Hi there, welcome to the forum. I’ve tried Freenet for a number of times. This is the way I get it, and I will try to explain which differences there are with Safenet.
Freenet - You run it locally on your computer, including all chunks and keys etc. So when you stop using freenet, the chunks and storage and keys will stay on your computer until you run it again. The chunks are “cached” when they come by (correct me if I’m wrong).
Safenet - You run it locally on your computer, but only when you connect to the network, chunks get stored on your system. When you stop using the network, the chunks are gone/useless. You do cache chunks that come by, but when you’re part of the network, you also store chunks which are “close” to you based on XOR. That’s the Vault part. And when someone calls for that chunk (does a “GET”) you’re rewarded some Safecoin by the network. This doesn’t happen when you provide a chunk from cache.
Freenet - You have an identity bases on WoT or some other system on top of Freenet. Your private keys are on your computer (they can be encrypted for security).
Safenet - There’s nothing on your computer, just an empty client/vault. When you “log on” to Safenet, you’ll provide a username and PIN. (let’s say “polpolrene:5678”) you also provide a password. So when you provide username and PIN a hash is derived from these 2 values (and some Salt). This is the address of your personal file. So by providing “log on” info, you request an encrypted file from the network, it’s your own personal file. That’s where the keys are, and the data-atlas to your personal files. Your password is used to decrypt the file locally.
Freenet - Cache is used to store chunks. You store chunks that “come by”. If you request for a chunk, there’s an x-number of Hops-to-live to get that file. So you request a chunk to a number of users that you’re connected to. (again, correct me if I’m wrong). Data needs to be requested to stay “alive”.
Safenet - You request chunks from your close group. They will ask the network for the chunks and they’ll find out where the chunk is by finding the user that’s closest to the chunk based on XOR. With one billion users, you should be able to get the chunk within max 30 hops. There are always 4 copies around of each chunk in a vault somewhere. When a user logs off, the network will find out quite fast, and within moment a new location is added. So you might request a chunk that’s not requested for years, and it should be in a vault somewhere.
I agree that both projects are made for security, freedom etc. I also agree that not all info is out there on the wiki. But things are going quite fast, there used to be a lot of “manager” systems in the network, but a lot of them got killed and where removed to make things simpler. I’m not really excited to write new entrees to the wiki at the moment because I would need to poke the Devs who are very busy, and things might change to much in the “sprints”. In a few weeks we should have a live testnet, and when things become clear and are tested and will stay in place, I think we’ll jump on the wiki with a bunch of people, supported by the Devs to fix that part.
Here’s a topic I wrote about the different encryption layers. It might have changed a bit, but I still think it’s correct for the biggest part:
And to add some more info, on Safenet you can’t join the network by providing a public key. You actually need to provide a public key, and wait for a group (mex 32 nodes) to take you in. They provide you with an address. from that moment, you’re on the Safenet XOR-network with your own little location. The system behind that is called “Sentinel” and I tried to get my head around it in this post: