Text Web Browser Roundup
March 8, 2005 – 11:22 pmI found a roundup of text-based web browsers today, and I thought the timing was pretty funny, given that Kristjan and I just had a conversation about such browsers the other day in lab. In fact, I think it came up because Kristjan found embedded in some comment thread on Fark a religious-sounding debate about the merits of Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer (as has been happening ad nauseum all over the web), and one commenter piped up with something like “Yeah, well my Links on my OS/2 RoXorS!”
After a good laugh, I decided to fire up ole Links (which turned out to be ELinks) on my lab computer, and I must admit I was mildly impressed (given my incredibly low expectations up front). I can’t really think of a situation where a text-based web browser would do me much good (except maybe on the cluster, so I could hunt around on Google without launching the X server), but it was neat to know that such browsers are still out there and being actively developed.
7 Responses to “Text Web Browser Roundup”
lynx 0wnz0rz j00
By Kristjan on Mar 9, 2005 at 9:49 am
I used lynx just today. I don’t have X installed on my server and needed to check something by browsing to localhost.
And yes, 4|| yoR b4z R 837p|\|g ^o lynx.
By MDA on Mar 9, 2005 at 12:30 pm
Lynx can also be really useful when you’re installing a package with HTML documentation, over ssh — it’s just so much easier than getting the file into a graphical browser.
And I must confess, until recently I even used lynx rather than wget to download files. It turns out that wget is better.
MDA: 4|| lbE o4m E 837c|\|t ^b jtrg
By paul.za on Mar 9, 2005 at 6:33 pm
Mike’s use for Lynx is what I had in mind. But, the ssh routine is a very good point, because I have struggled with that situation before.
And I wish I could keep up with you guys, but I don’t know any l337.
By jjk on Mar 9, 2005 at 11:12 pm
You almost got me, paul.za. Took me a couple minutes.
And yes, wget is much nicer for downloading.
While we’re at it, ever browse the web with telnet on port 80?
By MDA on Mar 12, 2005 at 1:42 am
Nope, can’t say I’ve browsed with with telnet, but I have tried debugging sendmail with telnet to port 25. Good times.
By paul.za on Mar 12, 2005 at 11:21 am
That sounds miserable, paul.za.
By MDA on Mar 13, 2005 at 2:56 am