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# Gopher
Gopher is a network [protocol](protocol.md) for publishing, browsing and downloading files and is known as a much simpler alternative to the [World Wide Web](www.md) (i.e. to [HTTP](http.md) and [HTML](html.md)). In fact it competed with the Web in its early days and even though the Web won in the mainstream, gopher still remains used by small communities (usually the more dedicated though, see e.g. [bitreich](bitreich.md)). Gopher is like the Web but well designed, it is the [suckless](suckless.md)/[KISS](kiss.md) way of doing what the Web does, it contains practically no [bloat](bloat.md) and so [we](lrs.md) highly advocate its use. Gopher inspired creation of [Gemini](gemini.md), a similar but bit more complex and "[modern](modern.md)" protocol, and the two together have recently become the main part of so called [Smol Internet](smol_internet.md). Gopher is much better than Gemini though. The set of all public gopher servers is called gopherspace.
Gopher (allegedly from "go for information") is a network [protocol](protocol.md) for publishing, browsing and downloading files and is known as a much simpler alternative to the [World Wide Web](www.md) (i.e. to [HTTP](http.md) and [HTML](html.md)). In fact it competed with the Web in its early days and even though the Web won in the mainstream, gopher still remains used by small communities (usually the more dedicated though, see e.g. [bitreich](bitreich.md)). Gopher is like the Web but well designed, it is the [suckless](suckless.md)/[KISS](kiss.md) way of doing what the Web does, it contains practically no [bloat](bloat.md) and so [we](lrs.md) highly advocate its use. Gopher inspired creation of [Gemini](gemini.md), a similar but bit more complex and "[modern](modern.md)" protocol, and the two together have recently become the main part of so called [Smol Internet](smol_internet.md). Gopher is much better than Gemini though. The set of all public gopher servers is called gopherspace.
Gopher **doesn't use any [encryption](encryption.md)** (though some servers allow access via [Tor](tor.md)). **This is good, encryption is [bloat](bloat.md)**. Gopher also doesn't really know or care about [Unicode](unicode.md) and similar bloat (which mostly serves trannies to insert emojis of pregnant men into readmes anyway, we don't need that), it's basically just [ASCII](ascii.md) (of course you can employ Unicode as gopher just transfers files really, it's just that Unicode is not part of gopher's specification and most people prefer to keep it ASCII). Gopher's simple design is intentional, the authors deemed simplicity a [good](good.md) feature. Gopher is so simple that you may very well write your own client and server and comfortably use them -- **you can even browse gopher just by manually using [telnet](telnet.md)** to communicate with the server.
**How big is gopherspace?** As of 2023 the Veronica search engine reported 315 gopher servers in the world with 5+ million indexed selectors, which they estimated was 83% of the whole gopherspace (the peak server count was in 2020 at almost 400). Quarry search engine reports 369 servers and 1+ million indexed selectors. Contrition search engine reported even 495 servers and 7+ million selectors. Gopher LAWN directory (made by [bitreich](bitreich.md)) contains 281 selected quality gopher holes.
**How big is/was gopherspace?** In 1994 there were over 1300 gopher servers (source: 1994 book *Finding it on the Internet"*), around 1995 there were already more than 6000 (source: 1995 video *Searching the Internet - Gopher | The Internet Revealed*). Most of them are now gone, though Gopher recently saw a new wave of popularity. As of 2023 the Veronica search engine reported 315 gopher servers in the world with 5+ million indexed selectors, which they estimated was 83% of the whole gopherspace (the peak server count was in 2020 at almost 400). Quarry search engine reports 369 servers and 1+ million indexed selectors. Contrition search engine reported even 495 servers and 7+ million selectors. Gopher LAWN directory (made by [bitreich](bitreich.md)) contains 281 selected quality gopher holes.
From the user's perspective **the most important distinction from the Web** is that gopher is based on **menus** instead of "webpages"; a menu is simply a column of items of different predefined types, most importantly e.g. a *text file* (which clients can directly display), *directory* (link to another menu), *text label* (just shows some text), *binary file* etc. A menu can't be formatted or visually changed, there are no colors, images, scripts or [hypertext](hypertext.md) -- a menu is not a presentation tool, it is simply a navigation node towards files users are searching for (but the mentioned ASCII art and label items allow for somewhat mimicking "websites" anyway). Gopher is also often **browsed from the [command line](cli.md)**, though graphical clients are a thing too. Addressing works with [URLs](url.md) just as the Web, the URLs just differ by the protocol part (`gopher://` instead of `http://`), e.g.: `gopher://gopher.floodgap.com:70/1/gstats`. What on Web is called a "website" on gopher we call a **gopherhole** or just *hole* (i.e. a collection of resources usually under a single [domain](domain.md)) and the whole gopher network is called a **gopherspace**. [Blogs](blog.md) are common on gopher and are called **phlogs** (collectively a *phlogosphere*). As menus can refer to one another, gopher creates something akin a **global [file system](file_system.md)**, so browsing gopher is like browsing folders and can comfortably be handled with just 4 arrow keys. Note that as menus can link to any other menu freely, the structure of the "file system" is not a [tree](tree.md) but rather a general [graph](graph.md). Another difference from the Web is gopher's great emphasis on **[plaintext](plaintext.md) and [ASCII art](ascii_art.md)** as it cannot embed images and other media in the menus (even though of course the menus can link to them). There is also a support for sending text to a server so it is possible to implement [search engines](search_engine.md), guest books, [games](game.md) etc.