What is Gopher?
Gopher is a simple Internet protocol to retrieve files. Everything is listed in a gophermap, which contains links to other gophermaps or to a limited number of file types, including documents or binary files. It can be considered the precursor to HTTP.
This means no fancy JavaScript-powered ultra-complex websites that only a bloated browser can render - Gopher is plaintext only, which automatically makes it a thousand times better than the current bloatshit we call “The Web”.
This also means that realistically nobody knows about it (not even nerds) and no fancy apps exist for it on your Phone™. All of which is not necessarily a downside - I’d rather call it an interesting side effect.
How to browse the gopherspace?
On Unix-like OSes I would recommend using the terminal program sacc that can be found on git://bitreich.org/sacc.
For Android: DiggieDog.
For iOS: Gopher Client.
For anything else (or if you don’t want to use a client): Floodgap HTTP proxy.
My own gopherhole
My real blog resides in the gopherspace. If you want to visit, open this URL with your client: gopher://riolo.dev.
Edit (3 jul 2025): I no longer host a goperhole, unfortunately. This post will be saved for history.