45

Is there any other package other than elinks so that I browse internet inside the terminal using terminal as a browser. I feel elinks is a bit difficult to operate.

4
  • Some times we may be not sure whether the web site from a server is being rendered or not(ISP modem may have to be reset). So we can connect to that server via ssh and check browsing in the terminal and may help to resolve some issues
    – user3215
    Jan 2, 2011 at 6:16
  • How would you define 'practical'? It will be easier to give a good answer if you elaborate on what your practical needs are when it comes to console web browsers.
    – N.N.
    Sep 25, 2011 at 14:47
  • @N.N Does this help you? ( also I want something that is easy to use.)
    – Alvar
    Sep 25, 2011 at 15:08
  • Not packages, but other commands that can be used to open webpages/links in terminal askubuntu.com/questions/8252/…
    – Suhaib
    Mar 30, 2013 at 19:01

6 Answers 6

57

There are three families of text web browsers.

lynx(Install lynx) is the classic text mode web browser. It's slightly older than the web. Its interface is nothing to write home about. It has the advantage of being available on many exotic platforms.

links(Install links) is a more recent implementation of the same concept. There's an alternate development tree, elinksInstall elinks, for which there is an experimental patch for Javascript support, but this is not enabled in the Ubuntu package.

w3m(Install w3m) has an interface with a different (and I think much more nicer) feel. It's better than the others (though links has been improving lately) at rendering web sites with complex formatting, not necessarily the way the designer intended it, but in a readable way. It can display images. There's an Emacs interface, w3m-elInstall w3m-el.

My recommendation is to use w3m now but keep an eye on (e)links's evolutions.

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  • I was wondering if I could get webpages in same format as we'll get on the graphical browsers. lynx and w3m are ok.
    – user3215
    Dec 3, 2010 at 9:30
  • @sajjadG Why did you make that edit? Every single modification you made made the post worse. Dec 10, 2013 at 0:02
  • @Gilles I taught my edit make the post easier to read. ` w3m-el Install w3m-el` is not good IMO and ` w3m-el (Install w3m-el)` is better. and is this sentence OK? Its interface is nothing do write home about.. If you think they are unnecessary then alright. Thanks god we have history in stack.
    – sajjadG
    Dec 11, 2013 at 5:50
  • @sajjadG The format [NAME](http://packages.ubuntu.com/NAME) [![Install NAME](http://hostmar.co/software-small)](http://apt.ubuntu.com/p/NAME) is one that we standardize on on the site, see How to post links that integrate with the Software Center?. I just noticed the typo in “nothing to write home about”. This is a common English idiom, if you're not familiar with it please look it up instead of replacing it by clumsy English. Dec 11, 2013 at 9:40
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lynx is my favorite. It is available in the Software Center.

2
  • Nice tool and a bit easy to use but asking for the confirmation(y/n/always/never) many time to render a page.
    – user3215
    Dec 3, 2010 at 9:32
  • 2
    you can use the '--accept_all_cookies' option to avoid this. lynx --accept_all_cookies google.com
    – aneeshep
    Dec 3, 2010 at 9:39
5

Elinks is IMHO best to use on a daily basis.

Amongst other features it supports

  • tabs
  • bookmarks
  • javascript
  • tables
  • transparency
  • and you can easily "pipe" a page to any other program like Firefox with vimperator, or scripts if you'd like.

Gmail is still very much workable and as any other page, very fast under Elinks.

3
  • I have only used links2 is it faster than that?
    – Alvar
    Sep 26, 2011 at 4:52
  • I've never used Links2, but from what I understand [pupnik.de/links2.html] it's not a console browser. It seems to be much like Links, but able to display graphics. Any console-based browser isn't capable of doing this so Elinks/W3M/Lynx would use less bandwidth.
    – MJB
    Sep 26, 2011 at 16:09
  • links is a console browser that is able to show a GUI if the user WANTS to.
    – Alvar
    Sep 28, 2011 at 15:26
2

You can try w3m.
It is Lynx with utf support..

0
1

Browsh is an excellent CLI web-browser. It uses Firefox as a backend, and does a pretty decent job.

Here is how it renders this page:

enter image description here

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  • 1
    Browsh needs firefox, but yes, it's sick.
    – Diagon
    Nov 16, 2018 at 0:05
0

Link2 is a better option than elinks.

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