Which ethereum dapps are 100% decentralized and not semi-decentralized (centralized)?

Question

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but I see dapps as independent solo code that you can download to you computer and it interacts with the Ethereum blockchain.

Looking at crypto kitties, you have to access this from their website and the kitty images are stored on their website. How is that considered a dapp? It looks more like just an app.

Same goes for etherdelta, you have to goto the website to use it, but you can't download it and run it locally to modify it to make trades.

Am I correct in seeing these as semi-decentralized (centralized) apps?

Are there dapps that are truly 100% independent that doesnt rely on a central server to fetch data such as images or data?

Answer 1

You always need some way to access the blockchain (or, more precisely, a node which connects to the blockchain). With current technology those are mostly centralized frontends (web3).

But the point isn't to make everything decentralized - the point is to make the core (contract code) decentralized and then everyone can connect to the same code through whatever means. One may use web3 to connect and one may use some backend system to connect to the same contract.

A basic 'hello world' contract is 100% decentralized. You can do many things without relying on external services - mostly you'll face problems when you need to store bigger data, need data from external sources (internet) or have complicated computations (gas limits and/or expensive transactions).

I doubt there is any clear distinction what exactly is a 'dapp'. The definition will probably get stricker as time goes by, but currently I'd imagine it's mostly used to mean apps which have decentralized core functionality.

As far as I know with decentralized exchanges, you're supposed to download some program to your computer which connects to the decentralized exchange network. Etherdelta is something...special then.