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Project Gemini FAQ (geminiprotocol.net)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

On the question what are use cases for a Gemini server:

Gemini is kinda a modernized version to the old Gopher protocol. Its purpose is to share hyper-linked text documents and files over a network - in the simplest way possible. It uses a simple markup language to create text documents with links, headings etc.

Here is a FAQ

Main differences with similar technologies are:

  • It is much, much easier to write hyper-linked documents than in HTML

  • a server is much much smaller and easier to set up than a web server serving HTML. It can easily and securely run on a small Raspberry Pi without special knowledge on server security.

  • in difference to gopher, it supports modern things like MIME and Unicode

  • There are clients for every platform including Android and iOS

  • also, there are Web gateways which allow to view stuff in a normal web browser

  • unlike Wikis, it is only concerned about distributing content, not modifying files. This means that the way to store and modify content can be matched to the use case: Write access to content can be via an NFS or Samba server, or via an SFTP client like WinSCP or Emacs.

  • Unlike HTML2, it does not support advertising, tracking, spying to users, and so on.

  • the above two points mean that it does not need user authentication

  • the protocol is text-centric and allows for distraction-free reading, which makes it ideal for self-hosted blogs, small projects or associations, or microblogs.

Practically, for example, I use it to share vacation photos with family.

Two more use cases that come first to my mind:

  • When I did my masters thesis, our lab with about 40 people had a HTTP page hosted on a file server that listed tools, data resources, software, and contact persons. That would be easier to do with Gemini because the markup is simpler. Also, today it would not be feasible to give every student write access to a Apache web server's content because of the complexity of web servers, and the resulting security implications.

  • One time at work, we had a situation with a file server with many dozens of folders, and hundreds of documents. And because all the stuff had been growing kinda organically over many years, specific information was hard to find. A gemini server would have made it easy to organize and browse the content as collaboratively edited hypertext which serves as an index.

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[-] [email protected] -1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I honestly don't understand how this protocol can protect anything HTTP+HTML wouldn't. If you build a browser that supports modern web technologies using Gemini, we'll be back at the same spot. The only thing saving the protocol is its relative obscurity. A decicated and knowledgeable Dev could abuse it any way they like, no?

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[-] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I honestly don't understand how this protocol can protect anything HTTP+HTML wouldn't. If you build a browser that supports modern web technologies using Gemini, we'll be back at the same spot. The only thing saving the protocol is its relative obscurity. A decicated and knowledgeable Dev could abuse it any way they like, no?

No. Just as examples:

  • If the protocol does not support JavaScript, the server cannot ask the client to run script code which strip-searches your computer for fingerprinting information.
  • If the protocol does not support tracking pixels and inline images, a server can't use them.
  • If the protocol transmits only text, the server won't know width and height of the screen, or names and geometry of your set of fonts.

Oh, and all that makes the "small web" uninteresting for advertising.

Of course, you could publish a blog in web pages which consist of plain ol' HTML like in 1993. But setting up even a simple HTTP server is a lot of work. Most users won't turn off JavaScript. And to many people, the modern WWW is a lost cause. And given Firefox' dependency on Google, this isn't to get better.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Isn't Gemini a transport protocol? It can transport binary data and text data. Wouldn't it be easy to send JavaScript? If there's a browser on the other end that supports JavaScript, it can be executed.

But setting up even a simple HTTP server is a lot of work.

How so? python3 - m http.server and you're done. The text can be read even by CLI browsers that don't depend on javascript. Or do you have some other scenario in mind? Does Gemini support SSL?

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this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
48 points (98.0% liked)

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