An alternative decentralized internet for sharing text and media: The Gemini Protocol (geminiprotocol.net)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) by HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org to c/buyfromeu@feddit.org

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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.

Since it does not use "addictive by design" UI elements, like feeds, timelines, likes and upvotes, colorful and distracting elements, endless scrolling, as well as comments that invite trolling, it feels a lot calmer.

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!

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[-] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Computers need more power when booting, because they are busy then and have a lot of input from starting processes etc.

The Raspberry Pis are no exception to this. And the USB specification provides the necessary power for booting.

In my experience, you might need more than the 3A power supply when booting a Pi when it is connected to more than one hard disk.

On the other hand, in a server process, the server is usually most time idle waiting for input, and working a tiny part of the time to respond to the input. That's especially true for the Genini protocol where the server mostly copies data from a file to the socket, prepending the MIME type and some essential header data. This is not computing-intensive. Also, a Gemini server can run fine from an internal SD card, say with 32 GB size. No hard disk needed.

What is causing confusion here is mixing the specified maximum power requirement with the average power required to run the server. And the power-hungryness of the "modern web" was what I was referring to (and I think this was not ambiguous).

[-] lime@feddit.nu 1 points 1 week ago

a web server also spends most of its time idle, and the power loads are on the clients.

[-] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 1 points 1 week ago

A typical web page today transmits many Megabytes of data for at most a few kilobytes of real information. And much if that data is unnecessary JavaScript code which executes on the client, costing bandwith and power - for the sole purpose of ads and tracking.

GenAI-geberated pseudoinformation uses even more power.

Gemini omits all that. That's why it is lightning fast (and far more comfortable to read, like an eBook).

[-] fozid@feddit.uk 1 points 1 week ago

The pi 1, 2 and zero all run on 1.5a power supplies perfectly fine. I have 2 running 24/7/365. So max power is 15w. They don't draw anywhere near that when idle, but mine are rarely idle.

this post was submitted on 23 Jan 2026

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