• Starting Up
  If you've just started I2P, the number of Active Peers indicated under the Peers section on the sidebar should start to grow over the next few minutes, and you'll also see a Local Destination named Shared Clients listed under the Service Tunnels section, and possibly other clients and servers depending on how I2P is configured. These Local Destinations provide connections to services on different ports to the I2P network, enabling BitTorrent, e-mail, the web proxy and other services to function. Your Network Database indicates all locally known peers on the network. You can also monitor existing peer connections, review peer performance profiles, and view active tunnels and their status.
• Network Integration
  The first time you start I2P it may take a few minutes to bootstrap (integrate) you into the network and find additional peers to optimize your integration, so please be patient. Once green stars are indicated next to your Local Destinations under Service Tunnels on the sidebar, there is a variety of things you can do with I2P, and below we introduce you to some of them.
• Network Status
  Once I2P has had time to test your network connectivity, the Network Status indicator on the sidebar will ideally indicate "OK". If the status indicates "Firewalled", I2P will still function although network performance will not be optimal, and your ability to contribute bandwidth to the network will be impeded. For optimal performance, please consider opening your external I2P port on your firewall and/or router. More information on the status messages is available on the User Interface help page.

Services on I2P

• Invisible Internet & Public Web Browsing
  On I2P you can access I2P-hosted websites ("eepsites") or browse the normal web anonymously via I2P's built-in web proxy (outproxy). Configure your browser to use the HTTP proxy at 127.0.0.1 port 4444, then browse to a hidden service website or a normal, unencrypted http:// address. To disable or change outproxy access to the normal internet, remove or modify the outproxy entry for false.i2p under the Outproxies section on the edit page of the HTTP Proxy client tunnel in the Tunnel Manager.
• Anonymous E-Mail
  Postman's I2P-based mail system can be accessed either via I2P's built-in mail client (Susimail) or any standard mail client. A mail gateway allows mail to be received from normal internet addresses; your @mail.i2p address is also contactable via @i2pmail.org. For an account, visit hq.postman.i2p. Additionally, I2P-Bote is an I2P-internal, serverless, end-to-end encrypted e-mail system, providing a web interface and addressbook, installable as a plugin.
• Anonymous File Transfer
  I2PSnark is integrated into I2P, providing anonymous, encrypted BitTorrent transfers. Alternatively, there's BiglyBT (the successor to Azureus/Vuze), a BitTorrent client that supports torrenting over I2P, and XD, an I2P-only BitTorrent client written in go. Also available is iMule [needs developers!], a port of the peer-to-peer filesharing client eMule and muWire, a Limewire-inspired filesharing app coded in Java. Additional services include browser-based file hosting such as I2Push, fs.i2p and dropbox.i2p.
• Anonymous Chat
  Start your IRC client (e.g. HexChat, Smuxi, the I2P jIRCii plugin) and connect to the server at 127.0.0.1 port 6668. You don't need to configure a proxy in your IRC client; I2P provides you with a local IRC tunnel (configured in your IRC client as an IRC server or remote host). Once you're there, #i2p, #i2p-dev, and #i2p-chat are just a few of the available channels you may wish to join. There's also an I2P-based Instant Messenger (now developed on github and renamed I2PChat).
• Anonymous Encrypted Web Hosting
  I2P comes with a webserver for hosting your own website on the I2P network: a Jetty instance listening on http://127.0.0.1:7658/. After starting the pre-configured I2P Webserver Tunnel, your site will be visible (but not discoverable) to others. Instructions for setting up your site and registering an .i2p domain are provided in the help section.
• Forums & Blogging
  Syndie provides a distributed forum and blogging platform, and standard blogging, forum and cms software will run over I2P, though extra precaution is advised when setting up your site. There are also various community-run forums and blogs on I2P.
• Plugins for I2P
  Visit zzz's plugins page for direct download links for several plugins. If you're a developer, a language-agnostic framework for writing your own plugins is provided.

Sites of Interest

• Invisible Internet Project (I2P) Official Website
  i2p-projekt.i2p Secure and anonymous connection to geti2p.net. If you want to know more about how I2P works or how you can participate, this is your first port of call!
• I2P Community Forums
  i2pforum.i2p Community forum where problems and ideas relating to I2P and associated topics are discussed. There's also zzz.i2p for development related discussions, and Dancing Elephants for a general darknet-related forum. More forums may be found in your addressbook once you have configured additional subscriptions.
• I2P Planet
  planet.i2p An RSS aggregator site that takes news and events from around I2P and publishes them all in one place.
• I2P Network Health
  stats.i2p Check out various aspects of network performance with this I2P network monitoring site. Additionally, i2pmetrics.i2p provides various visual data points on the network.
• I2P Anonymous Pastebin
  zerobin.i2p and paste.r4sas.i2p provide javascript-based, encrypted pastebin services enabling text and text-based code sharing over I2P.
• Discover I2P
  There are many more sites on I2P, not least several that track active eepsites including Identiguy, isitup.i2p, I2P Name Registry & no.i2p, so don't be afraid to explore!

Information for Developers & Contributors

• Reporting Bugs
  To report a bug, please file a ticket on trac.i2p2.i2p. For developer-related discussions, please visit zzz's developer forums or the developer channel (#i2p-dev) on I2P's IRC network.
• Developing on I2P
  If you're a developer you might consider writing your own I2P applications or enhancing the security of your application by leveraging the I2P network. Both UDP and TCP protocols are provisioned, and realtime streaming is also possible. We also provide full access to the Java API, and core I2P libraries are hosted on the Apache Maven repository. We use monotone to manage our source code. Developers can browse the source at Github, download a release snapshot from our website, and monitor the current build status via the Travis continuous integration platform. A Java SDK and Apache Ant are required to build from source; Gradle support is in progress. We provide a guide for new developers to help get you started.
• Get Involved!
  I2P is developed and maintained mostly through unfunded, voluntary participation by community members. We're happy to accept donations, which fund essential hosting and administrative costs in addition to salaries for key team members. We have cash bounties for aspects of I2P for developers looking for incentives to participate, and we're always looking for more Java coders, translators, promoters and users to help I2P grow. More information about how you can participate is available on the volunteers page on the official website.