Aether

Aether provides a decentralized social media platform for privacy conscious people.

Overview

Aether is a peer-to-peer social and discussion forum that runs on a distributed network instead of centralized servers. The platform helps privacy-sensitive individuals share their ideas online confidently, without leaving trails for regulatory bodies or bad actors, by making it difficult for people to track users’ IP addresses. 

Additionally, Aether doesn’t support content censorship like the traditional social media platform. this  means members can express themselves anyhow they want without fearing any moderator. They could even disable any mod for themselves, automatically reverting all their moderations, which will count as a vote to impeach the moderator. Furthermore, users can create public communities on the platform and elect their moderators—democratizing network governance.

Unlike most social networks that hold content forever in centralized servers, posts on Aether are ephemeral. The self-moderating platform saves them for six months before deleting the posts permanently. Additionally, people can only use Aether via a desktop application, making it largely inaccessible compared to popular alternatives.

The peer-to-peer social network also features an online collaboration tool called Aether Pro. This premium version lets team members and businesses work together on projects from anywhere in the world. Additionally, Aether is an open-source project, enabling members to contribute to making it better. It also comes with documentation that helps new users to learn using the social network and adapt quickly.

Product details

Aether is a decentralized and intuitive online community. As an alternative to the tightly controlled traditional social media platforms, Aether is free from censorship, allowing users to express themselves the way they want. Sadly, this freedom could lead to hate speech, cyberbullying, and harassment. Additionally, the online discussion and news curation platform is user-friendly. Unlike its peers, Aether doesn’t store user data on any specific computer; instead, they live in the void between them—the internet—hence the name, Aether.

Aether is a democratic self-governing, and ephemeral public forum. The platform allows members to create communities and elect their moderators, whose actions are public for everyone to see, making the social network transparent. Additionally, users can disable overbearing moderators for themselves, consequently, reverting all the changes they made for them. It also counts as a vote to impeach the moderator. The feature allows members to watch the watchmen.

Furthermore, Aether’s posts are ephemeral. Its content stays online for six months by default, after which it disappears, unlike most platforms that keep posts and comments forever. It ensures that bad actors don’t pick what a user said in the past for witch hunts or take them out of context.

Aether is privacy-sensitive, making it ideal for users that want to keep their information personal. The platform provides a safe place for users to share their ideas without looking behind their shoulders or worrying about people tracking the source IP of their public posts, as they are very challenging to determine. Albeit the social network is natively private, users can choose to be public. They can also use pseudonyms to hide their real identity. Furthermore, Aether generates profile pictures cryptographically for new members at sign-up. As a result, each user has a unique display picture that acts as a unique identifier. Additionally, the decentralized social network is peer-to-peer, so members have equal privileges and are equipotent. 

Aether is currently available as a desktop application. The feature allows users to access their profiles only via their personal computers, providing them additional layers of security. It also eliminates the possibility of bad actors getting hold of their online activities by accessing their web browser’s history. Additionally, supporting only desktop applications prevents users from browsing their profiles over unsecure public computers. Unfortunately, Aether is only compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux, limiting their accessibility due to their unwieldiness, as users cannot always be with their computers all the time. However, only computers with Windows 7 or macOS 10.10 operating system or the higher versions can run the application.

Aether allows users to link to communities, threads, posts, and people from the web, allowing them to access the platform via browsers. For instance, a member can copy a thread link and share it with others to join a conversation. However, they must append the prefix aether:// to the link to view the page. A typical Aether link looks this: aether://user/2a342259cbf508b9643e598fa359abb4228645c25413676f436e6ad31dd84a55. At the moment, only recipients with an Aether app can access the page. But the social media network will probably make it possible for recipients to link to Aether posts without installing the application.

Aether features an online collaboration tool that helps teams communicate and streamline their processes. The Aether Pro, a private and team-based version of the social network, lets groups like project management, engineering, design teams work together on projects seamlessly. It could also facilitate a paperless and remote workplace experience, allowing people to work from anywhere in the world. Aether Pro provides users with specialized spaces to carry out their tasks effortlessly. For example, it features a chat tool for real-time conversations. Additionally, Aether Pro users can set up threads for structured discussions. Members can also receive subscribed newsletters and community threads in their inboxes if they prefer emails.

Aether provides a straightforward way for users to support and fund the decentralized network. For instance, members can support the social network by donating on Patreon, a membership platform for paying creators and artists. They could also sign up to use Aether Pro, the platform’s premium productivity tool. Helping to fund Aether keeps the social network running effectively and the support comes with several benefits. For example, the decentralized public forum doesn’t provide a unique username to users, allowing many people to have the same identity. However, supporters can choose a unique username to differentiate them or their brands. They can also have their company’s logo on Aether’s website and the Github repository.

Recap 

Aether is a privacy-sensitive decentralized social network that allows users complete freedom over what they post on the forum without fear of censorship. The platform also lets members elect and impeach moderators, giving everyone equal network governance rights. Additionally, it features a premium version that helps teams collaborate and streamline their work processes.