The alpha has been running since shortly before Christmas and has been gradually stabilized over the last few weeks, though it is still definitely alpha quality.
Freenet is a decentralized key-value store where keys are WebAssembly contracts. These contracts define what values can be associated with a key and how those values are updated. Web applications can be distributed over Freenet and use it as a decentralized back end.
The main application at the moment is a decentralized group chat app called River, which serves as a concrete example of this model. It runs fully peer-to-peer, with no servers or federation, and is usable for real conversations between multiple peers.
The alpha also reports live network telemetry, which is exposed via a public dashboard. It shows peers joining, message traffic, and other network activity in real time.
Getting started should be fairly quick. There’s a one-page quickstart that installs a local peer as a service on Mac or Linux and lets you join the network in a few minutes.
Links: Quickstart: https://freenet.org/quickstart/
Live telemetry dashboard: http://nova.locut.us:3133/
General info: https://freenet.org/