What Is Gopher?

Gopher. It's like another internet, but valuable and not just used by weirdos and criminals. Gopher was created in 1991 as one of the Internet's initial data/file access protocols running on top of a TCP/IP network. It is an application-layer protocol that allows documents on remote Web servers to be extracted and viewed. The Gopher protocol was developed at the University of Minnesota and is named after the school's mascot. Gopher has a few advantages over most other file-sharing protocols: it can store files in their original format, it supports multiple file transfer types (including HTTP), it can be used for searches by keywords, it uses text-based menus instead of graphics, and it can provide menu items from any host site—even if that site does not support Gopher itself. Gopher is an early Internet protocol to access files on a remote server. It was designed to work with a specific client program and required users to download a Gopher-enabled browser to access the files. The Gopher protocol was developed, and its developers wanted to create a manageable way for students to navigate their online catalog. The initial version of Gopher allowed users to search by keyword and view descriptions and links to documents (text files) stored on the server. Later versions of Gopher supported image formats such as JPEG and GIF, making it easier for users to view images without downloading. It was a more superficial time when the Gopher protocol was in its heyday. Gopher was a simple way for users to search for files on a server and download them to their computers. It was replaced by the far more complex HTTP protocol, which is still used today. While there are still a few Gopher databases, they can be accessed through two search engines: Veronica and Jughead.