# hyphanet/fred

Freenet REference Daemon

Repository: https://github.com/hyphanet/fred
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/fred
Homepage: https://www.hyphanet.org/
Language: Java
License: GPL-2.0
License Family: copyleft
Topics: anonymity, hyphanet, privacy
Last push: 2026-08-16T20:46:58+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 89/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 98, release rhythm 71, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6340, "days_push": 17, "days_rel": 199, "gap_med": 22, "n_releases_24m": 8}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1210, forks 237 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:00.075814+00:00)

## What it is
Fred (Freenet REference Daemon) is the core node software of Hyphanet (formerly Freenet), a peer-to-peer platform for censorship-resistant, anonymous publishing and communication. It provides a distributed, encrypted, decentralized datastore on which websites, forums, and chat applications are built.

## Use cases
- publish websites that resist censorship
- share files anonymously over a peer-to-peer network
- run a friend-to-friend darknet node for private communication
- browse freesites and forums without central servers
- contribute bandwidth and storage to a decentralized datastore

## When to choose
- you need censorship-resistant publishing or communication
- you want anonymous file sharing with strong privacy guarantees
- you want to run a darknet/friend-to-friend network invisible to centralized observers

## When to avoid
- you need low-latency communication or fast content delivery
- you want a simple VPN or proxy rather than a distributed datastore
- you cannot run a Java runtime or contribute storage/bandwidth

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: p2p, cryptography, proxy, file-system, http-server
- domain: privacy, censorship-circumvention, networking, microservices, self-hosted
- platform: cross-platform, jvm, windows
- tags: freenet, hyphanet, anonymity, darknet, freesites, decentralized-storage, censorship-resistance, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- hyphanet/fred (main) score 89

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:00.075814+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T06:18:13.779468+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/hyphanet/fred (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:00.075814+00:00, sha 6dd4750d1986)
  - homepage: https://www.hyphanet.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T12:26:09.994826+00:00, sha 19c794c28c26)
  - site_page: https://www.hyphanet.org/pages/about.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:26:10.004082+00:00, sha a680983ac0c5)
  - site_page: https://www.hyphanet.org/pages/documentation.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:26:10.006460+00:00, sha 040fd198123c)
  - site_page: https://www.hyphanet.org/pages/download.html (fetched 2026-08-29T12:26:10.008831+00:00, sha ca2aa5c64a60)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.