One time, a long, long time ago, in a binary world far, far away, one of the most commonly used web browsers was called Lynx. This command line-based web browser enabled users to surf the web without the added headache of flashy graphics and blinkie text. For those of you nostalgic about the text-only internet days (before lolcats were mainstream and Caturday was a holiday) and aching to return to a time when things were simpler, here's an easy way to do so in Terminal.
The easiest way to get the Lynx browser on your Mac is by downloading and installing MacPorts. MacPorts is a package manager that gives you easy install access to more than 7721 different Unix and Linux applications that have been ported to the Mac.
By following the install procedures on the MacPorts website, you’ll be up and running in no time.
Once you have installed MacPorts, open Terminal (located in /Applications/Utilities) and type in the following command:
sudo port install Lynx
After hitting the Enter key, you will be prompted for your password. MacPorts will then begin downloading, compiling, and installing Lynx on your Mac.
After the flashing prompt has returned in Terminal, your install has finished and you can continue on to the next step.
After a successful install of Lynx, you’re now able to surf the web right from the Terminal. Type in the following command to get surfing (replacing http://maclife.com with the website that you’d like to visit):
Lynx http://maclife.com
Lynx will then engage and begin loading the website. It'll look a bit differently than what you're used to seeing, but all the text should be there.
While browsing in Lynx, you may find the following keyboard shortcuts helpful:
- Spacebar will move the page down
- Arrow keys up and down will move the page up or down one line at a time
- Arrow key right will follow a link
- Arrow key left will take you back to the previous page
- H key will take you to the help
- O key will open the options
- P key will let you print (although this has mixed results)
- M key takes you to the main screen
- Q key quits the application
- / key lets you search the page for a keyword
- Delete key takes you the browsing history
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KrzysztofSendor
March 11, 2013 at 6:09pm
"Error: Processing of port Lynx failed" in step 2. What shoud I do now?
Zak Brown
March 19, 2013 at 1:23pm
Yo KrzysztofSendor (well that's a mouthful)
I think I have a possible solution. Have you read over the requirements for macports on the linked page?
If you've got Xcode already installed then you need to go to Xcode's preferences > Downloads and then install the 'Command Line Tools'. If you have already done this then I'm not sure what the solution is :L.
