Almost 4k Gemini Capsules, 5th Anniversary Only Weeks Away
THESE informative old graphs from Botond (no longer updated daily) show that this past winter Lupa was 'aware' of about 3,600 Gemini capsule and this week in Lupa we see about 3,900, just shy of 4,000. It varies. It depends when one checks.
Active capsules also grew by about 200 in half a year, so the trend is upwards, not downwards.
Gemini Protocol will turn 5 very soon (one of several high-profile Web alternatives).
Thankfully, the relative share of the Linux Foundation's Let's Encrypt is going down. It now says (in Lupa): "210 (7.6 %) use the Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt..."
Almost all the rest are self-signed (as they ought to be).
Back in November it said: "2325 (89.8 %) capsules are self-signed, 207 (8.0 %) use the Certificate Authority Let's Encrypt..."
So it fell from 8.0 % to 7.6 % in just 6 months. Excellent!
We spent years explaining here in great length why Let's Encrypt is paradoxically a threat to freedom. Like "secure" boot, Let's Encrypt is about outsourcing control (or "trust"), not about real security. UEFI is enthusiastically shilled by people without qualifications in Computer Science, let alone in security. They basically serve Microsoft.
One positive thing about Gemini Protocol and about Gemini clients is that they treat self-signed Gemini capsules as first-class citizens. They recommend the practice of trust on first use (TOFU). It is hardly a new concept and those who rationalise it actually do have suitable professional background and experience:
The Web will continue to deteriorate because of the companies which control its direction. Don't wait for the water to fully boil. The water is already quite hot, not merely warm.
Our presence online continues to maintain complete parity in Gemini. Our capsule serves hundreds of (non-bot) requests every hour. █