The Web on the Console

“Most people think “graphical interfaces” when they think of
surfing the Web. And, under X11, there are lots of great programs,
like Firefox or Chrome. But, the console isn’t the wasteland it
might seem. Lots of utilities are available for surfing the Web and
also for downloading or uploading content.

“Let’s say you want to surf the Web and find some content. The
first utility to look at is also one of the oldest, the venerable
Lynx. Lynx actually was my first Web browser, running on a machine
that couldn’t handle X11. In its most basic form, you simply run it
on the command line and give it a filename or a URL. So, if you
wanted to hit Google, you would run:

lynx http://www.google.com

“Lynx then asks you whether you want to accept a cookie Google
is trying to set. Once you either accept or reject the cookie, Lynx
loads the Web page and renders it. As you will no doubt notice,
there are no images.”

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