💾 Archived View for skylarhill.me › posts › gemini-capsule.gmi captured on 2024-08-18 at 17:10:21. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

My site is a Gemini capsule now

I have replaced my Wordpress site, pretty as it was, with a Gemini capsule.

If you're reading this on a standard web browser through HTTPS, you're actually seeing my Gemini capsule. The server I chose, twins, automatically serves HTTPS on the same port it accepts Gemini requests. Then I just have to direct nginx as a proxy, and bam. Static website for free with my capsule.

Why would I want to use Gemini? Well, I think it has a number of advantages over other solutions:

Accessibility

This is the big one in my book. So many people rely on accessibility features in order to be able to use the Internet. Gemini, like gopher before it, allows the client to determine how a site is shown to the user, rather than dictating a particular appearance. The server supplies only the content. This has huge accessibility benefits. Screen readers will work very well with Gemini, since it basically just serves text files. Dyslexic individuals can select a font like OpenDyslexic for their entire browsing experience. People with vision trouble can raise the font size, or pick a theme that increases contrast. And I'm sure there are other possibilities I haven't considered yet.

Now, people running Gemini capsules still have a responsibility to write with accessibility in mind. But the uniform structure Gemini provides makes it much easier for clientside accessibility features to work more or less universally, which can't be said of the modern web.

Privacy

Gemini enforces TLS, which to me is already enough reason to prefer it over gopher. It also does a number of things that help ensure it won't become a mass-surveillance tool like the modern web. Gemini requests are very simple and very short; there is no room to include cookies or useragents. It's very straightforward and non-extensible; client asks for site, server gives it, end of transaction.

It's simple

In the long run I think Gemini has the potential to make self-hosting content online much more accessible for non-technical folks. Gemtext is simple and easy to read, and Gemini clients can parse it natively without needing external tools to convert it to HTML. Thus, all that's needed to set up a Gemini capsule is to boot up a server and start writing Gemtext files. In the future I can see simple server setup scripts making it extremely easy to roll out a capsule, even without much technical know-how. (I may even write one myself.) Doing the homebrew server "Become your own Google" thing will always depend on HTTP, but just rolling out a website to spit ideas onto could be extremely easy with Gemini.

It's cool

I like it, it's neat. It's by no means a replacement for the modern web, but it's not trying to be. And what it offers is really great. You get subscribable feeds basically for free, it's secure and private by default, it's accessible, and it follows the minimalist software philosophy of doing what it needs to do and no more. It's basically the perfect blogging protocol. What else do you need?

So yeah, Gemini! It's good, I like it. Not as pretty on the HTML/HTTP side as my Wordpress site was, but I think it's great. And with a little CSS work I can get it looking pretty spiffy over there too!