Round 2 / IPFS Desktop and IPFS Companion

IPFS Desktop makes working with IPFS data more approachable for individual users who don’t want to work with command line tools or daemons. For many users in the IPFS ecosystem it’s how they interact with IPFS if they’re looking for one layer deeper involvement than asking a public gateway like ipfs.io or dweb.link to pull their data from data providers (e.g. Filecoin SPs or their partners like Lighthouse, Storacha / web3.storage, etc.).

IPFS Companion is a sibling tool that brings a more native IPFS experience to web browsers. It enables users to add verifiability of the IPFS data found in any links they encounter online (e.g. from NFT platforms, blogs, dApps, user facing websites, etc.) even while those platforms are able to make sure their user experience is good (even if relying on the less resiliency guarantees of web 2). In combination with tools like IPFS Desktop it also allows users to backup and store data they encounter on the web locally as well as export that data to storage providers including those that back their data with Filecoin.