Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why People Should Nowadays Use a Graphical User Interface (GUI) to Access Gemini Space, Command-Line Stuff Hasn't Much to Offer for Ordinary Surfers

Video download link



Summary: Many terminal/CLI applications exist for accessing Gemini capsules, but at this stage (2 years after Gemini started) the graphical front ends offer more for less, which is why I've mostly stopped using anything but Lagrange and Moonlander

Browsers/clients for Gemini protocol (gemini://) have rapidly improved over the past year. Even though many terminal-based clients do exist and are easy to install, in the name of usability it's better to use a GUI. The existing ones don't take up much memory (RAM) because Gemini is nowhere as bloated as the World Wide Web.



"We've included a list of Gemini clients below, copied from a reference page."In this video I compare existing GUIs to a popular ncurses/terminal application. Nothing is perfect, but we've reached the point where Gemini specification is mature enough and software for it is sufficiently well tested. We've thus gone far enough to become mainstream; Gemini seems to be ready for the general public, not just for geeks.

We've included a list of Gemini clients below, copied from a reference page.

Terminal

Amfora (Go) - "fancy" terminal client. Asuka (Rust) - an NCurses-based Gemini client. AV-98 (Python) - Gemini client derived from the popular VF-1 Gopher client. bollux (Bash) - bash Gemini client. bombadillo (Go) - combined Gopher, Gemini, Finger, and File client with vim-inspired key mappings. cgmnlm (C) - colorful gemini line-mode client, fork of gmni. diohsc (Haskell) - simple line-based command-response terminal user interface with ANSI colour. Elpher (Emacs) - combined Gopher and Gemini client for the popular text editor / operating system. gem.awk (Awk) - minimal but usable interactive Gemini client in < 250 LOC of Awk. gemini-demo-1 (Python) - minimal but usable interactive Gemini client in < 100 LOC of Python 3. gemini-demo-2 (Lua) - minimal but usable interactive Gemini client in < 100 LOC of Lua. gemini-demo-3 (Go) - minimal but usable interactive Gemini client in not quite < 100 LOC of Go. gemini-fetch (Node.js) - cURL-like CLI for loading content from Gemini URLs. gmni (C) - CLI utility (like curl) and line-mode browser. min (Go) - supports advanced features like input and client certificate generation. ncgopher (Rust) - gopher and gemini client for the modern internet.

GUI (desktop)

Agregore - (Electron.js) - peer to peer web browser with support for loading Gemini pages. Alrisha (QML) - QML-based Gemini client. Castor (Rust) - graphical Gemini client using GTK. Fafi (Racket) - graphical Gemini browser written in Racket. Lagrange (C) - desktop GUI client with inline image viewing, multiple tabs, bookmarks and more. Moonlander (Rust) - the fanciest Gemini client in the entire solar system. Kristall (C++) - graphical Gopher and Gemini client using QT. spacewar (Electron.js) - Gemini browser running on Electron.

Mobile

Ariane (Kotlin/Java) - Gemini protocol client for Android based OS. Deedum (Dart) - an Android and iOS client made with Flutter. Elaho (Swift) - full featured Gemini protocol browser for iOS. Gem (Python) - Gemini client for Ubuntu Touch. Xenia (Java) - Gemini proxy for Android. Phaedra (Java) - Gemini client for Android supporting even very old ones; author recommends using Ariana if a current Android is at hand.

