Nowadays, I am increasingly making material available on a new internet service called Gemini. So what is Gemini, why am I using it and what are the advantages and disadvantages of this service and protocol?

What is Gemini?

Gemini is a new (2019) networking protocol which aims to reproduce the early days of the web, free of privacy invasion, user tracking, incessant invasive advertising, distractions and annoyances which have become all too familiar on the web. I remember the good old days in the 1990s before corporate behemoths took it over to their own ends. The days when it was about intelligent people publishing for the benefit of other intelligent people.

The days before fake news and propaganda on social media which other (less educated) people, unquestioningly accept as fact without question nor reason.

The days before sites which invariably waste your data and battery with bloated multimegabyte requests containing almost zero readable content, let alone content which anyone would really want to read if their I.Q were over 40. The days before incessant user tracking, cookie prompts on every page you visit, banners jumping on top of what you actually want to see. The days before pages requiring 25MB of javascript to load. The days before 150dB, 100MB autoplaying videos.

Why am I using Gemini? In a nutshell...

Why do I use Gemini to host content, or even Gopher, for that matter? To quote the Gemini FAQ - the experience is like entering a library, not a shopping mall or a casino. "The average Gemini page is at least ten times smaller than the average webpage, and a hundred times smaller than worst ones, so they load almost instantly even on old computers or flaky internet connections." Great of you are in Africa, SE Asia or parts of Latin America and have a poor connection and/or pay by the MB. And it is free of all the rubbish on the web!!! Reading that starts as soon as the page loads, without you first having to carefully click past a pop-up window which actively tries to mislead you into "consenting" to something nobody actually wants or needs, and which continues right to the end of the page without being interrupted by another pop-up begging you to subscribe to a newsletter. And for an academic like myself...

"Reading in peace because there's no way for a page to play music or make a sound without you actively inviting it to, so you're free to enjoy your own background music, or maybe to just keep quiet if you're reading somewhere with other people around. It's up to you, like it should be; it's your computer, and they're your ears."

You can quietly browse in an office or without any risk of disturbing anyone, without the fear that 120DB music or autoplaying videos are going to alert the boss to what you are doing or wake up everyone in the house.

You can be sure you will not be redirected without permission, tracked, be presurised to install junk (and potentially malicious software or browser add-ons). It is 100% free of cookies (and nagging to accept them on every page you visit), and free of CPU heating, battery draining and mobile data wasting scripts and calls to third party domains.

Young visitors can browse safely, and their parents can be sure they will not be redirected to inappropriate content.

What is in it for a teacher?

One frequent complaint is that teachers do not use enough of their own material. What they do not realise is just how prodigal of a teachers’ time it really is. For example, a 10 minute video takes 2-3 hours to prepare, and a single webpage 20-30 minutes not including writing time! For Gemini, you wrote in a word processor such as openoffice, spell check, save as ASCII in a file with a .gmi extension. Add links like this: /directory/filename.gmi – done!

Can pictures and other formats be included?

Yes! A picture ink looks like this: /pictures/image.png – and an audio file? /video/soundtrack.mp3 – and Lagrange can actually stream audio! Video clips, unsupported (in the browser!) documents such as PDF can be downloaded. Remember, this content does not load inline – by design. You must click the link and request it. This saves time and bandwidth.

So, how do I access Gemini?

Standard web browsers do not (at least as yet) have Gemini support. Here comes good news! Every OS (yes, even IOS!) has at least one Gemini browser.

How do I get started?

To get you started you can use a gateway. I have a Gemini to HTTP (and Gopher to HTTP as I also use Gopher) link. These use third-party gateways. These are a quick way to get started. You will be taken directly to the Gemini (or Gopher) homepage. But feeo free to explore 'geminispace' and gopherspace'. There are plenty of other sites besides mine! I am an old hand at these things, and remember the 'good old says' of the internet before some of my students were even born! (Have I just given my age away? Oh well, I obtained my masters' - MSc Computer Science - in 2004. Sigh.

Gateways for gopheer and gemini protocols: these are good to get you started. But I would recommend using a dedicated client in longer term. Of course, I take you to my server directly, but this aims to get you started.

***Until you have a client to access my gopher site directly***, use this proxy to read in web browser. A dedicated client will be faster and look better.

***Until you have a client to access my gemini site directly***, use this proxy server to read in a standard web browser. A dedicated client will be faster and look better.

Lagrange is a nice simple browser for Gopher protocol as well as the new gemini protocol (which has potential and I will eveluate as soon as I find a suitable server).

Lagrange for Android - Beta

Lagrange for Macintosh - for X86 architecture

Lagrange for Macintosh - for ARM64 architecture

Gemini clients include: