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What is the advantage of gopher?

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Wanderer

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Feb 28, 2023, 12:39:14 PM2/28/23
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What are the advantages of gopher? Is it fast? I get that it is just a file transfer protocol but that is just a layer. Programs are just files. I could send encrypted programs, have it decrypted and run and use it to control and update remote devices. Is there any advantage to gopher over other protocols?

What would it take to set up a cloud server for gopher?

jeorge

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Feb 28, 2023, 12:51:38 PM2/28/23
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On 2/28/23 12:39 PM, Wanderer wrote:
> What are the advantages of gopher? Is it fast? I get that it is just a file transfer protocol but that is just a layer. Programs are just files. I could send encrypted programs, have it decrypted and run and use it to control and update remote devices. Is there any advantage to gopher over other protocols?
>
> What would it take to set up a cloud server for gopher?

Ask the Magic AWK ball:
gopher://rawtext.club/7/~zilog/cgi-bin/AWKball.awk

Marco Moock

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Feb 28, 2023, 3:01:35 PM2/28/23
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Am 28.02.2023 um 12:39:04 Uhr schrieb Wanderer:

> What are the advantages of gopher?

It is text-only, so very secure, fast and without the modern web's
shitty use of JavaScript.

> What would it take to set up a cloud server for gopher?

You need a gopher server.
Do some googling, there should be information how to set one up.

Computer Nerd Kev

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Feb 28, 2023, 5:17:49 PM2/28/23
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Wanderer <do...@emailme.com> wrote:
> What are the advantages of gopher?

In terms of the protocol itself compared to HTTP (etc.) the main
advantage is that it's very simple and easy to fully understand. So
if you're writing a server or client for it entirely from scratch,
it's potentially easier to write a complete Gopher implementation.

> Is it fast?

It doesn't do any magic that makes transfers go faster, but indexes
are generally smaller files than HTML index pages just due to the
simpler and more limited design of the gophermap format. On the
other hand, HTTP can compress those index files (and any other
content) on-the-fly.

> I get that it is just a file transfer protocol but that is just a
> layer. Programs are just files. I could send encrypted programs,
> have it decrypted and run and use it to control and update remote
> devices. Is there any advantage to gopher over other protocols?

Compared to HTTP or FTP, I don't think Gopher has any performance
advantage for that. SFTP, SCP, etc. will also handle the encryption
for you, which Gopher won't.

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#_ < |\| |< _#

Wanderer

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Mar 1, 2023, 10:19:34 AM3/1/23
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Thanks, that's what I wanted to know. For now, I'll poke around gopherspace
and see what I find.

Anthk

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Mar 13, 2023, 6:25:52 PM3/13/23
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On 2023-02-28, Wanderer <do...@emailme.com> wrote:
> What are the advantages of gopher? Is it fast? I get that it is just a file transfer protocol but that is just a layer. Programs are just files. I could send encrypted programs, have it decrypted and run and use it to control and update remote devices. Is there any advantage to gopher over other protocols?
>
> What would it take to set up a cloud server for gopher?

I can read articles with just netcat and less.

SPAMian_...@yahoo.co.uk

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May 17, 2023, 5:36:52 PM5/17/23
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Hi,

Advantages compared to www?

The advantage over the web, if you like blogging (phloging), is that you
don't have to worry about layout, no inline images, css or html to worry
about. You just create plain old text documents, and gopher menus if you
want to create links to other documents or be creative and make some
kind of application.

It's fast and easy to use, you write files or put them in the directory
tree somewhere and you can then download or view them, depending on your
gopher client and .mailcap configuration.

You can pretty easily set up a gopher server, if you have some linux or
unix hosting, by installing geomyidae or gophernicus. Both seem to be
widely available.

If you want to see some of what you can do with it, then grab yourself a
gopher client (gopher?) or text web client that supports gopher (w3m or
lynx) and head on over to my gopherhole: gopher://gopher.icu

Give it a go and see how you get on.

Best regards,

IanJ
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