Editing Veronica (search engine)

{{short description|Search engine}}
'''Veronica''' was a [[Search engine (computing)|search engine]] system for the [[Gopher (protocol)|Gopher protocol]], released in November 1992<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.upenn.edu/computing/printout/archive/v09/4/navigation.html|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20180822042146/http://www.upenn.edu:80/computing/printout/archive/v09/4/navigation.html|title=Navigating the Internet - Penn Printout, Feb 1993|archivedate=August 22, 2018|website=upenn.edu}}</ref> by Steven Foster and Fred Barrie at the [[University of Nevada, Reno]].<ref name="eff">{{Cite web |last=Doctorow |first=Cory |date=2020-02-21 |title=Gopher: When Adversarial Interoperability Burrowed Under the Gatekeepers' Fortresses |url=https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/02/gopher-when-adversarial-interoperability-burrowed-under-gatekeepers-fortresses |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200221184413/https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/02/gopher-when-adversarial-interoperability-burrowed-under-gatekeepers-fortresses |archive-date=2020-02-21 |access-date=2024-07-21 |website=[[Electronic Frontier Foundation]] |language=en}}</ref>

During its existence, Veronica was a constantly updated database of the names of almost every menu item on thousands of Gopher servers. The Veronica database could be searched from most major Gopher menus. Although by 1999 the original Veronica database was no longer accessible,<ref>{{Cite web |last=Lee |first=Christopher (Cal) |date=1999-04-23 |title=Where Have all the Gophers Gone? Why the Web beat Gopher in the Battle for Protocol Mind Share |url=https://ils.unc.edu/callee/gopherpaper.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070607005249/https://ils.unc.edu/callee/gopherpaper.htm |archive-date=2007-06-07 |access-date=2024-07-21 |website=ils.unc.edu}}</ref> various local Veronica installations and at least one complete rewrite ("Veronica-2") still exist.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Smith |first=Ernie |date=2017-08-01 |title=Long Live Gopher: The Techies Keeping the Text-Driven Internet Alive |url=https://www.vice.com/en/article/long-live-gopher-the-techies-keeping-the-text-driven-internet-alive/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201019071459/https://www.vice.com/en/article/9kwek8/long-live-gopher-the-techies-keeping-the-text-driven-internet-alive |archive-date=2020-10-19 |access-date=2024-07-20 |website=Vice |language=en}}</ref>

The existence of Veronica induced another Gopher search tool from the [[University of Utah]] originally called [[Jughead (search engine)|Jughead]].<ref name="eff" />  While the two were separate search tools, a Jughead instance could be configured with a veronica control file in order to let the Veronica harvester know how to obtain the data file from Jughead.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Veronica FAQ (Part 1 of 2) |url=https://www.ou.edu/research/electron/internet/veronica.htm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19990116234616/https://www.ou.edu/research/electron/internet/veronica.htm |archive-date=1999-01-16 |access-date=2024-07-21 |website=www.ou.edu |at=Q11}}</ref>

==Naming==
The search engine was named after the character [[Veronica Lodge]] from [[Archie Comics]], an intentional analogy with the naming of the [[Archie search engine]], a search engine for [[File Transfer Protocol|FTP servers]].  A [[backronym]] for Veronica is "Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computer Archives".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/web-design-history/veronica-search-engine-1992|title=Veronica search engine - 1992 &#124; Web Design Museum|first=Web Design|last=Museum|website=www.webdesignmuseum.org|date=10 March 2023 }}</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/download/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_328/Cory_Doctorow_Podcast_328_-_Gopher_When_Adversarial_Interoperability_Burrowed_Under_the_Gatekeepers_Fortresses.mp3 Cory Doctorow], at about 12:37 Cory states in his podcast what Veronica stands for.</ref>

==See also==
* [[Archie search engine|Archie]]&nbsp;– a search engine for finding [[FTP]] files.
* [[Jughead (search engine)|Jughead]]&nbsp;– an alternative [[Search engine (computing)|search engine]] system for the [[Gopher (protocol)|Gopher protocol]].
* [[Wide area information server|WAIS]]&nbsp;– another client-server text searching system of the same era.

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070928175808/http://hal3000.cx:70/Software/Unix/local.veronica.tar.gz local-veronica source]
* [https://gopherproxy.meulie.net/gopher.floodgap.com/1/v2 Search Veronica-2] an actively indexed re-implementation of Veronica.

{{gopher clients}}

[[Category:Gopher (protocol)]]
[[Category:Internet protocols]]
[[Category:Internet search engines]]
[[Category:Internet Standards]]
[[Category:Unix Internet software]]


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