LibreSocial: A Peer-to-Peer Framework for Online Social Networks

Abstract: Distributed online social networks (DOSNs) were first proposed to solve the problem of privacy, security and scalability. A significant amount of research was undertaken to offer viable DOSN solutions that were capable of competing with the existing centralized OSN applications such as Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram. This research led to the emergence of the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks as a possible solution, upon which several OSNs such as LifeSocial.KOM, Safebook, PeerSoN among others were based. In this paper, we define the basic requirements for a P2P OSN. We then revisit one of the first P2P-based OSNs, LifeSocial.KOM, that is now called LibreSocial, which evolved in the past years to address the challenges of running a completely decentralized social network. Over the course of time, several essential new technologies have been incorporated within LibreSocial for better functionalities. We describe the architecture and each individual component of LibreSocial and point out how LibreSocial meets the basic requirements for a fully functional distributed OSN.