The Gopher protocol is a communication protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents in Internet Protocol networks. The design of the Gopher protocol and user interface is menu-driven, and presents an alternative to the World Wide Web for those who have become tired of it, and where many parts of the world cannot even connect due to bloat.
Gopher is one of the smolnet protocols that is having a regain of interest due to the smothering of the world wide web by corporate interests, AI slop, and overcomplexity, where your personal data makes them money and you are the product. Gopher is a tried and trusted, simple, plain text solution that can serve text, images, documents, videos, audio, streaming, etc. and can link to almost any other protocol as long as your client, or browser, supports it.
Gopher has no javascript, cookies, css, or formatting tags to ruin your day, only content and clearly defined links. It's simplicity is by design, and because of this, it is the ideal trampoline towards other smolnet protocols, like gemini:// or spartan://, and a host of others. No, you are not condemmed to be eternally feeding from the trough of corporate interests, there's a whole other universe out there.
Over 300 gopher servers exist today, and the number is increasing. Many of them are aggregators, i.e. they allow people to run their own phlogs (gopher blogs) without any knowledge of programming or need to run their own Gopher servers.
One can find poetry,blogs, novels, technical writings, politics, humour, etc. all in plain text and without adverts, pop-ups, or any kind of graphical or commercial disturbance. Content is king on Gopher. Also, gopher servers send no cookies, use javascript, or create user profiling.
If you are more technically inclined and would prefer to host your own gopher server, it's quite simple, like the gopher protocol itself. A gopher server can be written in a few lines of Bash script. More sophisticated servers like gophernicus allow for an up to date and secure solution and are readily available.
A Gopher client, or browser is often a matter of personal taste, much like the world wide web of old until a certain global corporation took over web browsing for their own benefit. Gopher serves up plain text, so it's up to the client to render it nicely.
Lagrange is a popular graphical browser, while Lynx in a terminal is a classic solution. You might also like a modern multiprotocol client such as Chawan that enables you to browse various smolnet protocols as well as the web without skipping a beat. Whether you use Windows, Linux, MacOS, FreeBSD, or any other operating system, there's a solution for you.
There are also web proxies that allow someone with ony a web browser to visit gopher holes. However they are a temporary solution, not a replacement for a dedicated Gopher client.
Try it out! You might be surprised at the simplicity of the text only pages, but you'll quickly appreciate the speed of access due to lack of bloat, and the ease of browsing. Gopher only as good as it's content, it doesn't rely on fancy graphics to replace a lack of substance, so don't hesitate to add your own writings! We are looking forward to reading them.
email: gopher@nagatha.fr
