Timski is a decentralized group chat app powered by Blockstack. The app is a thin client built on top of Blockstack's distributed architecture that empowers each individual to configure his/her own storage after registering for a Blockstack ID. The app publishes and retrieves each individual's chat messages from his/her own cloud-based storage.
Hey Everyone!
I made Timski in an effort to bring decentralization to the way we communicate with each other. Existing centralized chat apps keep all their user data on servers they control, there is data lock-in and users are tracked in the name of improving services.
On the other hand, Timski is one of the first in the new breed of dApps where all of the user data is stored in a user’s own storage, whereas, the app is just a thin client pulling messages from each user’s storage and showing them in a synchronized way.
In more simpler terms, in Timski’s case, my messages and channel meta information is stored over my storage and similarly, all of your chat data is stored over yours!
Here is an example of the freedom that Timski brings, let’s say you are using Timski for the chat and there is another app Dimski built over the same architecture that is now offering better features and you want to switch-over. All you will have to do is to download the other app and login with the same Blockstack ID, all of your channels and chat messages will still be there!
We are using Blockstack as the auth and storage provider. It’s the same as Facebook is a provider of auth and Firebase is a provider of storage, only this time the architecture is distributed. Blockstack’s storage thesis is that P2P storage is hard as connectivity and reliability is a big issue. However, nearly everyone has a Dropbox or Google Drive account nowadays and these accounts are running from data centres that are configured to take huge traffic spikes at any given moment. Blockstack’s mission is to write drivers for all of these cloud storage providers and enable users to use their personal accounts to store their own social networking data. It may also use other IPFS based storage providers like Filecoin in the future as well. Currently, users can download Blockstack’s heroku node and run that as their own, using it to store their private data.
This is the first version of the app, it is rough around the edges, so please bear with me while we update and more features to the app!
I welcome any suggestions, feedback and comments!
@hammad_tariq , hello Timski Maker, someone hunted your cool product here too
https://steemhunt.com/@aamirijaz...
maybe you can visit and give more explanation too, because we need more explanation about how "the p2p" is working on your App. Thank you.
Timski