Recent Techrights' Posts

EPO Cocainegate: Feedback and Clarifications
Part III will come out soon
Links 29/10/2025: "US Military Is Destroying the Planet Beyond Imagination" and Boat Strikes Deemed Unlawful
Links for the day
Quality Comes First (Techrights Search)
It's generally working already, but we wish to polish it some more
Techrights Party Countdown
Late next week we'll be holding a party near our home
European Parliament and Council Directive on Privacy is Vanishing
"edited / censored some time more recently"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 28, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 28, 2025
Slopwatch: The March of Slopfarms, From UbuntuPIT to Linux Journal and to Various Fake Sites Still Promoted by Google News
It's so worrying to see what the Web has become
Links 29/10/2025: CISA, Ukraine, and Amazon Problems
Links for the day
[Teaser] The EPO's Spokesperson, a Cocaine User, Fancies Young Women
How's that for "optics" in the EU and Europe's second-largest institution?
How Will António Campinos Respond to the EPO's 'Cocainegate'?
That's the same thing we saw and still see when the press deals with enablers and partners of Jeffrey Epstein
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part IV: There Cannot be Free Software Without Free Press and Free Information
One day, one can hope, more people will recognise that for Software Freedom we need free press and free thinkers
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part III: Principled Stance Is Never Cheap
Protecting the truth and insisting that the general public is made aware of things that really happened isn't cheap
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part II: Because Scarcity of Accurate Information Breeds Collective Ignorance
we too will strive to share information that's aggressively suppressed
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: More New Arrivals at Geminispace, xkcd on "Document Forgery"
Links for the day
Join Us Now and Share the News - Part I: Defence of the Truth
This year we make a very strong, firm statement for truth, even if that means explaining our work to the top media judge in the country
Links 28/10/2025: Meta and Fentanylware (CheeTok) Age-Restricted Down Under, "Britain Needs China’s Money"
Links for the day
Links 28/10/2025: Mass Layoffs at Amazon and Charter to Cut 1,200 Jobs
Links for the day
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part II: The Person Who Planted Paid-for Fake News for the European Patent Office (EPO) is a Cocaine User, Friend of António Campinos, Now on Record as Having Been Arrested
Background: High-level manager at the European Patent Office caught in public with cocaine, arrested
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 27, 2025
IRC logs for Monday, October 27, 2025
Google News Drowning in Slop (and Slopfarms That Hijack About Half the Results)
Google News seems to be drowning in this stuff
Gemini Links 28/10/2025: "How to Maximize Your Positive Impact" and ASCII Art and Artist Attribution
Links for the day
PETA and Activism
Being staff or volunteer in PETA isn't easy
Big Blue, Huge Debt
debt will soar again
Links 27/10/2025: Mass Surveillance Sold as "AI", People Reluctant to Lose Physical Media
Links for the day
Parties and Milestones Again
we've begun putting up about 40 balloons
Techrights' 19th Anniversary: Bronze
Time to go back to preparing for this anniversary
Our Latest European Patent Office (EPO) Series Will Last Several Weeks, Will Ask the EPO Management and the European Union (EU) Very Difficult Questions
If nobody loses a job (or jobs) over this, then the EU basically became no better than Colombia or Nicaragua
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, Brian Fagioli, and Google News
We focus on stories that are fake or LLM slop that disguises itself as "news" about Linux
Links 27/10/2025: Wikipedia Vandalism, Bruce Perens Opens up on Childhood
Links for the day
This Site Could Not be Done by LLMs Even If It Wanted to (Because It's Not a Parrot of What Other Sites Say)
LLMs have no knowledge or deep understanding
Microsoft is Disloyal Towards Its Most Loyal Employees
Against its most faithful enablers
19 Years, No Censorship
No factual information is ever going to be removed, more so if it is in the public interest
We Are Not a Conventional Site, That's Why They Hate (or Love) Us
Throughout the week this week we'll be focusing on the EPO
Following the Line of Cocaine All the Way to the Top
Even a million denials and spin-doctoring won't distract from the core issue
The Cocaine Patent Office - Part I: António Campinos Brought Corruption and Nepotism to the EPO, Then Came the Cocaine
High-level manager at the European Patent Office (EPO) caught in public with cocaine, the Office has some answering to do
Purchasing/Possessing Computers Isn't the Same as Controlling Computers
Let's strive to put computers back under the control of their users, no matter who purchased these (usually the users)
Gemini Links 27/10/2025: Alhena 5.4.3 and Fixing Bash
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 26, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, October 26, 2025
Thankfully We've Made Copies of More Interesting Data From statCounter
If statCounter (the Web site or the 'webapp') vanished overnight, we'd still have something left of it
More Silent Layoffs at IBM/Red Hat
when the media counts such layoffs or presents tallies the numbers are very incomplete