We are thrilled to announce a key partnership with Handshake, signaling a significant leap forward in the pursuit of a decentralized and censorship-resistant digital future. MASQ is joining forces with Handshake to bring you access to on-chain permissionless name services from one of the most ambitious blockchain projects focused on building the decentralized internet!

What’s coming from this Handshake partnership?

In upcoming releases of MASQ Browser, users will be able to navigate to Handshake domains using resolver services without having to run Handshake nodes or additional services.

Handshake will also appear in the web3 dApp store, along with “Bob Wallet” for native HNS support for users and the Namebase platform for users to explore, purchase, and manage their Handshake domains themselves! All while remaining privacy-preserving for users and domain operators!

Further deepening the integration in Q1 2024, our team is also embarking on an industry and world-first browser integration to bring Stateless DANE support for Handshake domains - something no other browser has ever done before! This means that there would be no reliance on third-party resolver services, and secure connections to Handshake domains or supporting websites can be done with no persistent connection to Handshake node peers with light clients!

Grant Support from Handshake Ecosystem

To foster this partnership and support the development of these integrations, Open Systems has provided a micro-grant on behalf of the Handshake ecosystem of 100,000 HNS to MASQ. This is awarded based on the integration progress as work begins on the MASQ browser integrations.

These funds will be used to support the development team and also attract contributions from the greater Handshake and developer community.

We have humbly accepted this support and look forward to seeing the growth in our communities as users and adopters of this new technology in a modern-day web3 browser!

About Handshake

Handshake is a decentralized, permissionless naming protocol where every peer is validating and in charge of managing the root DNS naming zone to create an alternative to existing Certificate Authorities and naming systems. Names on the internet (top-level domains, social networking handles, etc.) ultimately rely upon centralized actors with full control over a system which are relied upon to be honest, as they are vulnerable to hacking, censorship, and corruption. Handshake aims to experiment with new ways the internet can be more secure, resilient, and socially useful with a peer-to-peer system validated by the network's participants.

Presently the Handshake community is rallying around “The Happening” soft fork, which will see around 79,000 reserved names and Top-Level-Domains (TLD) finally unlocked for the first time in early February 2024. It’s a significant milestone that will not only expand the ecosystem of users but also encourage engagement from web2 and traditional TLD owners to adopt Handshake name services.

Watch the countdown timer on this tool here, crafted by Handshake guru Rithvik!

By integrating Handshake domains into the MASQ Browser, users gain access to a decentralized domain naming system that operates with security, censorship resistance, and self-custody domain ownership control.

We are excited about the endless possibilities that this integration unlocks.

Stay tuned for updates as we roll out this feature, shaping the future of web browsing together - get the latest version of MASQ Browser here today!