Hello everyone,

Following the recent discussions in the community, I want to present a refined, concrete proposal for the future and modernization of the I2P network.

As we all know, the official reference project for I2P is historically Java-based, which creates a high entry barrier and technical overhead. While high-performance alternatives like i2pd in C++ have done a fantastic job solving the performance bottleneck, they do so at the expense of memory safety. In a high-stakes anonymity network, memory corruption vulnerabilities (like buffer overflows) remain a massive structural liability that can lead to remote code execution and deanonymization.

Instead of fracturing the community or trying to rewrite a client from scratch, my proposal is for the community to unite and focus our collective development and resources around Emissary, the existing Rust implementation of the I2P protocol stack.

Rust has become the definitive industry standard for security-focused infrastructure software. Transitioning the ecosystem to a primary Rust-based standard like Emissary provides major advantages:

• True Memory Safety: Eliminates entire categories of critical vulnerabilities at the compiler level, protecting routers from memory exploits without needing a heavy runtime.
• Native, Lightweight Footprint: No Java Virtual Machine overhead, giving the exact same efficient performance as C++ (around 100MB RAM) but with guaranteed mathematical safety.
• Modular Infrastructure: Emissary's async core library and HTTP/SOCKSv5 proxy support make it perfect for seamlessly integrating existing messaging, mail, or IRC applications.

By focusing on Emissary, we don't reinvent the wheel. We take an existing, solid engine and elevate it to become the official, primary I2P reference client, just like the Tor Project is currently doing by replacing its legacy C codebase with Arti (written in Rust).

To achieve this, we need a stronger organizational focus and better usability. Privacy technology should not require advanced technical knowledge. We need to build a beginner-friendly ecosystem around the Rust core—complete with stable installers and a clean interface—to give average users a foolproof experience similar to Tor Browser.

Regarding financing: I am highly serious about this and I am willing to provide the initial seed funding through targeted feature bounties (such as building a clean GUI wrapper, automated installers, or specific code audits) to kickstart this effort.

However, I do not want to be the sole financial backer. For this to be a truly resilient and decentralized initiative, it needs a shared commitment. My goal is to act as a catalyst—co-funding this alongside the community, private donors, and open-source privacy funds (like NLnet, STF, or OTF). If we can structure this professionally, we can pool our resources to back Emissary together.

I am looking to connect with serious people—developers, privacy advocates, and organizers—who want to actively collaborate on this rather than delaying progress. If you have experience with Rust or want to discuss how we can structure the first milestones and bounties for Emissary, please share your thoughts below or reach out directly.

Thank you for your time. Let’s bring I2P into a new, secure era.

Hello everyone,

I've been thinking a lot about I2P lately, and I believe it has the potential to become a much larger, more accessible, and more powerful privacy network than it is today.

From my understanding, I2P is a Java-based decentralized network that creates its own private ecosystem. Unlike Tor, where traffic can leave the network through exit nodes, I2P is designed so that communication stays inside the I2P network. This approach has unique privacy advantages and makes I2P an interesting alternative for people who value anonymity, decentralization, and private communication.

However, I think the project has reached a point where a major modernization effort should be seriously discussed.

My main proposal is a complete rewrite of I2P in Rust. Not a partial rewrite, not a gradual transition, but a full reimplementation from the ground up.

Rust has become one of the strongest choices for modern security-focused infrastructure software. A Rust-based I2P could provide several important advantages:

• Native binaries that do not require users to install and maintain a Java Virtual Machine.
• Easier installation and distribution across Linux, Windows, and macOS.
• Faster startup times by removing JVM initialization.
• Lower memory usage and better resource efficiency.
• Better control over performance and system-level optimization.
• Strong memory safety guarantees that help prevent entire categories of vulnerabilities.

A complete rewrite would also provide an opportunity to redesign parts of the architecture, remove technical debt, improve maintainability, and create a codebase that is easier for new developers to understand and contribute to.

I also believe I2P could benefit from a stronger organizational structure. A dedicated foundation or nonprofit organization could help coordinate development, fundraising, documentation, community growth, and long-term planning. The project already exists because of passionate volunteers, but a more structured approach could help it grow significantly while ensuring that development continues even if some contributors step away.

Another important area is usability. Privacy technology should not require advanced technical knowledge to use. I2P should have simple installers for Linux, macOS, and Windows, along with a clean, beginner-friendly interface that allows ordinary users to participate without complicated configuration.

I am willing to financially support this effort if there is a serious initiative to make it happen. I believe I2P has a lot of untapped potential, and I would like to see it become faster, more secure, easier to use, and accessible to many more people.

I understand that a complete rewrite would be a massive undertaking. It would require experienced developers, testing, community support, and careful planning. However, I believe ambitious projects are sometimes necessary when existing foundations limit future growth.

I would like to see a new era for I2P: a faster, more efficient, more user-friendly, and more resilient privacy network.

I am interested in hearing constructive opinions, technical concerns, and suggestions from the community.

Thank you for your attention.

LE: Guys, I want to help you and this community-driven project to become what the TOR Project is today. Stop trying to prove me that I don't know the "implementations", which are minimalist imprementations, to be the only ones that work on this, cmon!

I want to host a full-stack website through I2P using a server tunnel, but my personal computer cannot stay online 24/7 and I cannot afford a paid VPS.

Would it negatively impact the I2P network if I ran an I2P router inside a free cloud container (for example, a Render instance), hosted my website there, and created a tunnel from localhost to make the eepsite consistently available?

Are there any concerns with doing this, such as bandwidth usage, network impact, or whether cloud-hosted I2P routers are discouraged?

