[ANN] The Duckling Proxy

[Luke Emmet]

Hi All

I'm pleased to announce The Duckling Proxy 🦆 - a scheme-specific proxy 
to access HTTP resources from normal Gemini clients.

Motivated by my recent discussion on the merits of opening up access to 
the Small Web in a sane way. One option is to plug an adapter into your 
client, the other is to use a scheme specific proxy.

gemini://gemini.marmaladefoo.com/blog/31-Aug-2020_The_Duckling_Proxy.gmi

So any Gemini client that supports scheme specific proxies should be 
able to connect to Duckling. Another example of a scheme-specific proxy 
is Solderpunk's Agena proxy which allows access to gopher:// resources. 
Duckling works in a similar way.

Once your proxy is in place and running, and you have configured your 
client to use it, you can request http resources using normal Gemini 
request:

Client: <http-url><crlf>
Server: 20 text/gemini
...continues...

Duckling translates all web pages into gemtext, so it is just a normal 
Gemini server, as far as your client is concerned.

View the Small Web using your favourite Gemini client, and benefit from:

* No tracking or cookies
* No javascript
* No server styling, just content
* No client headers

Obviously, not every web site will work as expected, especially those 
requiring client side javascript/cookies/forms in order to work 
effectively. In this case, just launch your normal web browser. Or maybe 
give those pages a miss anyway?

Currently the following clients can be used with Duckling Proxy

* AV-98 - apply the patch from the source repo then use `set http_proxy 
machine:port` to access
* diohsc - edit diohscrc config file
* gemget - use -p option
* GemiNaut (unreleased build, coming soon, PM me if you want early access)

Any other clients that implement proxy support in the future should be 
able to use it. I understand Amfora will be able to connect to it in an 
upcoming release. Let me know if you implement proxy support in your 
client and I'll add it to the list.

Best Wishes

  - Luke