing content redundantly, allowing other IPFS nodes to send the requested data if the primary node (chosen based on proximity to the request) is unavailable.

Integrations like the one between ENS and Temporal that streamline the user experience are essential to the widespread adoption of the decentralized, censorship-resistant web.

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