Very early in my Linux days in the early 2000s I was bound and determined to learn how to use Lynx as I thought the skill would be a necessity for maintaining servers. Being able to look up issues online and what not.
Little did I realize that 99% of the time I would be SSHed in from a full desktop with a standard browser, and Lynx has just been kind of a fun novelty for me.
vogelke 30 minutes ago [-]
I use it for two things:
* saving webpages as text with the links nicely organized at the bottom, and
* calling it from mutt (MUA) to display HTML parts of mail messages.
It works great and it's consistent.
sylware 21 minutes ago [-]
Proud user of noscript/basic (x)html browsers here.
Lynx and links (and I wanted to _code_ my own using netsurf libraries).
Restoring noscript/basic (x)html will only happen with hardcore regulation (or "tarif"/"gigantic fines"... same same...).
This is critical for the web, since that makes developing real-life alternative browsers a reasonable task from many pertinent perspectives.
The current technical landscape of the web is a disaster: a cartel of 2.5 absurdely and grotesquely gigantic web engines written in the most complex computer language out there which requires a compiler on the same complexity level... and there are only 2 of them from roughly from the same cartel/mob.
It seems that technical interop of the web with a very simple standard, stable in time and good enough to do the job is a 'competitive' issue of the small vs the big and should be handle by regulating administrations.
Remember, tons of web sites were noscript/basic (x)html compatible and doing a more than enough good job already... without insane technical dependencies...
rich_sasha 52 minutes ago [-]
How usable is Lynx for modern Internet?
I would love a browser I can operate within tmux, but how does it stack against the modern javascript-laden ecosystem?
mrweasel 4 minutes ago [-]
The problem, for the sites I'm interested in, typically isn't the lack of JavaScript, but how the sites layout. Take Wikipedia, the content is perfectly fine in Lynx and Links, but the menus are defined at the top of the page, meaning that you'll need to scroll multiple pages to get to the actual article.
If you have website, which have actual content (text), it's pretty easy to ensure that it looks good and works in Lynx, with minimal effort.
eadmund 33 minutes ago [-]
Well-written websites look great it it; poorly-written ones look terrible or are blank pages. That’s the same as with any other text-mode browser.
A lot of sites require Javascript to function, even when their actual functionality does not (pro tip: if you use Javascript to display text, show images or create links, you are doing it wrong). That’s a real shame.
As a general rule, the best sites work great, and the worst ones don’t work at all. This is not entirely a bad thing! It cna make web browsing less distracting. I often use a text-mode browser as a primary, and fall back to Firefox when using some Javascript-laden monstrosity.
delamon 46 minutes ago [-]
The Wiki has the answer:
Unlike most web browsers, Lynx does not support JavaScript, which many websites require to work correctly.
rich_sasha 40 minutes ago [-]
Well, yes. But what's the browsing experience like then?
I appreciate I can just install it and try, but tips for any long time users would be more insightful I think.
Little did I realize that 99% of the time I would be SSHed in from a full desktop with a standard browser, and Lynx has just been kind of a fun novelty for me.
* saving webpages as text with the links nicely organized at the bottom, and
* calling it from mutt (MUA) to display HTML parts of mail messages.
It works great and it's consistent.
Lynx and links (and I wanted to _code_ my own using netsurf libraries).
Restoring noscript/basic (x)html will only happen with hardcore regulation (or "tarif"/"gigantic fines"... same same...).
This is critical for the web, since that makes developing real-life alternative browsers a reasonable task from many pertinent perspectives.
The current technical landscape of the web is a disaster: a cartel of 2.5 absurdely and grotesquely gigantic web engines written in the most complex computer language out there which requires a compiler on the same complexity level... and there are only 2 of them from roughly from the same cartel/mob.
It seems that technical interop of the web with a very simple standard, stable in time and good enough to do the job is a 'competitive' issue of the small vs the big and should be handle by regulating administrations.
Remember, tons of web sites were noscript/basic (x)html compatible and doing a more than enough good job already... without insane technical dependencies...
I would love a browser I can operate within tmux, but how does it stack against the modern javascript-laden ecosystem?
If you have website, which have actual content (text), it's pretty easy to ensure that it looks good and works in Lynx, with minimal effort.
A lot of sites require Javascript to function, even when their actual functionality does not (pro tip: if you use Javascript to display text, show images or create links, you are doing it wrong). That’s a real shame.
As a general rule, the best sites work great, and the worst ones don’t work at all. This is not entirely a bad thing! It cna make web browsing less distracting. I often use a text-mode browser as a primary, and fall back to Firefox when using some Javascript-laden monstrosity.
I appreciate I can just install it and try, but tips for any long time users would be more insightful I think.