$ finger johnc@idsoftware.com
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:
$ finger johnc@idsoftware.com
finger: connect: Connection timed out[1a] - https://www.shodan.io/search?query=finger+%2Bport+79
Honestly I am too lazy to make an RFC. Maybe if enough people make a finger.domain.tld text record it would catch on. [1]
dig +short -t txt finger.nochan.net
"status: currently spending time on hacker news."
function finger()
{
Dom="$1";dig +short +nocookie -t txt finger."${Dom}"
}
Glove would work
Notably missing Safari and WebKit
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
Safari makes up a sizeable percentage of the market share so skipping WebKit here is a strange choice.
> Chrome alone controls roughly 73% of global desktop browser market share.
> More and more, the webdevs of the world test and develop for Chrome only.
> It doesn't need to be this way. https:// is not the only way to connect and interface with the Internet
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.
It's also on completely different OSI layer.
I don't see the difference between your comment and a statement like "I don't like email so let's stop using TCP".
But the day your bank and insurance implement WEI, it'll going to be too late to switch to another protocol. Your existence will depend on it.
When you browse to a pristine html page containing zero adtech it contains links. Those links you might click on without first thoroughly vetting them for behavioral exhaust.
Hyperlinks are a vector for contagion. A new protocol creates isolation. What's wrong with both existing? Defense in depth at all levels, I say. You think https can't enshittify, maybe you just haven't waited long enough.
It's not that HTML forces well-meaning creators to add complexity, size, or user-hostile behavior; it's that an ecosystem that permits such behavior eventually becomes swamped by adtech and other user-hostile content for financial gain. The problem is that this content drowns out organic, human-centric content.
Having said that, while format restrictions (to plaintext, markdown, gemtext, HTML without JavaScript) do help mitigate the damage somewhat by making tracking harder, I doubt they are sufficient: even text-only forums can become overrun with spam, ads, bots, and propaganda if they lack suitable moderation.
Ultimately folks who want to browse a web of authentic human content need to combine format restrictions with blocklists and web-of-trust tools. Browser plugins, reader mode, and customized search engines can already get us partway there, but there are still gaps.
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.
* https://geminiprotocol.net/docs/protocol-specification.gmi
* https://iana.org/assignments/media-types/media-types.xhtml
My project at the moment is kind of related to these "simple web" ideas. Instead of giving up on HTML altogether I'm making a simple web browser, to see if there's a way to render even relatively complex existing pages, like Wikipedia or news sites, without needing to implement much or any CSS. A bit like "reader mode". (link if you are interested: https://codeberg.org/kaimac/weaver)
* auth: Look at https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini#services Tons of services support some form of auth.
Edit: https://martinrue.com/station is another service I use that's missing in the above list.
* images: click to load
Janky but doable. Janky is the price you have to pay to avoid adtech.
I don't understand, unless adtech is holding your family hostage and forcing you to adtech. Can you elaborate?
> One can still be part of the solution without leaving the modern-standards-based mainstream altogether for the digital equivalent of an off-grid cabin in the woods.
So many judging words there. A new protocol is an off-grid cabin in the woods, but building a non-janky universally accessible website isn't? You'll have to prove you can get a random new website more traffic over https without doing nefarious shit and letting the big adtech companies crawl it.
No inline images is a significant restriction indeed but it also gives you a high degree of confidence that most Gemini pages will be very lightweight. I don't find it that limiting. It all goes back to the point that Gemini is intended to supplement the web and not replace it - if you want image heavy content you can get it elsewhere. Personally I find the lack of inline formatting and links more frustrating.
- no scripts of any kind
- no cookies
- no forms
- all resources (e.g., styles, images) needed for display inlined
- a spacious minimum cap on data URI length
- elaborate the <a> tag a bit to allow a series of content addresses (hashes, IPFS, magnet URIs, etc.) for references
Basically, a "dead" subset of HTML suitable for distributing documents.
But actually loading images separately can work well. If you are reading for the text content you can save the time and bandwidth to load of all the images, or maybe you want to look at one image in detail, you can load just that one, and zoom or frame that independently of the surrounding text.