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Ask HN: What Are Alternatives to the Internet?
4 points by _ajoj on April 13, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 6 comments
I’m referring to the internet that most people would be thinking about: websites that you access with a browser over http or https. Are there any alternative protocols or internet equivalents that are not well known and have an active community?


Gemini was/is a big one from relatively recently. Don't see too many articles about it lately, possibly the traction it was getting is subsiding ...


Active community, maybe not, but teletext[1] and minitel[2] come to mind. Maybe also WAP[3]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teletext

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minitel

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol


There's a few abstractions of the web you can use today.

https://freenetproject.org/

https://geti2p.net/en/

https://www.gnunet.org/en/

https://www.ipfs.tech/


This only works in the loosest of senses for an analog to HTTP - certainly the way they're used, but some BBSes have modem connectivity.

https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/bbs/connection/dial-up/


BBS systems still exist: https://www.telnetbbsguide.com/


amateur radio [4] and Tor browser.

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_amateur_radio_modes




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