Ask HN: Are you using a Gemini browser? Would you follow a link if posted on HN?

[urlwolf]

Gemini is a new protocol, which acts as a replacement for HTTP. Its accompanying markup language, Gemtext, is an extremely stripped down version of markdown and acts as a replacement for HTML.

Gemspace is in early days, but I find I like write there much more than in the open web. I've been using an http proxy so that I can post my writings here, and I wonder if I could, one day, just post a gemspace link.

Would you follow it? Links look like this: gemini://geminiprotocol.net/docs/specification.gmi

[al_borland]

This is the first I’m hearing of it, but I’m guessing it’s going to have an uphill battle now that Google named its AI Gemini. My first thought was that it is Google related, and when I did a search, Google’s AI was featured prominently in the results. I had to know what I was looking for, based on your description, to find it.

I don’t think there is anything I want to read badly enough to jump over to a separate browser. The same goes for .onion links. The topic would need to be very compelling, without a mirror on the “normal” internet.

[dredmorbius]

I'd suggest you just start doing that, perhaps with an email to HN mods requesting support for Gemini URIs.

I'm pretty sure that you'll get shot down (politely) the first few times, but the requests (and appearance of Gemini URIs) will give an indication of whether or not the protocol itself is gaining in usage.

I do have a Gemini browser installed on a few systems, but use it rarely for want of content or presentation of links. OTOH, I've watched the rise in prevalence of Mastodon / Fediverse links on HN with interest.

[runjake]

I used Gopher and Hytelnet before the web existed. I am not particularly nostalgic about it. I don’t want to go back to such simplistic interfaces.

[urlwolf → runjake]

Thanks! For me, that simplicity gives me security. The browser is extremely insecure in 2024. And most of the things I want from a browser are just content, not sophisticated SPAs. I'm in me minority in that, I know. So this protocol is excellent for that.

Also, no tracking, no upvotes, no marketing, no status-hogging people, no BS. This is refreshing. People there talk about what they really want to talk about. You are not being sold as a product, or sold at, at all.

[runjake → urlwolf]

I think you’d have better luck using a browser with JavaScript turned off.

And certainly more content.

The stuff not readable without JavaScript isn’t worth reading anyway and that still leaves you with vastly more content than what’s available on Gemini.