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Credit goes to freenet.org

Try Freenet: Join River

Install Freenet and you’ll join the live chat room where the project’s developers and users talk. It’s the fastest way to see the network in action.

The room runs as a Freenet contract: code that lives across the peer-to-peer network instead of on a central server. No company hosts it, no account to make, no admin who can shut it down.

Alpha notes: Freenet is under active development.

  • Auto-updates: your peer updates as the network evolves; older versions stop working over time.
  • Telemetry: your peer reports diagnostic data to help debug the network, including peer activity and general system info such as your OS.
  • Do not use alpha builds for anything sensitive yet.

Step 1: Install Freenet to enter the room

First install the app. It runs a local peer in the background, then opens apps like River in your browser.

Download for Windows

Run the installer. The setup wizard guides you through installation, then starts Freenet as a background service with a system tray icon.

Download for macOS

Open the DMG and drag Freenet into Applications. Launch it from Launchpad or Spotlight. A rabbit icon appears in the menu bar, and Freenet starts automatically at login from then on.

Already installed Freenet via install.sh? Uninstall the old version first so it doesn't conflict with the new app. See the legacy macOS uninstall steps.

Run this command in your terminal:

curl -fsSL https://freenet.org/install.sh | sh

This downloads and installs Freenet, then starts it as a background service.

Step 2: Join the room

Click below to get an invite to the Freenet Official room. Invites are limited to 5 per day.

Get your invite to Freenet Official

Clicking the link opens River in your browser and automatically joins you to the room using the invite code.

Prefer the terminal? River has a full-featured CLI, riverctl. See the riverctl README for install and usage.

Troubleshooting

If you run into problems, join our Matrix chat for help.

Invite didn’t work? If River opened but you’re not in the room, try restarting Freenet (freenet service restart), then come back to this page and click the invite button again for a fresh invite code. If you see the room but can’t send messages, click the “i” icon next to the room name, click “Leave Room”, then get a new invite.

Containers & headless servers: If service installation fails (common in LXC/Docker), use the system-wide service instead: sudo freenet service install --system

Network requirements: Freenet uses UDP hole punching for peer-to-peer connections. Most home routers support this without configuration. Strict corporate firewalls may block connections.

Need to remove Freenet? See the uninstall guide.

What’s Next?