[Dapps] - Steemit Crypto Academy Season 4 - Homework Post for Task 8
Hello friends hope you are doing well. I am writing homework post for season 4 task 8 of Beginner's fixed course . I'll be doing following questions of the said task.
What are dApps? Explain the working system of dApps? What are the differences between dApps and other applications? Explain the advantages and disadvantages of dApps? How can dApps developers promote their apps? What should we pay attention to when using dApps? How do we find the information of a DApp that we want to know? Provide the steps (Screenshot requiredrequired)
What are dApps? Explain the working system of dApps?
Dapps or decentralised apps are programmes that have different use cases like centraliseed apps but Dapps don't have a controlling agency to monitor the ongoing activities that are being carried out on these applications. A Dapp user is the absolute authority to govern his activities. The underlying technology that supports the working of these apps is blockchain. A blockchain is a distributed ledger technology that has revolutionized the world of technology and people are so much obsessed with its features like transparency , security etc that they are finding the use case of blockchain in every field. Therefore these features are shared by Dapps too
Working of Dapps
Working of Dapps will be easy to understand when we have basic understanding of working of centralised application and more so if we will be able to compare two applications from the same sector. I'll take two social media platforms like facebook and Weku.
On Facebook we share activities in the form of posts, photographs or interact with our friends by commenting or chatting in the inbox. Being a centralised application, the absolute control of the the Facebook is in the hands of the company that owns it (facebook.inc) . It is not uncommon to hear or see that the post that violate the guidelines of the company are automatically removed by them without the user's consent. Morever, the news about leakage of the user data and hacking of accounts is common too. It indicates that although a user is free to perform the activities for which a centralised application is designated but the absolute control is not in the hands of user but in the hands of the company that owns the application.
Now let's compare it with a Dapp of same sector like weku. Weku is a social media platform analogous to steemit where user can share posts, photographs or interact with other user by commenting on their posts. But there is no central authority to dictate terms and conditions. Users are free to perform their activities as per their own will. Moreover, just like steemit, there is no way to recover keys once lost. Being a decentralised ledger technology, it is more secure and transparent than centralised apps .
What are the differences between dApps and other applications?
The underlying technology to support Dapps is decentralised ledger technology or blockchain where as traditional apps are programmes run on individual computers by users.
Dapps are decentralised therefore user has absolute control over apps where as traditional apps have controlling authority that has absolute control.
Dapps are more secure and transparent than traditional apps.
While installing Dapps we do not need to share any sensitive information like banking details with any authority but in centralised apps, we have to share data with third parties and that is not good.
Explain the advantages and disadvantages of dApps?
Advantages of Dapps .
Dapps are much more secure that traditional apps because of technology that supports Dapps.
Dapps are more transparent because neither there is any third party involved nor DLT allows data manipulation.
Dapps trigger smart contracts and are therefore programmed to operate as per prefeeded code. So manipulation cannot be carried out manually .
Dapps deliver highest quality of services because they are run of multiple nodes which cannot be faulty all at a time. Therefore we don't face server down issues.
Dapps data cannot be manipulated because DLT involves multiple nodes.
Dapps are much faster than traditional apps. In DeFi field, Dapps offer less transaction fee and high volume transactions and are available all the time.
Disadvantages of Dapps
Dapps require more technical knowledge than traditional apps and are therefore difficult to adopt by masses.
Dapps are operated through keys which cannot be memorised as compared to simple passwoeds set manually on traditional apps. Therefore storage of keys is always a issue to be considered.
Keys cannot be restored if lost.
In DeFi Dapps, transactions cannot be reversed or no negotiation is possible as no third party is involved.
in case of any technical glitch, all nodes have to be updated to debug the system.
How can dApps developers promote their apps?
Promotion or advertisement has itself become a huge business these days. I personally come to know about most of the trending traditional apps through advertisements carried out on different platforms .
With the upsurge of smart mobiles, YouTube advertisement is a potential tool which must be explored by Dapp developers. As for my experiamce is concerned, it is the most powerful tool these days.
Web based advertisements on websites catering to concerned fields is a viable option to explore . For example, a social media Dapp advertisement on other social media platforms (centralised or decentralised) is likely to get together the like minded people and promote rapid adoption.
Electronic and print media is a good option to promote Dapps. Here also we can focus on media catering to particular sector.
Offline advertisement although tiresome can be explored too.
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What should we pay attention to when using dApps?
Following are some points that i can recall
that we should be careful about.
Before setting niche on Dapss and before putting any data, we should check the authenticity of the Dapp project because scams are growing these days.
We should look at the intention behind development of projects. Whether the goals set are realistic or not.
We should check the credibility of developers behind the project.
We should properly store the keys of Dapps.
How do we find the information of a DApp that we want to know? Provide the steps (Screenshot required).
For any Dapp launched, there is official website containing all the required information about the project. We can find details there.
Secondly a website dedicated for Dapps like DappRadar contaims comprehensive details anout Dapps. Let's explore it :
Go to official website of DappRadar.
https://dappradar.com/On the main page of the website, we can see well structured interface containing Dapps listed under categories they fall in. For example Games, NFTs, Exchanges etc. Select the category to explore and look for the Dapp. Other option provided by DappRadar is to click on "Ranking" of apps and we find apps are listed as per their ranking. We can find the app to be explored.
Let's take example of UNISWAP. Click on exchanges and we see UNISWAP and click on it to find details of app as shown below:
Conclusion
Dapps are decentralised programmes run on DLT and therefore shares security, transparency and other features of blockchain. As people like to be autonomous and free from control of third parties, Dapps are growing in popularity and use case. Like traditional apps, they have their limitations too.