161K

Related link: http://badblue.com/index.htm

Digital ecologies are populated via a variety of survival techniques. While ultracool projects like FreeWeb grab as much attention as as they can fit in their mouths, the ridiculously minimalist BadBlue goes the opposite direction.

BadBlue is a tiny web server - footprint 161K - that you can use to share files. Download, install and configuration take approximately nanoseconds. The official feature list, taken straight from the PR:

Yeah, well, whatever. It's a web server -- it's not supposed to blow your mind. What I like is all the junk that's missing.

My pal Jim Nachlin shares out files with a web server (Apache, not BadBlue) on his home box. It's not indexed by anybody and there's no domain name. If you meet him at a party he might scrawl the IP address on a scrap of paper for you. What else do you need?

IM is pretty much exactly what it has been for years. Web browsers haven't moved far beyond Mosaic. Email is still ASCII, not HTML. There is a realistic chance that small, simple, unsexy web servers are the future of filesharing.

Remind me what the problem is with the web again?