# Does anyone still use Lynx (or other non-graphical browsers?) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 5, 2017, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515 "2017-07-05T00:33:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/1 "2017-07-05T00:33:39Z")
I was walking down memory lane, and was surprised to find the last (?) stable release [here](http://lynx.browser.org/lynx2.8.8/index.html), Lynx v2.8.8., from February _2014_. Was it being maintained by hobbyists? FTR, from **[The Lynx Manifesto](http://world.std.com/~adamg/manifesto.html)** (8/23/1997): The Lynx Manifesto Enough’s enough. The World-Wide Web promises a new way to let people communicate. But too many Web designers are being bewitched by “multimedia” - they load their sites with gigantic graphics, embedded sound clips and animation. There’s nothing wrong with that, as far as it goes. But increasingly, these Web designers are forgetting to include Lynx, one of the first Web browsers, in their HTML code. But Netscape is so cool Yes, but not everybody can, or even wants to, use Netscape or Mosaic. Some of us are quite happy with our 286s and 386s and see no reason to spend several hundred dollars to upgrade to Windows. Some of us are blind and can’t use a graphical interface. And some of us realize that, freed from the dependence on increasingly complex graphics, Lynx offers a faster way to find information on the Internet than Netscape or Mosaic. Making a Web site Lynx friendly doesn’t mean giving up all those snazzy graphics. HTML includes simple ways for designers to show a text message to Lynx users where Netscape users would see a picture. Text tool bars or links to text-only pages are other ways to ensure that Lynx users can navigate a site. [snip] I used it when it first came out all through grad school on a DEC, and was absolutely astonished when I saw a graphic (a photo) from the Web on my friend’s new PC. Five guesses for what that first photo he showed me was. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/2 "2017-07-05T01:59:21Z")
Your own [link](http://invisible-island.net/lynx/lynx-develop.html) mostly answers your question: [QUOTE=Thomas E. Dickey] I got involved with Lynx development by working with Jim Spath on an auto-configure script for Lynx. I have also made changes for Lynx that allow you to build it using the color support in the ncurses library. Since the release of Lynx 2.8 in early 1998, I have been acting as the patch coordinator for a group of people (including myself) doing ongoing development on Lynx. Besides ongoing support for the configure script, etc., I have done work to make lynx more robust (e.g., secure). […] However, things change. Paul Vixie left ISC in mid-2013 to form a new company. At the time, that did not affect Lynx—from ISC’s standpoint Lynx was just a box in a rack of servers. For the last four years of Lynx’s stay at ISC, I did all of the software maintenance for the project. Still, a box in a rack costs money for electricity. Late in 2015, ISC shifted away from this style of project support, to reduce costs. I expanded my website to incorporate Lynx (roughly doubling the size of the site). [/QUOTE] I read this that yes, it is being maintained by volunteers, principally Thomas E. Dickey. It is true that the latest stable release, Version 2.8.8, is dated February 2014, but the change log clearly indicates that “[w]e are currently working on Lynx 2.8.9” with the latest changes dated July 4, 2017, so it looks like development is active, not just a memory. And yes, I use it all the time. A lot of Real Computers (as opposed to kids’ toys) lack a graphical interface, you know. ---
**Author:** ![Weisshund](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ba8739/32.png) [@Weisshund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weisshund)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/3 "2017-07-05T02:17:59Z")
I use it in my linux server, because it does not have X installed, to no GUI It works fine for the things i would use it to look up on the server, which would be text anyways. Way way back, i used it all the time, so did everyone else at that time ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/4 "2017-07-05T03:15:04Z")
> [@DPRK](#): > > And yes, I use it all the time. A lot of Real Computers (as opposed to kids’ toys) lack a graphical interface, you know. Yeah, I used it often to test what the web server serves locally on some boxes. It’s more of a testing tool for me, but it still works remarkably well when you have to view a web page and don’t have access to a gui. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/5 "2017-07-05T03:39:31Z")
Very few people use Lynx. But plenty of people use other non-graphical browsers. The two main categories of non-graphical browsers are the blind, who use audio browsers, and search engine spiders. In both cases, the same things that make a page Lynx-compatible (like alt tags on images) will make them more accessible. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/6 "2017-07-05T05:22:17Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Five guesses for what that first photo he showed me was. Lena Söderberg would be my first guess. The Mandrill would be be my second. Random porn my third. It has been ages since I used Lynx, but when I needed it, it was the only viable option. Configuring random devices via their web interface using Lynx is something that can get out out of trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Melbourne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5e925/32.png) [@Melbourne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Melbourne)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/7 "2017-07-05T10:22:00Z")