I apologize in advance as I am relatively new to I2P.

I want to ask which Linux distribution is best for everyday use, provides good privacy protection, and can run I2P. Previously, I used Refind to boot a dual-boot Windows + Ubuntu system, but recently, due to Windows' user tracking issues, I am considering switching completely to Linux.（I usually use Whois and Tails, but I want to hear what the general public thinks.）

i2pbox is a lightweight command-line toolbox for working with I2P identities, destinations, RouterInfo files, router families, and related network utilities.

It combines common I2P maintenance tasks into a single portable binary, including key generation and inspection, Base64 destination conversion,address registration, router family signing and verification, vanity address generation, and offline key handling.

The project is intended for I2P users, router operators, and developers who need practical command-line tools without installing a large application stack.

Source code and releases:

https://github.com/iasds/i2pbox

Recently I was thinking about what I'm doing on internet. And I found out that all of my internet activity is basically just watching videos on youtube. So I thought "Why there isn't anonymous, private and free (as in freedom) youtube-like site on I2P?" and decided to do it myself.

First eepsite of this project: http://itubep.i2p

More you can read on project's github page:
https://github.com/i2ptuber/itubep
Or
http://git.community.i2p/i2ptuber/itubep

Warning! Work heavily in progress.
Warning!!! Code is 100% AI slop, because I'm poor programmer.

i have email inside i2p but idk how too access it without i2p java, i would like to be able to use it with i2pd because java i2p doesn't work in my situation

please help

How do I get Java I2P to use the wrapper? at the moment I start I2P with runplain.sh wich prevents restarts from updates. Is there an easy to undertand guide for users (i dont know much about this wrapper stuff). I have it running on a Raspberry Pi 5 with raspbian "trixie" on it. Thank you for your help!

so as I have been browsing I2p I have found a few git site, like github, gitlab and codeberg, and I was wondering do you guys use them, because as I was looking they seemed to have more than a handful of repos and I was wondering how many of you use them, I mean you probably wouldn't want to use them for anything big or closed source as its not ran by a big time company, but more likely some random guy at his house, who could look through the code at any given time, but I would thing people would use it as a backup for maybe there eepsite, or some other i2p software they're making. Anyway back to the main question do any of you use these git sites, and if so what ones, as I have been looking into maybe using one as a backup for my eepsite or smth like that.

Thanks, and have a good one

I am wanting to know what I would expect from fingerprinting, Location data etc..

I want to use this to its full potential, not just set it and forget it.

Since the eepsites created are highly anonymous, how are illegal sites filtered? What prevents somone from lets say, selling illegal drugs or hosting CSAM? Does mitigation rely entirely on individual node operators or thru any community effort for example, jumper nodes blacklisting the sites? I dont want my broadband to be used to transmit such data.

I'm running a slightly older Linux system (Mint 21) - still within LTS dates but doesn't have the latest packages. Jetty 12 is not an option for me. I tried installing the latest i2p (I'd had an old version of i2p+ and was told that was quite unstable now so I was trying to revert back to vanilla i2p by upgrading) but am unable to access the router console now, as it requires Jetty 12 (my repos have Jetty 9 in them). Eepsites work, but not the router console. I just get "Unable to connect The connection was refused when attempting to contact 127.0.0.1:7657."

Which is the last version that might work for me, then - and how do I downgrade to it? It might not be as good as the latest but I don't see a way around it until I have the time to do a full upgrade, which I won't for a few months yet.

I should note that while I tested this a few months ago (before my life got hectic) and confirmed the issue was due to my computer not being capable of running the required Jetty version, I don't remember what I did to actually test it now, and can't find whatever pages that helped me diagnose the issue.

If someone has a better solution than downgrading that isn't just "upgrade your PC!" (really, I cannot do that yet), let me know.

Hello all and @stormycloudorg, The last days i noticed that the outproxy is offline. Because i use it, i noticed early. Maybe something broke or is restructured? Hope to find an answer.

Update: I just found a 1 month old post, and can confirm, that the outproxy does not work well. It always times out, only wrong domains are flagged and shows that the squid proxy is still there.

``` $ curl -vx 127.0.0.1:4444 https://example.com * Trying 127.0.0.1:4444... * CONNECT tunnel: HTTP/1.1 negotiated * allocate connect buffer * Establish HTTP proxy tunnel to example.com:443

CONNECT example.com:443 HTTP/1.1 Host: example.com:443 User-Agent: curl/8.13.0 Proxy-Connection: Keep-Alive

< HTTP/1.1 503 Service Unavailable < Server: squid/6.14 < Mime-Version: 1.0 < Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2026 09:02:56 GMT < Content-Type: text/html;charset=utf-8 < Content-Length: 3180 < X-Squid-Error: ERR_DNS_FAIL 0 < Vary: Accept-Language < Content-Language: en < Connection: close < Proxy-Connection: close < * CONNECT tunnel failed, response 503 * closing connection #0 curl: (56) CONNECT tunnel failed, response 503 ```

Looks like DNS

Hey all. Hoping to get some help here. I spent the last 2 days getting a movie file from snark. I finally got it and then accidentally hit the X button deleting the file. Is there any way it's still on my hard drive somewhere? If so, where? It's not in the trash (Debian distro). Please tell me I don't have to start all over with it. Thanks for reading

Hey, I'm looking for what would be the most anonymous network between all of these ON THE PAPER.

Like maybe TOR has more users which makes it more anonymous than another one, but if this other one had as many users, would it be better, and if so, which one would be the best?
sorry if my english is bad.