Gemini, Gophers, and Fingers. Oh My Alternative Internets Beyond HTTPS

Finger was the original Twitter. We used to get updates on Quake's development from John Carmack by fingering his email. He used to write elaborate ".plan" files too, no nonsense character limits were in sight yet. It was magical. It worked like this:

  $ finger johnc@idsoftware.com

No retweets, no likes, no notifications, no HN frontpage, but John Carmack kept writing them, and we kept reading. Even without any amplification dynamics, it was still engaging.

I've tried the same now, 30 years after my last finger. It wasn't even installed on Ubuntu by default. I had to install it, and expectedly:

  $ finger johnc@idsoftware.com
  finger: connect: Connection timed out

Man, Gopher was part of my first internet experience. It felt so magical to basically explore a (seemingly) infinite file system. Found great servers that had all sorts of interesting stuff, and then would link to other interesting servers.

I still remember a book about the internet I got in the early 90s... it was a couple of hundred pages, and then in the last chapter there was one paragraph in a section about new technology for something called "the World Wide Web".

For years I would be frustrated at people who would conflate the internet and The World Wide Web. I gave up on that years ago, though.

Wrt finger I want to point out https://plan.cat as a nice service in this spirit.

> Mozilla, which still maintains one of the only independent rendering engines (Gecko), is the only viable competitor. Everything else is Blink and Google.

Notably missing Safari and WebKit

Objections to Gemini that point out that nothing is stopping people from writing simple HTML miss the point.

It's not that HTML forces well-meaning creators to add complexity, size, or user-hostile behavior; it's that an ecosystem that permits such behavior eventually becomes swamped by adtech and other user-hostile content for financial gain. The problem is that this content drowns out organic, human-centric content.

Having said that, while format restrictions (to plaintext, markdown, gemtext, HTML without JavaScript) do help mitigate the damage somewhat by making tracking harder, I doubt they are sufficient: even text-only forums can become overrun with spam, ads, bots, and propaganda if they lack suitable moderation.

Ultimately folks who want to browse a web of authentic human content need to combine format restrictions with blocklists and web-of-trust tools. Browser plugins, reader mode, and customized search engines can already get us partway there, but there are still gaps.

I’d love to see CoAP/wg play a part here. It’s similar enough to HTTP to be familiar, but not supported in any browser. It supports content types and server sent events. It can be implemented in far less memory and uses far less CPU than TLS. It seems like the perfect protocol for this kind of thing.

IMHO Promoting lo-spec computing and text-based is always good, seems limiting but that's what I like about it. I tried fingering as the article says, but I only got a BRENNAN: no such user :(

As a younger person I always see these discussions and I want an alternative to the modern web. But reading this I cant help but think "why are people so focused on building a web with none of the useful features". What use is any of this without a realtime component.

I use a modified, "modern" text-only browser that compiles to 1.4 MB static binary after I remove some multilanguage encodings

I've been using this browser since around 2000. I think some HN commnters would be syrprised at how much of the www I can digest using this program. They wouldn't believe it was possible

I use localhost TLS forward proxies for HTTPS. Breaking TLS turns out to be an excellent method for blocking ads and telemetry, in addition to DNS and "ad blockers"

People like to pretend that Google and other so-called "tech" companies have killed off HTTP

It may be true depending on one's www usage, but I see evidence that HTTP still alive

When their "business model" is collecting data from and about unsuspecting computer users, it makes sense for these companies to want the transmissions encrypted. If users saw what is being sent over the wire to these companies they might be upset. If competitors saw it then they might use the data themselves. Too much data collection... I digress

There are bands of vocal "tech" workers who try to drown out any mention of HTTP. Others try to make fun of FTP

But both are still being used in a variety of places, whether it's by CAs themselves^1, Google, e.g., for autocomplete^2 or even the NY Times^3 or MSN

Anyway, the point is that these companies may try to kill off usage of certain protocols where it suits them, e.g., remember FTP in the web browser. But the protocols still survive and people still use them, even if it's only the "tech" workers themselves, and others in small numbers

1.

http://ocsp.globalsign.com/ca/gsatlasr3dvtlsca2026q2

http://secure.globalsign.com/cacert/gsatlasr3dvtlsca2026q2.c...

http://crl.globalsign.com/ca/gsatlasr3dvtlsca2026q2.crl

2.

http://clients1.google.com/complete/search?client=heirloom-h...

3.

via Fastly

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/rezmoss/cloud-provider-ip-...

I don't knock Gemini for existing and being a neat project, but even for hobby it seems too restrictive. No cookies means no authenticated interaction with a site, no inline images means it's less informative than a 100 year old encyclopedia.

Perhaps a "Simple Web" spec could be created to audit a site and verify its privacy and simplicity protections. Things like "Cookies only for auth", "No JS" or "low JS", "No ref tracking in or out", "No tracking pixels", etc.

> Particularly after Edward Snowden's 2013 revelations about mass surveillance, running an unencrypted protocol started to feel more and more like bad practice.

As far as i understood, NSA has access to the encrypted communication on the internet so all bets are off. They '"collaborate" with certificate issuers, they monitor all big internet nodes in the "west" and all relevant software is produced in their jurisdiction.

I have started to try and always develop Gopher versions of my sites for my research work. I try and promote that version especially to those who live in countries where internet access is costly relative to income or internet access is limited. Usually the key differences are diagrams become ASCII based.

Why is it that every gemini/gopher discussion throws out the baby with the bathwater?

> Chrome alone controls roughly 73% of global desktop browser market share.

> More and more, the webdevs of the world test and develop for Chrome only.

> It doesn't need to be this way. https:// is not the only way to connect and interface with the Internet

These are completely unrelated concepts! Google/Chrome doesn't control HTTP nor HTTPS. There is nothing wrong with the protocols, you can just make your website plaintext file if you like.