Surfing the Web Like It's 1992 (Lynx Browser)

In an age where web browsers are practically mini operating systems, complete with GPU acceleration, sandboxed processes, and memory footprints that rival AAA games, there’s something refreshing about using a browser that simply displays content.

Enter Lynx, a text-based browser that’s been quietly doing its job since 1992. No tabs, no ads, no JavaScript… no nonsense.

It feels genuinely nostalgic to use. Plus, there’s a certain charm in telling people you browse the web from the terminal.

What is Lynx?

Lynx is a terminal-based web browser that runs in plaintext environments. It supports browsing over HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and, yes, even Gopher. Designed originally at the University of Kansas, Lynx predates many of the web’s now-essential features. For example:

• It doesn’t support JavaScript.
• It doesn’t render images (though it can show alternate text).
• It does support cookies, basic forms, and SSL.
• Keyboard navigation is the only way to interact with it, making it a pure text experience.
• It can browse Gopher sites natively, making it a rare modern tool for “gopherspace.”

Despite its limitations, it remains one of the fastest and most resource-efficient tools for consuming written content on the web, perfect when you’re SSH’ed into a server or working on legacy hardware.

Why Use Lynx in 2025?

1. Speed

Lynx is fast, not “Chrome on a new MacBook” fast, but “loads-before-you-let-go-of-Enter” fast. By skipping over images, scripts, and layout styling, pages render in milliseconds. Even modern sites like Wikipedia or plain blogs open almost instantly.

2. Minimal Distractions

No pop-ups, autoplay videos, cookie banners, modals, newsletter popovers, or “Accept our Privacy Terms” screens. Just pure HTML content and links. In Lynx, websites forget how to annoy you.

3. Built-in Resilience

Lynx laughs at broken layouts, unresponsive scripts, and bloated frameworks. Most modern websites degrade into something readable when JavaScript is turned off. Lynx makes that default behavior.

(That React app with 12MB of JS? Let’s just say Lynx won’t be impressed.)

4. Works Virtually Anywhere

Got an old ThinkPad? Raspberry Pi Zero? A VM running with 128MB RAM? Lynx runs there. As long as the system boots and has a terminal, Lynx will quietly do its job.

5. Privacy by Simplicity

Lynx doesn’t run JavaScript, and therefore can’t execute most tracking scripts, fingerprinting code, or third-party analytics. You’re effectively invisible to the modern marketing stack.

Cookies are optional and can be toggled off. (Yes, it asks politely.)

6. Surprisingly Functional

You can:

• Fill out basic forms.
• Follow relative and absolute links.
• View plain downloads and text attachments.
• Connect over HTTPS just fine.
• Customize bookmarks.
• Use keybindings for just about everything.
• Browse Gopher directories and menus, for when you want to see the web as it was before the web was the web.

Sure, you can’t shop on Amazon or edit Google Docs, but you can read Hacker News, parse blog posts, or browse your own local HTML notes.

Also, Lynx is a great way to read documentation:

Installing Lynx

• On Arch Linux: sudo pacman -S lynx
• On Ubuntu/Debian: sudo apt install lynx
• On macOS (via Homebrew): brew install lynx
• On Windows: I don’t really know…

Basic Usage

lynx example.com

• Arrow keys move around.
• Enter selects a link.
• Left arrow goes back.
• ( and ) to jump half-page up or down.
• Q quits.
• o opens options (yes, lowercase ‘o’).
• Press / to search for text on a page.

Customize it via ~/.lynxrc or ~/lynx.cfg to tweak privacy, rendering, and key behavior.

This is mine for example:

INCLUDE:/etc/lynx.cfg

# edits by shivi
SET_COOKIES:FALSE
ACCEPT_ALL_COOKIES:FALSE
COLOR:6:blue:black
USERAGENT:"Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)"

(yes, I set my user agent to Googlebot, don’t ask why)

Gopher Support

Lynx makes it simple to visit Gopher servers, just enter a Gopher URL, e.g.:

lynx gopher://gopher.floodgap.com

You’ll get the famed Gopher directory-listing interface, with classic ASCII navigation. It’s the closest you can get to digital time travel in your terminal.

Quirks

• No tabs. You browse one page at a time (though tmux or screen helps).
• No mouse support, arrow keys and shortcuts only.
• Many modern websites may not work or may be entirely blank due to reliance on JavaScript.
• Some HTTPS configurations (especially with modern TLS protocols) may not be compatible out of the box.
• It can’t display PDFs, images, video, or anything that isn’t basically HTML, plaintext, or Gopher content. But, you can download those files and view them on a client that supports them.

But this is what makes Lynx useful. It strips away the modern web’s complexity and lets you focus on the content. If you need to fill out a form or read a blog post, Lynx is there for you. It often allows you to bypass paywalls and other content restrictions that rely on JavaScript.

So, there are a lot of great use cases for Lynx, especially if you want to read content quickly without distractions.

Scenario	Lynx is a great fit
Reading Wikipedia at terminal speed	✅
Checking server status over SSH	✅
Browsing from a headless Raspberry Pi	✅
Quickly skimming documentation	✅
Digging through Gopher menus	✅
Watching YouTube or using banking apps	❌

I should mention, there are other text-based browsers like w3m and Links, but I enjoy using Lynx most.

Tweaks & Tips

• Disable all cookies by default:

    lynx -accept_all_cookies=FALSE
  

• Set a homepage:

  Edit ~/.lynxrc:

    STARTFILE:https://duckduckgo.com
  

• Set up a quick alias:

    alias lynxsafe='lynx -accept_all_cookies=FALSE'
  

• Read local documentation:

    lynx /usr/share/doc/bash/README
  

• View man pages as HTML:
  Convert a man page to HTML and open in Lynx.

    # man page of ls
    man -Hlynx ls # yes, without a space in between -H and lynx
  

DuckDuckGo Searches with Lynx + ddgr

For a handy, privacy-friendly search workflow, you can combine Lynx with ddgr, a command-line DuckDuckGo search utility. Simply set:

export BROWSER=lynx
ddgr query

ddgr will let you quickly search results and open them in Lynx, so you can zip around the web (and Gopherspace) without ever touching a graphical browser.

Let me show you an example of how I use it. I use fish shell, so I added this to my config.fish together with the lynx.cfg file I mentioned earlier:

function search --wraps='ddgr' --description 'DuckDuckGo search with Lynx using custom config'
    env LYNX_CFG=~/lynx.cfg BROWSER=lynx ddgr $argv
end

alias s="search"

Final Thoughts

Lynx is not trying to compete with Chrome or Firefox (that you should customize…). It’s focused on a narrow use case: fast, reliable access to content, especially text, when every byte and cycle counts. Whether you’re a sysadmin, a minimalist, or just someone who appreciates tools that do one thing well, Lynx is worth exploring.

Will it replace your main browser? Probably not.

Will it make you nostalgic for a simpler, quieter web? Absolutely.

So give it a spin, hell you could even read this blog post in Lynx…