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The Gemini protocol, a lighter alternative to the web's HTTP (geminiprotocol.net)
submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by to c/webrevival@lemm.ee
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The Gemini protocol is brutally simple, which makes it just about too useless for apps, tracking, and commercial purposes. Gemtext, the format for Gemini pages, is very basic; with about half as many features as markdown, it's barely a step above plain text. As a result, Gemini is a small universe of blogs and personal sites.

Its simplicity makes it easy for people to create compatible clients and services for it. It's self-hosting friendly and there are also hosting services, like smol.pub and some pubnixes.

Of course, you'll need to get a Gemini browser or visit a Gemini-to-web proxy to access it.

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[–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago (3 children)

This is a good question that's often asked about Gemini. The creator addresses this in a part of the FAQ: Why not just use a subset of HTTP and HTML?

Personally, I find Gemini nice because its utter basicness guarantees that there's no room for the kind of bullshit you might find on the web. Sure, you and some other nerds could make a "friendly HTML" club, but participation is voluntary and there's no way to enforce the rules to keep the pages simple. And how would you know what sites are "friendly" just by looking at the hyperlink? Gemini creates a universe where sites have to be "friendly"; there is no other way.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    Fair enough! Good points actually.

    What I have seen with concepts like this is that's infuriatingly hard to start. I tried getting on the rss bandwagon for example and it's just not very user friendly IMO. Is there for example a Gemini search engine?

    Will FF display a Gemini page as text only?

    Where do you hang out and exchange links 😁 ?

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  • [–] [S] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Is there for example a Gemini search engine?

    Yes. Two, actually (that I know of).

    • gemini://tlgs.one
    • gemini://kennedy.gemi.dev

    Will FF display a Gemini page as text only?

    Firefox doesn't directly support Gemini, but you can view pages through a proxy like portal.mozz.us. Gemtext, the standard page format, has basic formatting syntax, and yes, it's text only. There's no mechanism for embedding images in pages - the best you can do is just link to them. In this one popular client, Lagrange, clicking on a link to an image displays it under that link, but other clients handle image links differently.

    Where do you hang out and exchange links 😁 ?

    I just lurk and read gemlogs (of course they can't be called blogs, that's short for web log!). There are sites with feeds of latest gemlog posts, and many sites that offer Gemini hosting have a list of recently updated pages. There are some minimal social networks, too. The front page of portal.mozz.us has a few links to these kinds of spots.

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