Today, BitTorrent revealed a private alpha test for the so-called Project Maelstrom browser, an application that’s supposed to “keep the Internet open,” as the company said in the official announcement.

The idea is not new and The Pirate Bay also tried to develop a similar solution that would have helped users access its website when its servers were taken down, but BitTorrent appears to be very keen on bringing this app to the market as soon as possible.

Currently available as part of an invitation-only program, Project Maelstrom uses the power of P2P technologies to address two critical issues in today’s Internet life: speed and privacy.

BitTorrent CEO Eric Klinker claims that pages would load faster thanks to the P2P system, while privacy would be greatly enhanced because there would be no server to collect and store user data.

He says that banning websites would no longer be effective because users would simply retrieve website files from other connected users, thus bypassing any possible restriction configured by the ISP or a specific server.

Working just like BitTorrent

Such a concept definitely comes in handy especially in terms of privacy, and Klinker says that the whole idea is based on BitTorrent and the way it works to distribute files to other users connected on the same protocol.

“It works on top of the BitTorrent protocol. Websites are published as torrents and Maelstrom treats them as first class citizens instead of just downloadable content. So if a website is contained within a torrent we treat it just like a normal webpage coming in over HTTP,” the CEO told GigaOM.

At this point, there are absolutely no details regarding the launch date or feature lineup, but there’s no doubt that development work would take a while, so expect more news to arrive on this project in the coming months.

Addressing key issues

Eric Klinker says that using the power of BitTorrent, Project Maelstrom has what it takes to address the main concerns these days and, at the same time, to provide answers to a series of questions that should be on the lips of each developer and user alike.

“How can we keep the Internet open? How can we keep access to the Internet neutral? How can we better ensure our private data is not misused by large companies? How can we help the Internet scale efficiently for content?” he said.

Challenges, of course, exist. If speed is said to increase, how would the program work in case the user serving you website content disconnects? How fast would the app reconnect to a different user?

Answers to all these questions are likely to be offered very soon and we’ll also give Project Maelstrom a try, so come back for details in the next few weeks.