Does Web 3.0 Need Web Servers?

So, you've recently discovered the greatest all singing, all dancing, most yield-farm-iest DeFi crypto blockchain project in the world ever. You're compounding, earning, and breaking world records for the highest APY ever known by a mere mortal such as yourself. Then, while humbly bragging to friends about how much better your DeFi choices are than theirs, you type the web address into the browser, and, holy magical-internet-tinsel-cakes...

Your beloved site has been taken down!!!

Be it by decree of the shadowy overlords of Amazon Web Services, or some over-zealous jurisdiction officials who are "only looking after your best interests", matters not. You've been struck by the dreaded internet censorship paradigm.

Is Censorship a Necessary Evil?

Of course, censorship is not a DeFi specific issue. There are countless cases of shadow-bans, great firewalls, and nanny-state imposed access denials I could reference to make my case. But, whether or not we're fans of censorship, there are justifiable circumstances dependant on your personal stance. Go fund me pages for extreme political agendas, illicit black market enterprises, and other more nefarious such things, are pretty clear cut examples of content which deserves to be stamped out with swift and appropriate action.

It's when we move to less polar extremes we see the issues arise.

Centralised authority figures making decisions on our behalf is patronising (at best!), but especially so when we don't see eye-to-eye with the rule-makers. Again, I'll try to avoid examples (for the sake of not getting sued), but why should my appetite for high-risk DeFi products be denied by some overly-starched shirt and tie wearing HMRC Agent Smith d***bag? Even worse when the very same Smith isn't even aware what a "Meat-mask wallet" is, AND IN THE SAME BREATHE, whole-heartedly approves ever illicitly earned penny of the gambling firms who bombard every screen I own!

Enough ranting though, as vehement as I am on this topic, I'm here to present to you an answer, not a question.

The FreeTON Decentralised Browser-Browser Contest!

Not a typo, a browser-browser is a thing. You see, TON OS, is capable of some incredible things, and through TON Surf, you can do more than 'just transfer coins between wallets'.

Proposer of the contest, and CTO of TON Labs, Mitja Goroshevsky, described this as:

"One of the most important contests on Free TON so far, and vital in breaking all ties with the old internet centralized censorship paradigm."

So, in order to take home the eye-watering 75,000 TON Crystal first place prize, and liberate humanity that little bit further, what must be done, you ask?

Well, using the Free TON SMV voting interface as a working example, entrants must create a DeBot Browser, inside a web browser (a browser-browser, see!?). Using the DeBot, a simple-Simon end-user (like me!) should be able to access the SMV web page bundle via a storage address (a URL), with all its functions available.

And, here's the really exciting part, it must do this, without ever accessing any web server, only the Free TON DApp Server.

Call me a dreamer folks, but this opens up a whole new paradigm. Read the full contest details here, and if you haven't checked out Free TON properly yet, why not start with the shiny new community developed site!