Text-Only Browswer (13)

1 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-11-16 08:33 ID:Oji4Qmux

Success! This page loads up fine in "links", a text only browswer that supports frames.

Sweet.

2 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-11-16 11:32 ID:KX2dh9kV

Text-only browsers seem to largely suck. When is someone going to make a modern text-only browser, with proper Javascript and DOM and CSS support and so on? CSS even has explicit support for running on text-only devices.

3 Name: Redhatter 2005-11-17 06:58 ID:YjaDc4DQ

http://elinks.or.cz/ :-)

Features:

  • JavaScript support -- although it's not anything stellar
  • CSS support
  • Frames
  • Cookie support (something the original links doesn't have -- largely because the author "doesn't like them")

Text-based browsers have their place though... Graphical browsers don't work on VT100 terminals very well, and are less than wonderful through SSH (tunnelling VNC or remote X).

4 Name: dmpk2k!hinhT6kz2E 2005-11-17 10:02 ID:Heaven

Colour me impressed.

5 Name: !WAHa.06x36 2005-11-17 13:04 ID:KZvFweWz

"DOM support" is listed under future developments, though. Without the DOM, Javascript is just a toy.

6 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-11-17 23:12 ID:33QYF5wI

LYNX

7 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-11-18 02:47 ID:82jwgxUV

I use w3m and like it a lot. CSS, who cares -- one of the neat things about w3m is that every page uses the same style, and that style looks good. As for JavaScript, I find that I rarely miss it. I don't like the idea of websites containing programs anyway; that's a huge can of worms, best kept closed, really. If I want to run a program, I'll make sure I trust whoever's giving it to me first.

w3m supports cookies, SSL, gzip compression, bookmarks... that's about all I need.

8 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-11-18 02:48 ID:Heaven

Unfortunately w3m is a huge memory hog. It's currently using about 12 MB. :( Nothing's perfect, I guess.

9 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-11-18 04:16 ID:Heaven

>>6

Are you stating your personal preference, or are you under the impression that you are correcting me?

10 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-11-18 04:26 ID:Oji4Qmux

>>2

It's been my experience that after a point, all browsers suck. My computers aren't exactly blindingly fast, so some of the bloatware that is among web-browsers can really mess with my productivity.

However, it'd be nice if more of them got out of the stone age. It'd also be nice if Internet Explorer would actually display .png images properly. Well either that, or if people stopped using it.

>>3

Wow. I'm impressed. Personally, I like to remain in a console unless there is a particular reason I want to see images. That is not always the case when dealing with webpages. In some cases, a console-based browser can seriously improve the appearance of a site. ;)

11 Name: Redhatter 2005-11-18 13:11 ID:YjaDc4DQ

Heh, I just tried elinks running inside twin

http://stuartl.longlandclan.hopto.org/blog/2005/11/18/twin-text-window-manager/

That, plus irssi... console bliss :-)

12 Name: CyB3r h4xX0r g33k 2005-11-18 17:45 ID:Oji4Qmux

>>11

That's so sexy, it's consolicious. ;) I need to check out twin.

13 Name: Redhatter 2005-11-20 23:35 ID:Heaven

A warning for some PowerPC users though...

I just tried twin on my Indy (big endian MIPS), and discovered the text is totally b0rked on MIPS. PowerPC is also big endian, so you might strike a console with funky colours and unreadable text.

I suspect an endianness bug in the code somewhere -- it works fine on little endian machines (mipsel and x86).

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