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The idea of "minimal browsers" is a popular one and there are thriving communities based on this idea: Gopher is a dead simple text-based protocol: https://en

by brabel 6y ago

The idea of "minimal browsers" is a popular one and there are thriving communities based on this idea: Gopher is a dead simple text-based protocol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol) Project Gemini is a slightly more powerful protocol for the small web: https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ https://gemini.circumlunar.space/ The tilde (~) community, which makes the small web social: https://tilde.club/ https://tilde.club/ I recommend you have a look at James Tomasino's Youtube channel, where he shows a bunch of cool stuff going on around Gemini, Gopher and tilde: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoEI6VzybDk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DoEI6VzybDk This is not for everyone, but if what you want is just basic text and functionality that can work from a terminal (though there are GUI browsers too), then this is perfect.

mattowen_uk 6y ago
> Gopher is a dead simple text-based protocol Shameless plug for my own Gopher Client: http://www.mattowen.co.uk/gopher/gopher-client-browser-for-windows http://www.mattowen.co.uk/gopher/gopher-client-browser-for-w...
astrange 6y ago
Is there a modern version of lynx/links using an engine like WebKit? I always thought this would be useful but must admit I never got around to writing it.
- jmercouris 6y ago
  It depends by what you mean. Do you mean Command line accessible version? If so, there are several that work in terminals. Do you mean text only? If so, there are several browsers that can do this for you :-)
  - warpech 6y ago
    Care to provide some working examples? Many that can be found on Google appear to be working prototypes that are not actually usable.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
      Depends on your idea of "usable" of course:), but w3m?
- pridkett 6y ago
  Browsh[0] might come close to what you’re looking for. It’s not strictly designed to be less memory or faster - better for bringing up a browser on a remote system as it still uses a headless instance of Firefox behind the scenes. [0]: https://www.brow.sh/ https://www.brow.sh/
heresie-dabord 6y ago
> The idea of "minimal browsers" is a popular one RSS in a terminal saves time and energy.
girvo 6y ago
I learned about Gopher at the same time I learned about the World Wide Web, in a kids book about Cyberspace in 1996 or so (I was a six year old!). It’s been fun revisiting it as an adult!
alcinnz 6y ago
Shameless plug for my minimal web browser: https://rhapsode.adrian.geek.nz/ https://rhapsode.adrian.geek.nz/ A voice UX was surprisingly easy to implement (given a good platform to build on), newer standards just get in the way of the experience! I'll tackle a visual one soonish...
fouric 6y ago
Neither Gopher nor Gemini are remotely close to being a replacement for the web, as neither support anything close to rich text or media. Gemini doesn't allow for embedding images in web pages - which makes it vastly inferior to the web for any kind of interesting documents. Imagine reading a research paper where, in order to view figures and equations, you had to follow a link to a separate object. No font control. No two-column layout. No anchors to allow you to jump to sections of the document. No metadata to inform you of the authors. Gemini and Gemtext actively inhibit learning and knowledge dissemination by obsessing over pure plain text, which is bad at those things.
- Seirdy 6y ago
  > Gemini doesn't allow for embedding images in web pages - which makes it vastly inferior to the web for any kind of interesting documents. This statement is incorrect. Gemini clients can absolutely display inline images. The difference is that default behavior is to require a user action to load a resource. An image can be a link, but when a user clicks that link it can turn into an inline image. This is how clients like Lagrange work. In other words, inline images can have delayed loading. If a user understands the consequences (tracking, network usage) of doing so, this behavior can be changed to load images by default; however, authors should not expect users to do this and should write their documents accordingly. Personally, I prefer a document to not have inline images; my gemini client opens images in my default image viewer instead. My window manager makes my age viewer float above other windows by default. This way, images "pop out" into a separate window that I can keep viewing as I scroll down in a document; I never have to scroll up to look at the last image. > Imagine reading a research paper where, in order to view figures and equations, you had to follow a link to a separate object. No font control. No two-column layout. No anchors to allow you to jump to sections of the document. These are all client-side features. Half the point of Gemini is for the user agent to determine presentation and leave semantic markup to authors. I don't want weird fonts or multi-column views, but you do; Gemini lets us both get what we want instead of having everyone see a one-size-fits-all presentation. Clients like Kristall even give you a TOC in the sidebar. > Gemini and Gemtext actively inhibit learning and knowledge dissemination by obsessing over pure plain text, which is bad at those things. Text is the only form of communication that can be understood by the sighted, blind, deaf, and machine (translation, etc) while being stored and transmitted without information loss. Text is good at knowledge dissemination.

