Lean Linux web browsers

Lynx

The text browser Lynx [6] has been around since 1992. This means it was created before the WWW. At the beginning, it used a proprietary hypertext protocol, which was similar to the later WWW competitor Gopher. The developers are still actively working on Lynx and release a development version every few months. The current version needs about 11MB RAM to display the LinuxUser website (Figure 6).

Figure 6: Lynx in the beginner mode with help in the lower lines.

This browser is stuffed with settings options, which you can reach by pressing O. You will need to select accept changes at the beginning of the options page before modifications can take effect. If the settings still exist at the next start, you will need to save them permanently. This only works for those settings that have a name that does not end with an (!) .

The User-Mode option lets you specify how experienced you are in operating Lynx. The standard setting is Novice (Figure 6). In this setting, Lynx shows two extra lines of help at the bottom of the screen. In the Advanced setting, only the URL for the highlighted link is shown on the status line (Figure 7).

Figure 7: Lynx in advanced mode with the link target in the last line.

Lynx is currently the oldest web browser still in use. Many of its key commands can be found in other text based browsers. For example, G opens a dialog for entering a URL, Shift+G lets you edit the URL indicated, R performs a reload, the back arrow key brings up the previous web site, the up and down arrow keys jump from link to link, and Q closes the browser.

One of the special characteristics of Lynx is that in the standard setting, it always displays web pages with a black background, even in a terminal with a light background. This is not what Links2, ELinks, and W3m do. To change the background, you will need to write a different Lynx stylesheet (LSS ) in a language similar to CSS.

Netrik

Netrik [7] was by far the most frugal text browser among those tested (Figure 8). It makes do with 4.3MB of working memory and 655KB in disk space. It also offers the fewest features and is the only browser among the ones discussed here which does not offer HTTPS. The last release dates from mid-2009. It is therefore doubtful that the browser will ever have HTTPS support.