gemini://gemini.marmaladefoo.com/blog/10-Oct-2020_I_name_this

... well, not really a ship, more of a small sailing yacht, really

GemiNaut 0.8.8 is released this week. GemiNaut is a user friendly Gemini client for Windows.

Following up in the spirit of my previous post about Web Client autonomy, I've been working to integrate the Html2Gmi library into GemiNaut. So now it is also a Small Web client. The vast majority of pages linked from Gemini are in the Small Web (document centric web pages), and these will display fine. It can also connect to the Duckling Proxy as an alternative.

Just launch your system web browser only when you have to.

Indulge me a moment for a little rant.

Frustratingly, previous builds of GemiNaut were being flagged as possible malware by some anti-virus utilities. Obviously a false positive (it is open source and you can check and compile it yourself), but some users were seeing quite scary interventions from their AV, including pre-emptive deletion or GemiNaut being sent to sit on the naughty step of application quarantine.

Who knows what murky algorithms are used to flag a newly seen app as possible malware? I'm guessing here but apparently the following innocuous activities are deemed by AV gatekeepers to be highly suspicious:

An infrequently seen application - of course, anything running Gemini is by definition infrequently seen. Gemini is so niche, even Gopherspace is huge in comparison.

Runs another app via the command line - application integration - why would you do such a deeply suspicious thing?

Connects to an obscure port - 1965 - very suspicious, maybe it is for logging keystrokes?

Unsigned application and installer - just about anyone could have created it?!

Wrong phase of the moon - it could just be relevant?

Gone and buried are the days when you could just build an app and distribute it to anyone who wanted to use it. Now you have to do a little ritual dance to appease the platform gatekeepers. For Mac/IOS or Android you have to jump through the hoops of the Apple App store or Google's Play Store. For Windows, you now have to keep the Antivirus gods appeased.

Fix #2 - sign the binary and installer

Fix #3 - slaughter a chicken and incant the sacred tone

So I went through the process of getting a certificate to be able to sign the GemiNaut app and new installer. It is a little ritual dance involving third party certificate authorities and the Windows SDK Signtool.

My rant is now over, the gods are now apparently appeased with my ritualistic burnt offering.

This seems mandatory - there is no point having an application if you can't get it to the users. Whilst us early adopters are comfortable compiling/installing new apps, for the majority or normal end users, compiling an application from source is simply not viable.

So you should now see fewer warnings and problems installing GemiNaut 0.8.8 than previous versions.

If you want to take the new web enabled version of GemiNaut for a spin, you can download the installer or source via the following pages:

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I name this ship . . . "HMS GemiNaut"

A craft for sailing more quietly on the Small Web

Appeasing the platform gatekeepers

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