by brabel 6y ago

mattowen_uk 6y ago

> Gopher is a dead simple text-based protocol Shameless plug for my own Gopher Client: http://www.mattowen.co.uk/gopher/gopher-client-browser-for-windows http://www.mattowen.co.uk/gopher/gopher-client-browser-for-w...

astrange 6y ago

Is there a modern version of lynx/links using an engine like WebKit? I always thought this would be useful but must admit I never got around to writing it.

jmercouris 6y ago
It depends by what you mean. Do you mean Command line accessible version? If so, there are several that work in terminals. Do you mean text only? If so, there are several browsers that can do this for you :-)
- warpech 6y ago
  Care to provide some working examples? Many that can be found on Google appear to be working prototypes that are not actually usable.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 6y ago
    Depends on your idea of "usable" of course:), but w3m?
pridkett 6y ago
Browsh[0] might come close to what you’re looking for. It’s not strictly designed to be less memory or faster - better for bringing up a browser on a remote system as it still uses a headless instance of Firefox behind the scenes. [0]: https://www.brow.sh/ https://www.brow.sh/

heresie-dabord 6y ago

> The idea of "minimal browsers" is a popular one RSS in a terminal saves time and energy.

girvo 6y ago

I learned about Gopher at the same time I learned about the World Wide Web, in a kids book about Cyberspace in 1996 or so (I was a six year old!). It’s been fun revisiting it as an adult!

alcinnz 6y ago

Shameless plug for my minimal web browser: https://rhapsode.adrian.geek.nz/ https://rhapsode.adrian.geek.nz/ A voice UX was surprisingly easy to implement (given a good platform to build on), newer standards just get in the way of the experience! I'll tackle a visual one soonish...

fouric 6y ago

Neither Gopher nor Gemini are remotely close to being a replacement for the web, as neither support anything close to rich text or media. Gemini doesn't allow for embedding images in web pages - which makes it vastly inferior to the web for any kind of interesting documents. Imagine reading a research paper where, in order to view figures and equations, you had to follow a link to a separate object. No font control. No two-column layout. No anchors to allow you to jump to sections of the document. No metadata to inform you of the authors. Gemini and Gemtext actively inhibit learning and knowledge dissemination by obsessing over pure plain text, which is bad at those things.

Seirdy 6y ago
> Gemini doesn't allow for embedding images in web pages - which makes it vastly inferior to the web for any kind of interesting documents. This statement is incorrect. Gemini clients can absolutely display inline images. The difference is that default behavior is to require a user action to load a resource. An image can be a link, but when a user clicks that link it can turn into an inline image. This is how clients like Lagrange work. In other words, inline images can have delayed loading. If a user understands the consequences (tracking, network usage) of doing so, this behavior can be changed to load images by default; however, authors should not expect users to do this and should write their documents accordingly. Personally, I prefer a document to not have inline images; my gemini client opens images in my default image viewer instead. My window manager makes my age viewer float above other windows by default. This way, images "pop out" into a separate window that I can keep viewing as I scroll down in a document; I never have to scroll up to look at the last image. > Imagine reading a research paper where, in order to view figures and equations, you had to follow a link to a separate object. No font control. No two-column layout. No anchors to allow you to jump to sections of the document. These are all client-side features. Half the point of Gemini is for the user agent to determine presentation and leave semantic markup to authors. I don't want weird fonts or multi-column views, but you do; Gemini lets us both get what we want instead of having everyone see a one-size-fits-all presentation. Clients like Kristall even give you a TOC in the sidebar. > Gemini and Gemtext actively inhibit learning and knowledge dissemination by obsessing over pure plain text, which is bad at those things. Text is the only form of communication that can be understood by the sighted, blind, deaf, and machine (translation, etc) while being stored and transmitted without information loss. Text is good at knowledge dissemination.