MinusBrowser 1.0 is Published
MinusBrowser is a browser for the Minus protocol written in Tcl/Tk that also requires curl.
The Software
I have developed a Minus server and a Minus browser for Linux distros. I am putting the Minus browser on Codeberg first. I will put a server there later.
My browser is written in Tcl/Tk, and it also requires curl. Like the Tor Browser, MinusBrowser includes its own copy of Tor. The protocol specification allows for the use of TLS, but MinusBrowser does not support it -- at least, not yet. My present Minus servers run as Tor Onion Services, and I have no plan to create clearnet servers in the future. However, MinusBrowser will also read from libraries on local networks.
There is no need to install the browser. Just download the .tar.gz archive and unpack it. The ReadMeFirst.txt file explains how to launch it on various distros.
MinusBrowser includes a list of known public Minus libraries. So far, I know of only my two libraries: the one for this project and the one for my EasyGPG project.
The Files
MinusBrowser
https://codeberg.org/giXzkGsc/Minus-Protocol/raw/branch/main/MinusBrowser.tar.gz
Minus Protocol Specification
https://codeberg.org/giXzkGsc/Minus-Protocol/raw/branch/main/minus-specification.md
What is Minus?
The Minus protocol is an alternative to Gopher, HTTP, and Gemini. It was inspired by Gopher. Gopher Plus was intended to add features to Gopher, but I wanted to subtract features. I wanted a Gopher Minus. I shortened this to Minus.
Minus is Gopher with only type 9 files. (This will make sense to you if you have ever implemented a Gopher server or client.)
As with Gopher and Gemini, a Minus client sends only one line of text that specifies the file to download. The server then sends back the requested file or a message in UTF-8 text explaining why the file was not sent. Notice that there is nothing at all like request and response headers.
The files served can be of any type, but only .minus, .txt, .text, and .asc files will be displayed by the client. Other types are saved to mass storage.
Minus files are UTF-8 text. There is no markup language apart from using # characters to indicate headers, and the back-tick (`) to delimit code snippets and similar text. Every character in the file is shown to the user.
The only hypertext feature is that all minus:// URLs, alone on a line, are automatically clickable links.
Minus defines its own MIME type, like HTTP's text/html. This is text/minus, and the file name suffix is .minus.
Minus URLs are of the form minus://domain.tld/something.minus. There is no optional authority component, nor are there any optional query or fragment components. The browser sends the part of the URL after the TLD to the server to specify the desired file.
The Minus equivalent of the HTTP web site and Gopher gopher hole is the Minus library.
The Future of this Project
As mentioned above, I will put my Minus server on Codeberg. I want to build a GUI for it soon, but I will probably upload it before that is finished.
I am thinking about several improvements to the browser. One is to enable the MinusBrowser to read pages aloud. This would be done by recording sound files with espeak and playing them with VLC or Audacious. I am also thinking about limited support for Gopher. This would translate Gopher menus into Minus pages and allow display of files that appear in Gopher menus as type 0. I definitely plan to make MinusBrowser able to update itself using Codeberg or using the Minus Library for this project.
I am also thinking about using gpg to display PGP messages and verify their signatures. This would require that the browser also import PGP keys.
Minus Protocol Project on Codeberg
https://codeberg.org/giXzkGsc/Minus-Protocol
Minus library for the Minus protocol project
minus://mvxpelpxu2f7kzotb2s2t6fkmggvrd7qdg2wjs6waiyf2nbhkawux4yd.onion/
Minus library for EasyGPG
minus://7hinc6ucgvwbcjjoe44lhzzxyjptb3da6tzl33oe7ezl2qgwlrkfe6yd.onion/
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