When you enter a URL and hit enter, your computer reaches out to a server someplace in the world to access a website. Sometimes a site is stored on a few servers for redundancy or load balancing, but the model is functionally the same. BitTorrent, the company behind the popular file sharing protocol, is looking to change the way websites are hosted by keeping the data not on a centralized server, but on the home computers of users. These sites would be split up into pieces just like a file shared via a torrent. BitTorrent calls this system Project Maelstrom, and it’s getting very close to reality.
Project Maelstrom is built on a modified version of Chromium, the open source project that backs Google’s Chrome browser. If we extend the file sharing analogy to Project Maelstrom, the modified browser is basically your torrent client. You enter a web address, and the browser connects to a “swarm” of users already accessing the site who have pieces of it ready to send over. These bits are assembled into the final product and displayed normally. If it works as intended, you won’t notice a difference in the functionality of these sites.
Source:
http://www.extremetech.com/internet/198578-bittorrents-project-maelstrom-will-host-websites-in-torrents
