Freenet is free software that lets users anonymously share files, browse and publish "freesites" (web sites accessible only through Freenet), and chat on forums, without fear of censorship. Freenet's peer-to-peer network uses a decentralized distributed data store that works by pooling the contributed bandwidth and storage space of member computers. Files are encrypted and so generally the user cannot easily discover what is in his data store. Content on the network can be accessed through a web interface or through separate applications and plug-ins loaded into the software. Freenet was originally designed by Ian Clarke and has been under continuous development since 2000.