Blockchain startup Unstoppable Domains Inc. today launched a decentralized blog or dBlog service that’s hosted on the InterPlanetary File System and attached to the company’s .crypto domains.

Designed to allow .crypto domain holders to build their own blog quickly, the dBlogs do not sit on a single server but are instead decentralized on the IPFS network. IPFS is a protocol and peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data on a blockchain with the advantage that any data shared cannot be censored by central entities.

The new blogging service offers a simple interface, similar to Medium and other popular blogging tools. The data is stored using 3Box, a service that offers a secure and decentralized data storage system that lets users manage and control their own data across the web. Bloggers can use their .crypto domains to launch a blog and host plain text, images, video and audio files just as they would with a regular web hosted blog.

“As great as Medium and other blogging tools are, they rely on servers controlled by those companies,” Unstoppable Domains co-founder Brad Kam said in a statement. “What I publish on those platforms isn’t fully under my control. Depending on what platform I use, where I live in the world, or what content I share, this lack of control could make a big difference.”

Several blogs have already been set up on the service, including the Tim Draper Blog belonging to Tim Draper, the founder of the venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

Unstoppable Domains .crypto domains live exclusively on the IPFS blockchain network and require a mirroring service, a browser extension or a browser that supports blockchain domains to view a .crypto site. For now, Opera for Android is the only web browser that provides native support for .crypto domains.

Installing a browser extension is by no means difficult — it takes seconds to do so in Chrome and then access the Tim Draper blog, for example — but it’s still a hurdle for adoption by the broader market. As a free speech tool, however, it appears to provide a superior service to Tor and the Onion Network.

The IFPS network in which the .crypto domains reside has previously been used for information on the Catalan Independence Referendum where Spain blocked sites and is also being used to mirror Wikipedia to provide access to those in countries where the site is blocked. Notably, Cloudflare Inc. provides a distributed web gateway to simplify, speed up and secure access to IPFS without needing a local node.

“Freedom of speech is a fundamental human right that is being violated all over the world,” Draper said, “Unstoppable Domains is offering a way for people to say what they want online without being silenced. This is something that the world badly needs right now.”

Image: Unstoppable Domains