Browsing

URL bar

In the address bar you can type (or paste) a full URL, an IPFS CID or a full IPFS path (they will be loaded with the appropriate scheme).

You can also type words that you want to search for in the hashmarks database and the visited URLs history (search results will pop up after a short amount of time). Hitting the Escape key will hide the results.

Supported URL formats

ipfs:// and ipns://

These are the native URL schemes that support using base32-encoded CIDv1 strings as hostname (with the benefit of the CID becoming the URL’s authority). The following URL formats are supported:

ipfs://{cidv1base32}/path/to/resource
ipns://{fqdn-with-dnslink}/path/to/resource

Examples:

ipfs://bafybeibp7sff6wwowsimitrxcpdoqnknyreesvtn24qrnx7gxkhqhzj2fi/
ipns://ipfs.io/

Note: the scheme handler for these URL schemes does not use the daemon’s HTTP gateway

dweb:/

This is the legacy scheme and it will be automatically used when accessing content rooted under CIDv0 objects. Because it proxies the requests to the daemon’s HTTP gateway, it can handle anything that the daemon supports:

dweb:/ipfs/{cidv0}/path/to/resource
dweb:/ipfs/{cidv1b32}/path/to/resource
dweb:/ipfs/{cidv1b58}/path/to/resource
dweb:/ipns/{fqdn-with-dnslink}/path/to/resource
dweb:/ipns/{libp2p-key-in-base58}/path/to/resource

Examples:

dweb:/ipfs/bafybeibp7sff6wwowsimitrxcpdoqnknyreesvtn24qrnx7gxkhqhzj2fi
dweb:/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/wiki/
dweb:/ipns/QmarwvLcWm51SwhnxABxsy1cE7v1RHPMjt4VkQ3kqsrdX3
dweb:/ipns/awesome.ipfs.io

ens://

There is support for accessing IPFS-hosted websites that are registered on the Ethereum Name Service (see ENS). Just use ens://mydomain.eth for example as a URL in the browser and you will be redirected to the IPFS website referenced on ENS for this domain.

Go to ens://blog.almonit.eth to find a list of some ENS+IPFS websites.

Other

There is support for mapping IPFS objects to a specific URL scheme, allowing easy access from the URL bar to commonly-accessed resources.

Right now this is only used for the manual. To access the manual from the URL bar, just type in manual:/ (or just manual:)

Web profiles

There are 3 distinct web profiles that can be used when accessing a webpage. The current profile can be changed from a browser tab by opening the IPFS menu and selecting a profile from the Web profile submenu.

You can change the default web profile that will be used when opening a browser tab by changing the Default web profile setting in the UI section of the application settings.

Minimal profile

This profile doesn’t include any specific scripts

IPFS profile

This profile adds a JS script to be able to access your IPFS node from window.ipfs in the main Javascript world

Web3 profile

Derives from the IPFS profile. If Ethereum is enabled, it injects a web3.js instance available as window.web3 in the main Javascript world