A distributed information service that makes available hierarchical collections of information across the Internet Gopher uses a simple protocol that allows a single Gopher client to access information from any accessible Gopher server, providing the user with a single "Gopher space" of information Public domain versions of the client and server are available See also: protocol
A widely successful method of making menus of material available over the Internet Gopher is a Client and Server style program, which requires that the user have a Gopher client program Although Gopher spread rapidly across the globe in only a couple of years, it has been largely supplanted by Hypertext, also known as WWW (World Wide Web) There are still thousands of Gopher Servers on the Internet and we can expect they will remain for a while See Also: Client, Server, WWW, Hypertext Go to top
A system that pre-dates the World Wide Web for organizing and displaying files on Internet servers A Gopher server presents its contents as a hierarchically structured list of files
Indexing and retrieval scheme for accessing information on the Internet Gopher, developed at the University of Minnesota, is based on the client-server model
>A way of publishing information and accessing it via a hierarchical menu-based system Gopher is a Clientand Serverstyle program, which requires that the user have a Gopher Client program Although Gopher spread rapidly across the globe in only a couple of years, it is being largely supplanted by Hypertext, also known as the WWW There are still thousands of Gopher Servers on the Internet and we can expect they will remain for a while
Though not as popular as FTP or http, the gopher protocol is implemented by many browsers and numerous other programs and allows the transfer of files across networks In some respects it can be thought of as a hybrid between FTP and http, although it tends not to be as good at raw file transfer as FTP and is not as flexible as http The collection of documents available through gopher is often called "gopherspace", and it should be noted that gopherspace is older than the web It should also be noted that gopher is not getting as much attention as it once did, and surfing through gopherspace is a little like exploring a ghost town, but there is an interesting VR interface available for it, and some things in gopherspace still have not been copied onto the web
Invented at the University of Minnesota in 1993 just before the Web, gopher was a widely successful method of making menus of material available over the Internet Gopher was designed to be much easier to use than FTP, while still using a text-only interface Gopher is a Client and Server style program, whichrequires that the user have a Gopher Client program Although Gopher spread rapidly across the globe in only a couple of years, it has been largely supplanted by Hypertext, also known as WWW (World Wide Web) There are still thousands of Gopher Servers on the Internet and we can expect they will remain for a while See also: Client, FTP, WWW