Why Is Gopher Still Relevant?

The web is like an operating system that you are locked into using. This prevents alternative operating systems such as Plan 9 from ever becoming useful, because building a web browser is such a monumental effort. Even if a decent web browser were built for Plan 9 it would defeat the purpose of using such an alternative OS because the web binds software to content.<p>The web has effectively killed innovation in operating systems. A clean and consistent system will be out of reach as long as this web app nonsense continues.

Gopher might not be popular, and apparently it&#x27;s relevancy is disputed. But it is still an interesting bit of internet-history. It still has an active community, and a whole lot of information.<p>There&#x27;s also a slow movement to add gopherholes to the tor network. A list of the current known ones can be found here; <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gopher.floodgap.com&#x2F;gopher&#x2F;gw?gopher:&#x2F;&#x2F;bitreich.org:70&#x2F;1&#x2F;lawn&#x2F;onion" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;gopher.floodgap.com&#x2F;gopher&#x2F;gw?gopher:&#x2F;&#x2F;bitreich.org:7...</a>

I don&#x27;t get this. It seems to me Gopher basically supports a subset of what is available on the web. All the benefits of Gopher (low bandwidth requirements, no flashy design or interactivity, strict hierarchical navigation etc.) can also be achieved with stripped-down web pages. I see no benefit at all to having a separate protocol.<p>Gopher is cool as a slice of history though.

Gopher comes without the multimedia annoyances of the over-engineered Web and it &quot;lacks&quot; people whose business model is to be on it. I like to browse Gopher every now and then. Several people I know even export read-only versions of their blog to Gopher.<p>I planned to write a new Gopher app for Android a while ago but I haven&#x27;t finished it yet. This article reminds me to try again. Thanks.

Oh wow, that&#x27;s a blast to the path. The author also wrote the bucktooth gopher server, and I implemented a new (semi-OO Perl) version of it that supported Gopher+.<p>There was always something very satisfying about Gopher, how it made explicit the structure and categories of the data, leaving the front-end to present it how it pleased.

I had no idea what Gopher was and looked it up to understand; this article was helpful: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;tech-policy&#x2F;2009&#x2F;11&#x2F;the-web-may-have-won-but-gopher-tunnels-on&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;arstechnica.com&#x2F;tech-policy&#x2F;2009&#x2F;11&#x2F;the-web-may-have...</a>

Gopher is way more friendly for the visually impaired than the modern web.

At the time of Facebook, the question should be: <i>Is the web still relevant?</i>

On that note, i seem to recall reading that Fidonet is still being maintained.

Gopher doesn&#x27;t support encryption. There is no standard for gopher over tls. This makes gopher irrelevant for encrypted communications. But what makes it great: gopher is simple. You can use curl or even netcat for browsing gopher sites.

I used Gopher 1993 in university, but I don&#x27;t see it relevant today. It&#x27;s history.

This made me laugh: gopher:&#x2F;&#x2F;gopher.frog.tips&#x2F;0&#x2F;JOB_OPENINGS

It&#x27;s not.