{"slug": "elinks", "name": "elinks", "category": "terminal", "category_name": "Terminal and shell", "description": "", "recommenders": 3, "commenters": 6, "warners": 0, "score": 3.31, "rising": -0.98, "first": "2025-11-05", "latest": "2026-07-23", "why": "ELinks is the TUI browser I've used since .... forever.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 3, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "ELinks is the TUI browser I've used since .... forever.", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": "github.com/rkd77/elinks", "official_url": "https://github.com/rkd77/elinks", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["elinks", "ELinks"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 766311313, "item_id": 47894457, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47894457", "by": "1vuio0pswjnm7", "date": "2026-04-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "initially lynx but I quickly switched to links/elinks", "excerpt": "\"going back to gopher or text-only browsers feels like admitting defeat tbh.\" Interesting perspective I have been using text-only browsers continually since the mid 90s, initially lynx but I quickly switched to links/elinks when it became available As such, I never \"went back\" to using the text-only browser as I have always used one, but as graphical browsers became worse I used them less The customised text-only bro", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Using the internet like it's 1999"}, {"id": 742135488, "item_id": 46383468, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46383468", "by": "rhdunn", "date": "2025-12-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used elinks once to find a solution to an issue where the login screen was broken after an upgrade", "excerpt": "I used elinks once to find a solution to an issue where the login screen was broken after an upgrade. I was able to switch to a virtual console, find out about the issue, identify the commands to fix the issue, and use them to resolve the issue.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal web browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "CSRF Protection Without Tokens or Hidden Form Fields"}, {"id": 733320288, "item_id": 45832518, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45832518", "by": "jasonjayr", "date": "2025-11-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ELinks is the TUI browser I've used since .... forever.", "excerpt": "ELinks is the TUI browser I've used since .... forever. https://github.com/rkd77/elinks", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal web browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ratatui \u2013 App Showcase"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["terminal web browsing", "web browsing on netbook"], "compared": [{"slug": "links", "name": "links", "co": 7, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "lynx", "name": "Lynx", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "firefox", "name": "Firefox", "co": 3, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "dillo", "name": "Dillo", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "mpv", "name": "mpv", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "w3m", "name": "w3m", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "yt-dlp", "name": "yt-dlp", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49021647", "title": "Brow6el: A full-featured web browser for the terminal using Chromium", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48907063", "title": "Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47881198", "title": "Using the internet like it's 1999", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46351666", "title": "CSRF Protection Without Tokens or Hidden Form Fields", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46099997", "title": "Hacking on the ReMarkable 2", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45830829", "title": "Ratatui \u2013 App Showcase", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 784464593, "item_id": 49029037, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49029037", "by": "westurner", "date": "2026-07-23", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "elinks -dump -no-references -dump-width 79", "excerpt": "My mistake! Lynx and elinks still work but don't exec JS or WASM. Cloudflare Browser Isolation runs part of the browser in the cloud, which might work for TUIs .. Research open source solutions for self-hosting remote browser isolation; Like these browser isolation Chrome extensions: https://www.legba.app/blog/best-browser-isolation-extensions-chrome-2026 And these: RBI: remote-browser-isolation \u00b7 GitHub Topics https", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Brow6el: A full-featured web browser for the terminal using Chromium"}, {"id": 783298115, "item_id": 48956132, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48956132", "by": "MayeulC", "date": "2026-07-18", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used to mostly use Dillo and elinks", "excerpt": "I still use my Samsung n130, though I went with Alpine after Arch dropped support for 32 bit (there were a few pain points with Arch 32 in the early days, I tried guix but it was too slow and guix uses a lot of RAM during updates). It works decently, is sufficient for ssh-ing into other hosts. Though web browsing is a pain. I used to mostly use Dillo and elinks, MPV+yt-dlp for videos. Unfortunately I left it sit for ", "context": "", "use_case": "web browsing on netbook", "switched_from": "", "story": "Reviving a 15-year-old netbook with Arch Linux"}, {"id": 766311313, "item_id": 47894457, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47894457", "by": "1vuio0pswjnm7", "date": "2026-04-24", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "initially lynx but I quickly switched to links/elinks", "excerpt": "\"going back to gopher or text-only browsers feels like admitting defeat tbh.\" Interesting perspective I have been using text-only browsers continually since the mid 90s, initially lynx but I quickly switched to links/elinks when it became available As such, I never \"went back\" to using the text-only browser as I have always used one, but as graphical browsers became worse I used them less The customised text-only bro", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Using the internet like it's 1999"}, {"id": 742135488, "item_id": 46383468, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46383468", "by": "rhdunn", "date": "2025-12-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I used elinks once to find a solution to an issue where the login screen was broken after an upgrade", "excerpt": "I used elinks once to find a solution to an issue where the login screen was broken after an upgrade. I was able to switch to a virtual console, find out about the issue, identify the commands to fix the issue, and use them to resolve the issue.", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal web browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "CSRF Protection Without Tokens or Hidden Form Fields"}, {"id": 737713523, "item_id": 46107095, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46107095", "by": "eloeffler", "date": "2025-12-01", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Terminal emulators and lynx/elinks/links/w3c work, too.", "excerpt": "I remember having run netsurf from toltec. Netsurf isn't fun on many websites but it should be enough for rendering HTML content from RSS, no? Terminal emulators and lynx/elinks/links/w3c work, too. And terminal RSS readers. HTML rendering is also possible with KOreader which runs well on rM2, come to think about it. Here is the repo for netsurf https://github.com/alex0809/netsurf-reMarkable", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Hacking on the ReMarkable 2"}, {"id": 733320288, "item_id": 45832518, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45832518", "by": "jasonjayr", "date": "2025-11-05", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "ELinks is the TUI browser I've used since .... forever.", "excerpt": "ELinks is the TUI browser I've used since .... forever. https://github.com/rkd77/elinks", "context": "", "use_case": "terminal web browsing", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ratatui \u2013 App Showcase"}]}