Lean Linux web browsers

Links2

Links 2.8 [4] works like a genuine hybrid. It can be used as a text browser on the console (Figure 3) and also under X as a graphical application (Figure 4). If you only call links2, then the text version starts. Via links2 -g or the shell script xlinks2, you launch the graphical version. Additionally, links2 -g functions on the console as a graphical browser, but it requires Framebuffer. In contrast to NetSurf, this works without any problem.

Figure 3: Links2 as a text browser in an X terminal …

Figure 4: … and under X with graphics.

Links2 needs less than 20MB working memory even in graphics mode. It occupies around 3MB of space on the disk. This is mostly because it has its own fonts and numerous localization capabilities, including Swiss German, for example. The menu at the upper edge appears only when you either click on the bar located there or press the F10 key. Otherwise, the only thing you see is a left arrow that functions as the back button.

Links2 cannot handle browser tabs, but it can open multiple X windows. To do this, the browser opens additional windows from the terminal window.

The Links2 rendering engine takes some getting used to. Because it is utilized for both text and graphics modes, the graphical version looks very much like a text mode with proportional instead of equidistant fonts. The menus and dialogs are also reminiscent of the text mode. Links2 displays images only in graphics mode whether under X or using Framebuffer. It uses external image viewers when operating in text mode (Figure 4).

W3m

W3m [5] almost constitutes a departure from the graphics environment. In text mode, it renders all text in the font used by the terminal. It does use different colors as well as bold face. If the Inline Image Support, (in Ubuntu, look for package w3m-img ) gets installed, then the browser overlays images via Framebuffer or under X on the text terminal. This gives the impression that the images are part of the window (Figure 5).

Figure 5: W3m in the Terminal window with images that have been loaded.

Note that this won't work in your regular Unity/Gnome console. You'll have to use a classic X console like rxvt (sudo apt-get install rxvt ).

Version 0.5.3 of W3m takes up a good 2.1MB of space on the disk. It needs around 10MB of working memory to display the Ubuntu User web page. There is a big difference between W3m and other text-mode browsers in that W3m moves the cursor through web pages just like a text editor. The details for cursor behavior can be specified in settings. Competitors make the user jump via the arrow keys from link to link or among the fields in a form.