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hpr_transcripts/hpr4408.txt

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+Episode: 4408
+Title: HPR4408: Lynx - Old School Browsing
+Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr4408/hpr4408.mp3
+Transcribed: 2025-10-26 00:22:16
+
+---
+
+This is Hacker Public Radio episode 4408 for Wednesday the 25th of June 2025.
+Today's show is entitled, Link's Old School Browsing.
+It is hosted by Kevin and is about 23 minutes long.
+It carries a clean flag.
+The summary is, Givi takes a look at the Link's command lying browser.
+Hello hello, welcome to another episode of Hacker Public Radio.
+This is Kivi from the Tuckstjam podcast and today I'm going to talk about the Link's
+LYNX.
+This is something different because this is a command lying browser.
+Yes, you did actually hear that right.
+So before I actually go into any detail, I'm going to speak a wee bit about it so that then you can decide whether or not you're actually going to continue and maybe even test this out.
+So first of all, why in this day and age do we want a command lying browser?
+Well, I don't know about you, but at any time I need to research, especially if it is something more for work.
+I am very, very guilty of I'll check something or there's something there that looks interesting.
+Okay, I'll click that.
+You're distracted. You're so distracted.
+So actually to jump online and just look for something, one specific bit of information and not get distracted, does require an awful lot of discipline.
+So that is actually the reason that I actually have this.
+I've actually, it's the same reason I kind of use mud now and again, I don't use it for everything, but if I'm
+want to purely focus on what I don't get distracted by things that are coming into my inbox.
+So that is the main reason.
+Now, there is also a wee bit in nostalgia around this.
+Those of us who are old enough to remember teletext or c-facts or oracle.
+Like we called it a few different things in the UK.
+It was more or less like the internet surfing the way before it ever existed.
+And it kind of does bring you back to that because obviously there's no graphics.
+It's all just text.
+So it does give you a wee bit of nostalgia trip.
+It's not I like for like, don't think you're going to get all the blocky graphics and things.
+Those old 8-bit graphics that teletext had.
+I don't even know if it was 8-bit, it might have been less than that.
+But they were certainly nothing compared to today's stuff.
+So that is the main reason.
+It's also because there's no graphics and it's only text.
+This is going to be very useful for anybody with a very limited amount of data.
+Or maybe they've just got a poor connection.
+There's plenty of places we take it for granted in this part of the world that everybody has a similar connection to us.
+But we have to remember that not everywhere is the UK or the US.
+There are going to be parts of the world where maybe the data is exceptionally limited.
+So supposing you do actually pay for it, you're still not going to get the same experience.
+And certainly I know even within their own country here, my Toxjam co-host Dave,
+he speaks about the connection he gets.
+And I think it's about 500 mega MPS.
+That's his connection.
+Whereas I'm getting, I'm actually one of the best places on the island for internet.
+And my limit is about 55.
+And to be honest, I'm actually quite happy with that.
+But it's not even comparable to the things that you can get if you're maybe further down south in the country.
+So that's actually the reason why.
+So if you are still listening and if you want to continue, I'm going to go over a wee bit about links.
+So it is still an active development.
+It seems to be a one-man project.
+So just be aware that the releases do tend to be quite slow.
+Updates are quite slow.
+So it's still, now I'm going to be running this on Linux Mint.
+And I'm just installing it from the command line.
+So I'm just using app.
+So pseudo apt install links.
+And it'll run really quickly.
+That's all you need.
+Obviously different distros and different.
+Especially with different package managers.
+You're going to have to use that to your own.
+But it does seem to be on.
+It does seem to be available on most distros.
+In fact, the actual claim is that it's currently the oldest of all the browsers available.
+It was started.
+Now give me a wee sec.
+It was started actually in 1992, just 33 years ago.
+And it's still being developed.
+Of course, in one reason why I said actually about it, why would you use it?
+Certainly privacy.
+Now it will accept cookies.
+So just be aware of that.
+However, for privacy and security, it's actually not a bad thing.
+Most of the things that are sent through are Java scripts.
+They're through graphical applications or adverts, etc.
+That can't load on this.
+So it doesn't even give an alternative.
+It just almost behaves like it's not there.
+So that really is one big feature on it.
+Now like I said, this is definitely a Marmite browser.
+You might say you're either going to love our hate.
+But when you start off, the first thing you're going to get is just by typing in links.
+Now you can, if you want from the terminal, type in like links space dot dot go dot com.
+And it'll take you straight there.
+But there is what it calls a main page or what I would refer to as a home page.
+And it's just really a bit about links and the history of it and using it.
+It's just more or less like a kind of introductory to the manual kind of thing.
+So that's what you get first of all.
+And first thing you're going to probably want to do is go somewhere else.
