Gemini, Gophers, and Fingers. Oh My Alternative Internets Beyond HTTPS
by ChrisArchitect on 5/27/2026, 5:24:25 PM
https://brennan.day/gemini-gophers-and-fingers-oh-my-alternative-internets-beyond-https/
Comments
by: sedatk
Finger was the original Twitter. We used to get updates on Quake's development from John Carmack by fingering his email. He used to write elaborate ".plan" files too, no nonsense character limits were in sight yet. It was magical. It worked like this:<p><pre><code> $ finger johnc@idsoftware.com </code></pre> No retweets, no likes, no notifications, no HN frontpage, but John Carmack kept writing them, and we kept reading. Even without any amplification dynamics, it was still engaging.<p>I've tried the same now, 30 years after my last finger. It wasn't even installed on Ubuntu by default. I had to install it, and expectedly:<p><pre><code> $ finger johnc@idsoftware.com finger: connect: Connection timed out</code></pre>
5/27/2026, 6:36:11 PM
by: progbits
Why is it that every gemini/gopher discussion throws out the baby with the bathwater?<p>> Chrome alone controls roughly 73% of global desktop browser market share.<p>> More and more, the webdevs of the world test and develop for Chrome only.<p>> It doesn't need to be this way. https:// is not the only way to connect and interface with the Internet<p>These are completely unrelated concepts! Google/Chrome doesn't control HTTP nor HTTPS. There is nothing wrong with the protocols, you can just make your website plaintext file if you like.
5/27/2026, 7:26:18 PM
by: akkartik
Wrt finger I want to point out <a href="https://plan.cat" rel="nofollow">https://plan.cat</a> as a nice service in this spirit.
5/27/2026, 6:26:16 PM
by: unethical_ban
I don't knock Gemini for existing and being a neat project, but even for hobby it seems too restrictive. No cookies means no authenticated interaction with a site, no inline images means it's less informative than a 100 year old encyclopedia.<p>Perhaps a "Simple Web" spec could be created to audit a site and verify its privacy and simplicity protections. Things like "Cookies only for auth", "No JS" or "low JS", "No ref tracking in or out", "No tracking pixels", etc.
5/27/2026, 6:11:47 PM