Lynx – Text-Based Web Browser

Lynx is the oldest and most widely used text-based web browser for Unix-like systems. Running entirely in the terminal, Lynx renders web pages as text without images, making it invaluable for server administration, accessibility needs, and browsing on systems without graphical interfaces. It excels at quick lookups, testing websites, and automated web interactions.

Key Features

• Pure Text – Works in any terminal without X11
• SSL/TLS Support – Secure HTTPS connections
• Cookie Support – Handle web sessions and authentication
• Forms Handling – Fill out and submit web forms
• Bookmark Management – Save and organize favorite sites
• Dump Mode – Output page content to stdout for scripting
• Accessibility – Works with screen readers

Installation

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install lynx

# RHEL/CentOS/Fedora
sudo dnf install lynx

# Arch Linux
sudo pacman -S lynx

Common Usage Examples

# Browse a website
lynx https://example.com

# Dump page text to terminal
lynx -dump https://example.com

# Accept all cookies
lynx -accept_all_cookies https://site.com

# Non-interactive dump for scripts
lynx -dump -nolist https://example.com > output.txt

# Show page source
lynx -source https://example.com

# Navigation keys:
# Arrow keys - Navigate links
# Enter - Follow link
# Backspace - Go back
# Q - Quit

Use Cases

Lynx is essential for server administration, web scraping scripts, accessibility testing, browsing over SSH, checking website content, and situations where bandwidth is limited.

Download Lynx