Lagrange (Gemini Client)

★★★★★

When I was first experimenting with the Gemini Protocol, Lagrange quickly became my favorite Gemini client on the desktop. It’s visually clean, it’s fast, it runs well (and stable) on Linux, macOS and Windows, and the UI works the way you’d expect it to coming from using a web browser, down to details like middle-clicking to open a link in a new background tab.

Lagrange registers itself on all three platforms as a handler for gemini: URLs and will send http: and https: URLs to the desktop’s default handler, so it’s possible to seamlessly follow links between Geminispace and the web, switching between Lagrange and Firefox/Vivaldi/etc.

You might still need an extra step to open links from Firefox.

The author has also been fast to implement useful conventions like the subscription scheme, conveniences like opening linked images inline and giving each capsule its own color scheme, and related small-internet (or “smol internet” if you prefer) protocols like Titan (used for uploading files, which was deliberately left out of Gemini itself), Spartan and Nex (even more minimalist!), and Misfin (for sending messages). And yes, it also works with older protocols like Finger and Gopher.

Off the Desktop

The mobile version is allegedly still in beta, but works surprisingly well on my Android phone! It has all the same features, except it’s a single screen instead of tabs and windows.

There’s also a terminal-based interface that looks as much as possible like the desktop app as you can get with text characters, colors and (optionally) emoji. I’ve only played with it a little bit since I couldn’t get the AppImage to run and kept putting off compiling it myself. I finally did and it feels a lot more natural to use than amfora (the classic monochrome terminal-based client). The key commands for following links seemed weird at first glance, but I got used to them in a matter of seconds, whereas I still get tripped up in amfora.

Notes

On Linux, the Flatpak has worked more consistently for me than the AppImage has. Fedora offers a package as well, but it tends to lag behind a bit.