HPR4408: Lynx - Old School Browsing

Kevie
, from the
TuxJam
podcast, takes a look at the
Lynx
command line browser and briefly discusses it's uses and if it still has a place in our modern times.

Some Useful Hot-keys:

g
to go to a specific website

m
goes to your start page (Main screen is what Lynx calls it)

o
for options

h
for help

p
for print

q
to quit program

/
search for text on a page

Navigation

<
previous page

>
forward page

up
and
down
move between links on the page. Down or left will also cancel a command if pressed accidentally.

Pg Up
and
Pg Down
scroll up or down a whole screen at a time.

ctrl n
(down or next) and
ctrl p
(up or previous) will move the page up and down a couple of lines

a
will add the current page to the bookmarks list

v
views the list of bookmarks

,
open the current page in another browser

G
displays the URL and allows editing

ctrl L
reloads the current page

Some Basic Config Edits:

Edit the file /etc/lynx/lynx.cfg (You will need to used sudo privileges to edit a system file)

To change the starting page go to Line 111 and add

STARTFILE:YOUR_CHOSEN_PAGE_URL

I used https://duckduckgo.com/lite

Don't forget to comment out the default one at line 105

To change the browser to open a link, go to Line 3141 and add

EXTERNAL:http:BROSWER_LAUNCH_COMMAND %s:TRUE

To use the default browser on modern Linux systems add xdg-open