TMO Quick Tip - Fast Web Browsing with Lynx

by , 7:30 AM EST, January 22nd, 2007

Safari, Firefox, and OmniWeb are all great Web browsers that render most modern sites, display videos and play audio so you can experience the Internet in multimedia goodness, but that isn't always the best way to view all that the Web has to offer. For some, a taste of the old-school graphics-free style of Web crawling is the way to go - which is why Lynx is a handy tool to add to your Internet utility belt.

Lynx was developed back in the early 1990's as a text-only browser, which at the time was all that was really necessary. Even today, Lynx maintains its basic interface style and multimedia-free way of displaying Web site content.


The Apple Web site in Safari...

I like using Lynx to look up information when I have to use my cell phone for an Internet connection with my PowerBook. Since the browser doesn't load graphics, it saves on the time it takes to load a site, and even sites that are otherwise fairly complex tend to load quickly. The downside is that sites that rely on something other than HTML, like Flash, aren't going to load.


...and the same page in Lynx.

For other people, however, Lynx is more than just a convenience. Since you navigate Web pages with your keyboard arrow keys and only see text, the browser is also adaptable to users with physical disabilities.

Lynx is free, and you can download it from the GNU Mac OSX public archive Web site.

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