Last I looked, Lynx still doesn’t support javascript. On the wider internet, perhaps 5% of the sites won’t show any content at all without javascript. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/8 "2017-07-05T11:09:48Z")
I run … let me check … version 2.8.9dev.8 (21 Dec 2015) on those few servers I have only terminal access to. It’s perfectly fine for what I need (mostly checking how to do things) - most of those sites are fairly Lynx-friendly ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/9 "2017-07-05T12:05:03Z")
I used it a few months ago to setup a fun little headless network boxette. I needed to load new firmware and utilities onto it from the Net. The site that hosted the files had switched to https so the simple wget listed in the how-tos no longer worked. Lynx to the rescue. And that’s not the only time in the past year. All involving headless boxettes. (In those cases Pi Zeros.) I also installed and tested Mosaic on my main box recently. It crashed on most sites. It’s rather astonishing it starts up on Windows 7 at all. (Hmm, testing the Dope. Error response from server. But at least it didn’t crash. Testing the Dope on Lynx under Cygwin. Functional but the resulting psychedelic text coloring! Horrible to look at. Where’s the \*\*\*\* configuration file?) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/10 "2017-07-05T13:19:07Z")
OK, Lena I know\*, but what’s the Mandrill? Google brings up plenty of images of the colorful-faced primate, but I’m not seeing anything that would be an iconic image from the early days of the Web. \*for those who don’t know, some early researcher in image processing used a scan of Playboy centerfold Lena Söderberg (cropped enough to be SFW) as a test image, and the image caught on to the point that it was used by people who didn’t even realize the origin. Playboy could have asserted their copyright and forbidden its use, but by the time they realized, it was already so widespread that they instead bowed to the inevitable. ---
**Author:** ![sweepkick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@sweepkick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sweepkick)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/11 "2017-07-05T17:46:47Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > OK, Lena I know\*, but what’s the Mandrill? Google brings up plenty of images of the colorful-faced primate, but I’m not seeing anything that would be an iconic image from the early days of the Web. > \*for those who don’t know, some early researcher in image processing used a scan of Playboy centerfold Lena Söderberg (cropped enough to be SFW) as a test image, and the image caught on to the point that it was used by people who didn’t even realize the origin. Playboy could have asserted their copyright and forbidden its use, but by the time they realized, it was already so widespread that they instead bowed to the inevitable. This is the mandrill image I thought of: [https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/images/baboon.jpg](https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/images/baboon.jpg) That image seemed to be pretty widespread in use back when computer graphics were just starting to become photorealistic. I wouldn’t say it was really relevant to early web, more early computer graphics capabilities. > **[A Critical History of Computer Graphics and Animation](https://www.blendernation.com/2007/04/28/a-critical-history-of-computer-graphics-and-animation/)** > > Have you heard of the Stanford bunny? How about the Utah teapot? And how does a Mandrill primate, found in the tropical rainforests of southern Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and Congo have… ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/12 "2017-07-05T19:26:22Z")
Lena, the Utah teapot, the mandrill, and sundry other graphics icons are gathered in [this repository](http://sipi.usc.edu/database/). Wiki has an entry on Lena (“[Lenna](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenna)”); full nsfw shot and photo of her in 1997 (Year of the Manifesto!) [here](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/); IEEE itself dubbed her “[an information age Madonna](http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~chuck/lennapg/pcs_mirror/may_june01.pdf).” The answer, BTW, to OP challenge was #3, random porn. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/13 "2017-07-05T20:13:41Z")
Porn was going to be my guess, too, and was going to be disappointed if it wasn’t the correct answer. That said, while I’m familiar with the mandrill image, I had no idea about Lena (or even who she was), so the aside was educational for me. ---
**Author:** ![Disheavel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e274bd/32.png) [@Disheavel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Disheavel)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/14 "2017-07-05T21:26:50Z")
Yes! We use it multiple times a day. We use it to download research articles from outside a firewall and then mail it to ourselves- it is simpler than opening up a vpn or tunnel. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/15 "2017-07-05T23:11:16Z")
By far, the biggest user of a non-graphical browser is **Google**! Their search algorithm scans the web constantly, and is quite non-graphical, looking only at the content (text) of websites and the links to/from them to determine placement in their search results. And search engines like Google, etc. are a very important part of the internet. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-anyone-still-use-lynx-or-other-non-graphical-browsers/790515/16 "2017-07-06T00:10:25Z")
I found lynx to be very useful to check out if pages were ADA compliant. You could see how a screen reader would display the page.