@82mhz Not just Internet Explorer. Early browsers like Mosaic and the original Mozilla supported the gopher: URL scheme as well as others such as ftp:, telnet:, and more.
@amoroso I knew about FTP, I was pretty annoyed when they threw it out of firefox a few years ago because I thought it was really useful.... but gopher (and telnet) I didn't know, and I'm pretty sure I never used it even in the past.