IPFS Companion allows you to interact with your IPFS node and the extended IPFS network through your browser. The add-on is available for Brave, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Opera, and any other Chromium-based web browser.
It enables support for ipfs:// and ipns:// addresses, automatically loads websites and file paths from a local IPFS gateway, allows you to easily import and share a file with IPFS, and more.
# Prerequisites
For its full functionality to be enabled, IPFS Companion requires a local IPFS node. As such, it is recommended that you have an IPFS node installed and running on your computer. Any one of the following will satisfy the requirement:
# Install
The easiest way to install IPFS Companion is through your browser's specific extensions and add-ons store:
# Features
IPFS Companion supercharges your browser for the DWeb with features including the following:
# Detect URLs with IPFS paths
IPFS Companion detects and tests requests for IPFS-like paths, such as /ipfs/{cid} or /ipns/{peerid_or_host-with-dnslink}, on any website. If a path is a valid IPFS address, it is redirected to load from your local gateway, which converts data from one protocol to another. The gateway at localhost will also automatically switch to a subdomain to provide a unique origin for each website. Providing a unique origin accommodates operations that are restricted to content that shares the same protocol, domain, and port, also known as same-origin content (opens new window).
https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmbWqxBEKC3P8tqsKc98xmWNzrzDtRLMiMPL8wBuTGsMnR→http://localhost:8080/ipfs/QmbWqxBEKC3P8tqsKc98xmWNzrzDtRLMiMPL8wBuTGsMnR→http://bafybeigdyrzt5sfp7udm7hu76uh7y26nf3efuylqabf3oclgtqy55fbzdi.ipfs.localhost:8080
# Detect DNSLink-enabled URLs
IPFS Companion detects DNSLink info in the DNS records of websites. DNSLink is a simple protocol that links content and serviceability from DNS and leverages the DNS distributed architecture. See Glossary > DNSLink. If a site uses DNSLink, IPFS Companion redirects the HTTP request to your local gateway:
http://docs.ipfs.tech→http://localhost:8080/ipns/docs.ipfs.tech→http://docs.ipfs.tech.ipns.localhost:8080/
# Detect pages with x-ipfs-path headers
IPFS Companion also upgrades transport to IPFS if it finds the x-ipfs-path in any HTTP response headers. This acts as a fallback for cases when an IPFS path is not present in the URL.
# Toggle redirects globally or per site
You can disable and re-enable local gateway redirects in several ways:
- Suspend redirects globally in IPFS Companion's preferences.
- Suspend redirects per site using the toggle under the current tab or in IPFS Companion's preferences.
- Add
x-ipfs-companion-no-redirectto the URL itself as a hash (example (opens new window)) or query parameter (example (opens new window)).
# Access frequently-used IPFS actions from your browser bar
IPFS Companion enables you to quickly and easily access common actions from your browser bar with just a few clicks:
- See how many peers you're connected with a glance at the cube icon in your browser bar.
- Check your IPFS API and gateway status by clicking the cube icon to reveal the main menu.
- Right-click images and other page assets to easily add them to IPFS, including the option to preserve file names.
- Choose the Quick Import/Share... option in the main menu for quick drag-and-drop import from a browser tab.
- Pin or unpin IPFS resources directly from the main menu.
- Copy shareable public gateway links, IPFS content paths, or CIDs of IPFS resources directly from the main menu.
- Launch the IPFS Web UI dashboard (opens new window) from the main menu with a single click.
- Toggle gateway redirects or switch all IPFS Companion features on or off quickly and easily from the main menu.
# Further documentation
If you want to delve deeper into IPFS Companion, check out the project's documentation at github.com/ipfs/ipfs-companion → (opens new window)
