04.19.21

Gemini version available ♊︎

Time to Move to Gemini, Wherever/Whenever Possible, as the World Wide Web is a Burden on Everybody

Posted in Site News at 5:23 am by Dr. Roy Schestowitz

Video download link

Summary: A 30-minute rant about what the Web has become and the promise of gemini:// (designed to simplify everything, enable self-hosting, preserve privacy, and empower communities rather than military-connected monopolies)

THE Webmasters (if that's still a permissible term), the Web users (people to spy on) and the Web sites are in deep and growing pain. They’re dealing with more complexity than is truly needed. In order to read a news article — usually only a few paragraphs in length (and maybe a photograph) — we should not have to consent to dozens of cookies, lots of proprietary software programs (typically JavaScript), and sometimes even DRM (the other day I noticed that my browser, Falkon, refused to play videos in the Manchester City Web site; in Firefox it would ask me to enable DRM).

“It’s also helps slow down ‘Internet rot’ and curtail ‘planned obsolescence’.”The Web has become harsh on people who maintain it, not just people who use the Web to merely access pages. In about 90% of cases the very same functionality (of pages) or the use cases can be fulfilled with Gemini protocol, not the bloated chaos the Web rapidly became, with consolidation of power around one particular browser or codebase.

Back to basics: gemini://The video mentions recent woes of large-scale GNU/Linux news sites (or syndicators thereof) and complaints from prominent GNU/Linux developers about Chromium. This isn’t “open”, it is not free, it’s more or less a monopoly centered around ‘monetising’ people using surveillance and manipulation.

While we don’t plan to abandon the Web and it’s safe to assume it’s here to stay for at least a decade to come, in many scenarios the Web is an ‘overkill’ or an unnecessary layer of growing complexity, denying new entrants and deterring competition.

This is just another gentle reminder and polite mention of Gemini. The number of people who browse over gemini:// is definitely growing. It makes it a lot easier for producers to run their ‘sites’ (capsules) and free — as in liberate — people from what came to be known as ‘surveillance capitalism’. It also helps slow down ‘Internet rot’ and curtail ‘planned obsolescence’. Sites that are difficult to maintain (certificate authorities with frequent expiry/renewal dates, software updates, hosting fees etc.) just simply shut down after a while, never to become accessible again. █

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A Single Comment

  1. ccady said,

    April 19, 2021 at 7:02 pm

    Gravatar

    I would love if the TechRights Gemini “links” were actual links with the gemini protocol, rather than an underlined piece of text,

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