+So if you press G, that will take you to a very specific size.
+Press G, you can take, you have to type in where you want to go.
+So let's just say G dot dot go dot com.
+Okay.
+Press Enter then it'll go.
+Then if you press M, that's equal to your home button or main screen as they call it.
+So that will take you back to whatever your main screen is.
+Now just because it is that manual page by default, that is not what you have to keep it to.
+Okay.
+So you can press O and it gives you a variety of options.
+H for help.
+P for print.
+Q will quit the program.
+You can also quit with a control.
+See that works as well.
+Now when you're actually getting it to start browsing.
+Like I said, press G and the type in the web address, you want the URL.
+So go for that.
+And so for example, right?
+And so I'm just going to go.
+G and right now, I'm just going to load up now.
+Not every page is going to load up perfectly.
+And in fact, in all truth, the majority of pages are just going to give you a list of menus at the start.
+So the first thing you probably want to do on most pages is.
+Press page down because page up page down will move a whole screen down.
+Although to be honest, I'm not actually a big fan of reading like that.
+I like to kind of keep the thing scrolling just nicely.
+And it does offer you that.
+It's not that easy to remember though at the start.
+It took me a while to get this into my head.
+So if you hold down control and press N.
+I just think of it as I don't know, new or something or next control day.
+Well, it's just jump it down a couple of lines.
+If you want to go back up the page, control P.
+So again, maybe next and previous something like that.
+You can think of.
+So that will take you back up the page.
+So that's just for those who like just scrolling down a bit at a time.
+However, page up page down work fine.
+The up and down arrows, what they do is they jump to different links.
+Okay, they jump to the next link, next link, the next basically clickable link.
+So that could be fine, but if you've got a page of a lot of just text,
+it might jump a huge amount in the page.
+So I wouldn't use that now using the left and right arrow keys.
+They will go left to go back and right will go forward.
+Obviously, if you're just visiting a site for the first time,
+right does absolutely nothing because there is no forward.
+So just be aware that it seems to be if you accidentally hit something
+and it comes up with a.
+It comes up with a menu or it asks you to put an input.
+Using the arrow keys will generally cancel that.
+So if you've got a menu where it's like it's all five vertical options, let's see.
+Then up and down just goes through that, but if you press left or right,
+it does tend to just come back out of there.
+So just be really pressing escape.
+Either way, it doesn't seem to do much except cause it to kind of delay for a couple of seconds.
+So don't do what I did the first few times and hit escape.
+Yeah, so if we're going to URL.
+So I'm just going to go to hacker public radio.
+So let's have a look.
+Hacker public radio dot org presenter and here it is.
+So actually, hacker public radio is pretty good.
+I have to confess.
+So normally you get a huge list, long list of menus and you can go.
+So if I do the control end, it's scrolling down.
+So I've got latest shows.
+In fact, today's one is the community news.
+So if now the good thing is when you do do that and you move the screen,
+if you press left and right, it will only go to the,
+it'll start from the link that's on the screen.
+So it doesn't go right the way back to the top of the page.
+So pressing right going into the community news.
+It's all there.
+I'm not actually going to actually I'm curious here because I've never done this to.
+Listen, there's live here.
+So I click on the org.
+What does it do?
+It's trying to do something.
+It's downloading the org file.
+Okay, then actually I'm going to have no idea where this goes because I usually just use this for text.
+And it's brought it up in VLC.
+Right.
+Okay, then.
+It's okay.
+That's quite handy to know.
+Right.
+Okay.
+So I had to, I actually did a control C and it brought me back to the web page.
+One side closed VLC.
+Okay.
+I'm quite glad it didn't actually start playing.
+They said that would have been an editing job for this.
+Right.
+So, okay.
+So if I want to go back to hit the left key and back on the page.
+Now, so obviously one of the things you're not going to need that manual page,
+especially after the first few times you use this.
+So probably in all honesty, I would recommend that you set the main page at home page
+to whatever, whatever your favorite search engine is.
+Okay.
+So that's for something we're going to do just in a week while.
+So not quite yet.
+So sluff you other things to do.
+So if you are on a page like someone hack a public where you just now.
+So if I press A, it says you want to save this as a document in which case I'll download
+the text or link L or I can cancel it.
+So I'm going to put L for a link and I'm just going to call it HPR.
+And there we go.
+It just tells me done.
+Now if I want to view those, press view.
+And there we go, just pressing scroll to it, press return, go straight away.
+Now, some of the times I said you will get not action awful lot, but if you go to our
+page where it's something like which all videos are heavily, heavily graphic.
+A lot of them actually have next to no text.
+So let's say YouTube or something like that.
+Or if you were to go on to our website, let me try something here.
+Like I said, I don't know the reason I haven't been a wee bit weird is I don't normally use
+it for this kind of thing.
