In your browser (also on phones and tablets)¶
The graphical client also runs in an ordinary browser - on a phone, a tablet or any computer - with nothing to install. You open a web entrance (UN-RFC 0043), for example the project's own:
It is the less hidden way in, on purpose: for people who will not install anything. Read What you give up before you rely on it.
Pre-alpha
Neither the web entrance nor the Unseenet core has had a security review. Play with it; do not rely on it to protect anyone yet.
Your first post waits a little
Nodes take posts only from keys that have ripened - a few minutes of work, once per key. The web client does that work in the browser, as the portable and bootable clients do, so your first post waits while it runs; keep the page open. It can take longer on a phone than on a laptop.
What it is¶
It is the same graphical client as the portable and the bootable one - the same groups, keys and vault - with its whole program, the Unseenet core included, running in your browser. Your keys stay there: the page signs your posts, checks everyone's signatures and pays the postage itself. The entrance only carries the connection to a node, over Tor, and can neither read nor change what goes through.
A bar at the top always says that you are on the open web.
First visit¶
- Open the entrance. The first time, the page loads about 15 MB - Python and the Unseenet core - and keeps it on the device.
- Create a vault - a name and a passphrase - just as in the other clients, or open a vault file you already have (Open vault file). A vault from a stick or a portable folder works here too, and the other way round.
- Decide where the vault lives:
- Keep on this device: the browser keeps it, still encrypted with your passphrase, and saves every change by itself. Next time the page opens straight to your passphrase.
- Or Save vault file at the end of every session, and open it next time. Without either, the vault is gone when you close the tab.
A long passphrase matters more here: whoever gets hold of the device can try passphrases against a vault kept on it.
As an app on a phone or tablet¶
Add the page to your home screen, and it starts like an app, from the device, and finds your vault at once:
| iPhone, iPad (Safari) | Share → Add to Home Screen |
| Android (Chrome) | ⋮ → Install app or Add to home screen |
| A computer (Chrome, Edge) | the install icon in the address bar |
On a narrow screen the client shows one thing at a time: your groups, then a group, then a post or the chat. ⋯ holds what does not fit, and when you write, Post or Send is at the top, above the keyboard.
When the entrance is gone or blocked¶
- The app keeps working. It runs from the device, and when its entrance does not answer it talks through another one from the project's signed list of entrances.
- The list of entrances as a file. Other entrances in the bar saves a small page with the signed list inside. Opened from disk, it shows which entrances answer and opens one. Keep it, and send it to friends.
- In Tor Browser, use the entrance's onion address (the project's:
qtxtye5sz4reskzdvnf3ih5oqyfvs5e22o3kcny3q3iy4bhr3ni437ad.onion): then the entrance does not see your IP address either, and it cannot be blocked like an address on the open web.
New versions¶
When there is a newer version, the bar shows New version. It is installed only when you say so, and only after every file has been checked against a signature from the Unseenet project - wherever the files came from. The app never goes back to an older version, and warns if the entrance serves something that is not signed.
What you give up¶
| Portable / Bootable | On the web | |
|---|---|---|
| Groups and nodes can be removed by someone | No | No |
| Others can delete or change your posts | No | No |
| Nodes learn your IP address | No | No |
| The entrance learns your IP address | - | Yes (not in Tor Browser) |
| You trust code you did not install yourself | Once, signed | Signed versions - but the entrance serves part of the app |
| Someone can see that you use Unseenet | Hard | Your network sees you visit the entrance |
If you need to hide that you use Unseenet, or who you are, use the portable or bootable client instead.
Run an entrance¶
Every entrance someone else runs makes Unseenet harder to block. An entrance runs on a small cloud machine - a free one is enough - and installs with one command; it can also mirror Unseenet's releases, so that the other clients can update over Tor when GitHub is blocked. See Running an entrance.