I'm not a professional web developer, but I've done some coding and Linux administration. I've noticed tools like WebRTC and virtual machines running in the browser, all powered by JavaScript. Is there a framework that can help distribute JavaScript code among clients when the server is under heavy load? I'm thinking it could reduce the server's workload by allowing clients to connect and share content directly with each other instead of relying solely on the server. I've heard of peer-to-peer projects like torrents, but haven't found any that work exclusively in the browser. Also, is JavaScript efficient enough for this kind of client-side networking, possibly acting as mini-servers? This seems like a great way to handle traffic spikes and improve DDoS protection!
5 Answers
Check out WebTorrent! It’s a nice library that allows you to implement P2P directly in the browser without any fuss. They even have simple demo code on GitHub that you can use to get started without needing a full backend.
While there are definitely P2P solutions like WebRTC, many users concern themselves with privacy when their IP addresses are exposed. Spotify used to use P2P for streaming but ditched it because it wasn't worth the hassle. If they couldn't manage it for music, why would it work for web assets?
I think projects like PeerTube are already doing something similar by using P2P for video streaming. It's kind of like torrenting but for videos being watched by multiple users. So there's definitely potential for this kind of tech!
Regarding your question about whether JavaScript can run client-side microservers, the performance can definitely be decent, especially with the right client specs. You can actually load more efficient code through WebAssembly (WASM) as well. But using clients to share resources does raise some serious security concerns. You'd need to think about protecting your users and their data if they’re sharing resources with each other! You don't want to shift server-side problems onto your clients, right?
You can absolutely serve tons of static assets with pretty minimal hardware, as long as you have the bandwidth. But honestly, using P2P for serving static content isn't something I’d recommend. CDNs (Content Delivery Networks) do a fantastic job of distributing assets globally for low latency. It's just way more efficient!
You make a good point! I'm more concerned about latency and privacy anyhow. If P2P has issues with data sync, it would just complicate things further.