Gopher is a protocol that was competing with the World Wide Web back in 1991, offering a sleek and minimalistic way to index content online at the time.
It's important to understand that there wasn't really a way to search for information, search engines weren't really a thing and the World Wide Web (and HTML) wasn't very mainstream either at the time.
So, the term "Gopher Hole" is the equivalent to a "Web Site" but instead of HTML (and JavaScript, CSS, and all the other bloat that comes with), it's mostly plain text and hosted in the Gopher protocol.
Why not? There's actually several reasons why one would like to create such a thing in the modern day, so let's take a look at that ....
This is a really quick one, and probably my most favoured one on the list ....... the nostalgia. Who doesn't like a bit of nostalgia?
There's always someone who appreciates the way we used to do things, what they look like, the minimilisation and all that jazz
Have you ever tried to access the web from a low spec machine? Maybe you're using a netbook? Or you've always liked the idea of getting that really old PC or that Commodore Amiga online?
Well, a lot of these older systems, the modern web is pretty much unusable, very slow, frustrating and outright broken sometimes. Some of these older systems don't support modern security protocols either, SSL, TLS, sometimes it's just not doable.
That's where Gopher comes in, but see my next reason too
The modern web is so bloated these days. I remember a day when browsing the web was a lightweight task, but not nowadays. Most websites are full of javascript, addons, adverts, autoplaying videos and music, cookies ....... it all mounts up.
Gopher, due to it's limitations, is free from all of that. Gopher is usable on a really old DOS PC or a Commodore Amiga (yeah, there's Gopher clients for the Amiga)
The modern web is so full of distractions these days, from the annoying autoplaying videos, the adverts and social media. A lot of the time this is all just click bait, made to get readers and viewers to poor quality content, or, to track users around the internet and sell their data.
Now, Gopher doesn't have a lot of this - due to the limitations of the protocol, it's not possible to put intrusive adverts into a page hosted on Gopher ...... it's text only, it doesn't allow this sort of thing.
Of course, quality content is kind of subjective, and Gopher does not resolve this, poor content is poor content, regardless of how it is delivered, but, it's less likely for some sort of content highlighted above.
Yeah, that's the thing, because Gopher is mostly just text, you actually have to want to read the content, as there's not pretty inline pictures or other distractions.
Because of this, the content people host has to be somewhat better quality, to keep people engaged, and as a result, you will take more of the information in.
There's no "tracking cookies", no "privacy policies" and nobody is stealing your credit card data behind the scenes.
Yet again, Gopher's text only nature doesn't allow a lot of these things that track you around the internet. There's no "big tech" company spying on your data and trying to sell you something based on the content you have consumed.
Don't get me wrong, Gopher does not support modern security protocols like SSL and/or TLS, so you still hae to be wary of the information you transfer to and from Gopher, but, there's still a less likely chance your information will be used for nefarious purposes.
Isn't this why we do anything in life?
For some of us, the geeks, the nerds, the tech enthusiasts, the retro enthusiasts and those that like a bit of nostalgia, well, we enjoy this kind of thing, this is fun for us.
That's easy, you can either use a proxied version in a modern web browser, or, you can use a proper old school browser compatible with gopher.
Accessing via a web proxy:
http://gopher.woodycool.uk:70/ (via the proxy provided by my Gopher server)
https://gopher.floodgap.com/gopher/gw?a=gopher.woodycool.uk (via the Floodgap proxy)
https://portal.mozz.us/gopher/gopher.woodycool.uk/ (via the mozz.us proxy)
Or, point your gopher compatible browser here
gopher://gopher.woodycool.uk
Either way, have fun and enjoy the more minimalistic content.