Cloud storage has grown in importance in our daily digital lives. Almost all of us utilise some form of cloud storage service to ensure that our crucial information are kept forever. While cloud storage allows us to keep our data and retrieve them whenever and wherever we want, not all of them are as private and safe as Internxt.
In this article, I’ll look into Internxt, a zero-knowledge, Web3-ready decentralised cloud storage service. Don’t worry, I’ll explain what all of these terminology represent and how they work together to keep your data safe and private in the cloud.
How Internxt Works?
First thing first, how does Internxt work? Well, Internxt’s front-end is same as any other friendly cloud storage, it is the Internxt’s backend that’s interestingly designed to provide secure and completely private cloud storage.
Zero-knowledge system
Internxt uses Zero-knowledge system to privately store users’ data. The entire process from registering a user account in the backend to encrypting/decrypting data on user demand is discussed in detail in this article. The zero-knowledge system allows users to access their private data anytime but at the same time protecting their data from the provider itself.
The password set by the user is never stored, instead, Internxt utilizes mnemonic (a random string of text), encrypt it client-side with the user password, encrypts the hash itself before sending it to the server to ensure nobody can get your password.
Built for Web3
Internxt is created for Web3, which implies that the company does not keep information on a central server; instead, all user data and information is broken into pieces, encrypted on the user-side and stored decentralizedly.
Cloud services typically keep customer data on a central server or set of servers totally managed by the firm that owns them. Most cloud storage providers claim to give free cloud storage. In actuality, customers sell their data in order to take advantage of the ostensibly free storage option.
Open-source and Linux client
Because Internxt is open-source, everything discussed above and beyond is available to the general public. Internxt code is available on Github. Internxt also provides a Linux client, so no longer need to look for third-party clients to use it on Linux distributions.
Peer-to-peer network
If you’re looking for a secure and private alternative to Google Drive, look no further than Internxt. Unlike traditional cloud storage solutions, which rely on central servers, Internxt is a peer-to-peer network. This means that each computer on the network is both a server and a client. This decentralized approach offers many advantages, including increased security and improved performance.
Advantages of Internxt: security (data is spread across many computers, so it’s much harder to hack), privacy (your data is not stored on a central server, so it’s less likely to be accessed by government agencies or hackers), performance (a peer-to-peer network can more easily scale to meet demand than a traditional server-based solution), reliability (a decentralized network is less likely to experience downtime due to attacks or other problems).
Still user-friendly
Although the technologies utilized in the backend completely differentiate Internxt from other cloud storage services, the front-end functionality is equally user-friendly. Users can easily create accounts, upload files, delete files, sync directories, and delete account.
No account recovery
Some may consider it as a disadvantage but I won’t consider it a disadvantage because it’s a property of the system that’s designed to be private. If you are careful enough, you will never lose your account.
Zero-knowledge system does not store user’s password, so in case the user loses his/her password (which acts as the encryption key), no data can be decrypted and leaving every piece of data useless. That’s the reason why there is no password reset option. So users have to carefully create and store their password (use a good password manager) to permanently use their account.
Internxt Linux Client
Internxt provides free upto 10GB cloud storage. If you are a Linux user, Internxt Drive available for Linux distributions which you can install to upload larger files, and manage rest of your files in the cloud right from your desktop.
