http://w3m.rocks/

W3M Rocks
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Site dedicated to the finer aspects of W3M, an open-source terminal
web browser (and pager) available for any Unix-like OS.

While traditionally considered a 'backup' recourse for browsing
simple pages in a non-graphical environment, I use it as a primary
browser on all workstations (Linux laptops and Android Tablets inside
Termux).

A handful of key features

  * All HTML entities rendered via ASCII and Unicode
  * No JavaScript
  * No CSS; just basic HTML 4.0 rendering, including tables
  * No images (without terminal hacks). Images viewable externally
    via keystroke.
  * Uniform, basic 8-color palette.
  * Supports buffers and tabs for switching between loaded pages.
  * Interact entirely via customizable keystrokes or even macros
    (also has mouse support)
  * Integrate seamlessly with your terminal editor (ie VIM/Emacs)
  * Navigation/scrolling/searching nearly instantaneous across loaded
    content. No visual delay inherent to graphical browsers.
  * Place and easily navigate across marks within a page
  * Handy as an E-Reader

Merits

View content without modern web bloat

  * No pop-up ads (no JavaScript to render them)
  * No distracting images (without hacks in certain terminals)
  * Emulate the traditional, minimalist web.
  * Reclaim emotional energy and time.
  * Emphasize the actual, pertinent web content

Conserve eyesight

  * No overwhelming styles or colors (or ads or flashy pop-ups)
  * One configurable color scheme for all pages (ie light text on a
    dark background), without external plugins or site customizations

Extremely lightweight

  * No CPU or GPU stress for graphical rendering or JavaScript calls
  * Tiny memory footprint dedicated predominantly to text.
  * Lighter network traffic. Again, only text content to deal with.

Prevails over any graphical browser in performance.

  * Cycle between loaded pages instantaneously. No split-moment (or
    longer) delay to refresh graphical frame-buffers.
  * Performance merits on both ancient and modern hardware. (I've
    used on Android tablets (within Termux), Arch Linux and Debian
    laptops, the $5 Raspberry PI Zero and VPSs)

Where to start

See the howto page.

For further reference,

  * Official W3M manual
  * Official FAQ
  * W3M history

By Vitaly Parnas

(c) 2021 w3m.rocks