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Johan Bové

My reasons to support the Gemini Internet Protocol

3 min read

Why do I believe Gemini is great for personal Internet presences? First of all, it's a real grass-roots initiative which I am very excited about.

If you're reading this, chances are high you are already using Gemini. But for history reasons and to share my opinions of Gemini I would like to offer you here some views of mine.

Collecting some of the strong-points of Gemini from my perspective of having some experience with Gopher and running personal websites.

Fast and lightweight

  • It's very easy on the system resources. So the protocol works really well on slower hardware without any problems. Hosting on a Raspberry Pi3 is easy-peasy.
  • Since there are no fancy design in Gemini capsules, it is really optimized for low bandwidth.
  • It should work really fine on a feature-phone, like for KaiOS. I don't believe there is a client yet for KaiOs at this time.
  • It's fairly easy to build clients and servers for the protocol.

Simple yet complete

  • The specifications provide enough functionality to do basically what you would expect to be able to do online.
  • Much lower learning curve compared to Gopher and HTML. You can start publishing Gemini pages within minutes.
  • Even-though the syntax is limited, it still gives enough playroom for creative expression.
  • Use of TLS certificates promises security and privacy.
  • It is more international than US-centric Gopher.
  • The procol supports the UTF-8 character set so any language can be used to publish sites in.
  • This should help make the protocol more popular in non-ascii wielding regions in the World.

Easy to publish

  • Content will be probably first of all stored in static text files which are future-proof and easy to maintain.
  • Many servers already available that require minimal technical skills.
  • Yes, you still need a server, but there are many collectives which you can join to facilitate this.

Focus

  • No popups, animations, videos, sound effects.
  • Focus on actual content instead of fluff and effects.
  • No advertisemens and commercial tracking.
  • No Facebook, Google or Twitter.

Accessible

  • Power of formatting goes into the clients or readers. Like in the good old days of the early Web, people are expected to style the content to their own liking.
  • It's pure text, has simple navigation rules, so should be great for people with disabilities.
  • No JavaScript so you really see what you get.

And on top of this, the young Gemini community is driven to make this a success!

I'm sold.

ps. I published this first in plain text on my Gemini capsule and now that I copy paste this into a HTML document I can really tell just how easy it is to publish on Gemini.

Johan Bové

10 ways to optimize your website for KaiOS

Smart feature phones are specific in that their screens are smaller than those of smartphones. To create websites that are accessible to KaiOS users, we recommend following these guidelines. feature phone, kaios, syndicated, web dev

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

@HenrikJoreteg KaiOS devices are probably the only real alternative left.

Johan Bové

Johan Bové

Wrote to Web support regarding getting WhatsApp Web on the powered 8110 4G:

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Hello Dear WhatsApp for KaiOS Developers!

Thank you first of all for your efforts and trouble making WhatsApp
available on the Nokia 8110 4G! It's amazing how capable a device like
this little phone can be
On the other hand however I am missing gravely the integration of
WhatsApp Web with the phone, especially since the keyboard and text
input experience is somewhat... bad.
Something I don't really understand as the hardware is there. The phone
has a capable camera to read the QR code.
So I was wondering, what's the holdup to release this SUPER DUPER useful
feature in the next release of WhatsApp for KaiOS?

Thanks for listening en keep on rocking!

Cheers,

Johan from Düsseldorf, Germany

aka @johanbove on Twitter`
---

Johan Bové

@KaiOStech Curious about the default apps on KaiOS; are these available as open source apps?