cross-posted from: https://feddit.org/post/24735701
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)
It is similar to the old gopher: text files, links, and images form a hypertext optimized for reading. Text is formatted like Markdown - but even simpler.
Clients display text, like an eBook, or images / media.
Servers can run on a PC or Raspberry Pi which needs half a Watt of power. No FAANG companies needed. No expert knowledge needed - not more difficult than running a file sharing client.
I think it is the right thing for defense of democracy and sharing your voice in the digital realm.
Edit: If you see comments here which kinda miss the point, appeal to emotions, have faulty logic, or depart from entirely incorrect assumptions: Please keep in mind that big US tech companies can’t say “that’s bad, how will we shovel money with this?”. Please use your critical thinking skills - they are much needed here!
That’s a very unfortunate name for the project, given Google’s AI Gemini.
Yeah, I can for my life not think of a reason why Google named it like that.
Sounds interesting, what is the benefit of this compared to HTTP though? You can still host text or basic html that way and it works on any web browser.
can work on any web browser
Gemini can have competition of browsers: it’s feasible for one person to create a Gemini client completely, correctly and securly.
There are only ~2 web browsers left and making a new one at all is near impossible (forks with minor size changes are great n’ all but not meaningfull enough to stop Google basically being in control).
Gopher guarantees readers that there will never be anything other than text and media served on a site. They don’t have to trust the publisher, the protocol enforces it.
It is much more lightweight and simpler: While you can, but typically won’t write HTML directly with a text editor, you can and typicall would write gemtext markup manually like markdown.
You can run it on a small rasberry pi, using a server like agate, which automatically generates certificates, and if you fancy, you can write your own client browser in a weekend (that’s why there are a lot of clients).
It is very deliberately designed to be minimalistic, to depart from the enshittified modern web flooded with ads, tracking, and slop.
And because of this, pages load instantly.
Myself, I have witnessed the birth of the World Wide Web, designed by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, to share information, new ideas and knowledge, and run the first Mosaic browser in 1994, and gemini is very close to the hearth of this original idea.
All HTML and PHP I have written was with a text editor but fair point most people don’t. I still would love to see more cool simple sites like bigclive.com
Also check out the tildeverse for a true internet experience. Its our little hideaway from bigtech. Where you can truly connect with people.
It is a nice way to host a very lightweight blog or microblog. The ultra-light markup language gives it a feel like a wiki. Such blogs can be viewed with a client like deedum for Android or amfora for Linux, or with a brower using an gemini-to-web gateway: Here a gateway at mozz.us displaying a German paywall-less newspaper at gemini://taz.de.
And by the way, since gemini clients can also do local file:// URLs, it is also a minimum-fuss way to organize a local file tree that contains a mix of documentation / info and media like a wiki, and share it locally with people over NFS or Samba (Windows file sharing).
Deedum has fallen behind and doesn’t support recent android it seems. Same for the only other client in fdroid, Pocket Gopher.