+So if I were to go on to YouTube, now it's what's thinking about it.
+Right.
+Do you want to accept cookies bare in mind this will allow you cookies.
+So that's one privacy feature I'm not so fond of.
+So I'm actually with no.
+Right.
+It's all it's asking me to do is do I want to accept cookies.
+Am I going to have to say yes?
+Okay.
+Now it's come on.
+Okay.
+So all I've got is a page of alternative alternative alternative alternative.
+But let's just say that you actually needed a web page that either said it was unavailable
+or it was something like this where that actually was a video on it.
+Then what you can do is if you press the question mark, comma, then you'll be given an option.
+Now this is where it's showing.
+It's a wee bit of a date here because by default you get W3M.
+You can download it with WGate or you do the XWW browser.
+Those are the three options, the four options that you get.
+There's two WGate versions.
+And that's actually not too much use to us who are with Wayland because obviously XWW browser no longer works for us.
+So we're going to need to use xdg-open and then the website.
+And we'll go with that in a way minute because this is one good thing about it.
+It's quite configurable like that.
+So we can actually change that and I'll go over that shortly.
+Oh, so yeah, I think that's pretty much all I really can do.
+I'm not going to sit and start just to have you listen to me browsing Internet pages.
+Oh yeah, now be wary.
+Some of the commands they are different for if their capitals are not.
+So if, for example, you want to go to the current website and you're wanting to let's just say you've maybe mistyped it.
+So rather than mistyped, rather than retyping the whole thing.
+If you hold down Shift and G to give you a capital G, it'll tell you where you are.
+So right now I'm on youtube.com.
+So well, it's not showing me very much.
+So I can just edit that.
+So let's just say instead I want to go to I don't know BBC.
+And I'll type in news. There we go.
+So this comes up straight away and this is what I was talking about.
+I've got a whole page of just menu options.
+So all those collapsible menus that you would click on where they're normally be hidden.
+And they're there right in front of you.
+So page down.
+And I've still got half a page of menus.
+So I'll do control end just to get rid of all these.
+So now, yep, working as normal.
+So live.
+Starmer says you came moving to what fighting readiness I see unveils defense spending plans.
+Then it shows the.
+All these are clickable.
+So then it just shows just generally a.
+A description, a short description.
+That's in purple.
+And then you've got orange.
+And this is clear to just alternative text for that picture.
+So yeah, so that shows you actually what you can do.
+So if you want, if it's something like so obviously that's live.
+If you hit control L, that will reload.
+Reload the page.
+So that can refresh the page for you.
+So that can certainly be quite handy.
+Now, if to make this a wee bit more usable, right?
+What we can do is we can edit the file links dot CFG.
+Now on Linux, that is stored at slash ETC slash links.
+So choose whatever editing program you prefer.
+I just like now.
+No, it's just easier for me.
+It's just the one I'm used to.
+Whichever one you want, open that up.
+Now remember, that's in the file system.
+So you will have to use to do with that.
+You'll have to become a super user privileges for this.
+So the first thing we're wanting to do is decide first of all
+where you want to go every time you open up this browser.
+Or what's your main page, your home page?
+Now, I've just got duck duck go.
+So what you want to do is go to the line 111, 111 line.
+And you want to add, now this will be in the show notes.
+So if you don't want to do this as I'm typing it, that's fine.
+So now, all capitals you want start file and then a colon.
+And then just put in whatever you want the website to be.
+So I've got HTTPS, colon, forward slash forward slash duck.go.com forward slash light.
+Because I had duck duck go, but then it was always redirecting me.
+So I just changed it to that.
+And also, if you look at line 105, you'll see there a start file.
+Or it's around about there anyway.
+You'll see a start file where it shows you the current one.
+Don't forget to comment that out because if you don't comment that out,
+it'll still load up that kind of a start manual page that's already got.
+So make sure you do that.
+Now, if you want to change the browser to open a link, then we need to go to line 3141.
+And we need to add, now, if you just want to use the default graphical browser,
+that's fine, this is easy.
+So it's external, all in half uppercase, external uppercase, colon, and HTTP,
+and then colon, because that's just telling you what it's going to open there.
+And then you want the browser launch command.
+So you just want there to open up the default browser.
+It's xdg-open, and then print a space, and then percent s, and then a colon,
+and then uppercase true.
+However, you don't actually have to have your default one.
+Let's just say you wanted to put, you can be more than one there as well.
+It just means that when you press the comma button, it's going to give you more options.
+So let's just say you wanted one for Firefox, one for Chromium, one for, I don't know,
+Brave, one for Vivaldi.
+I don't know, you decide, right?
+Then all you need to do there is put in the launch command for that,
+and you can have this over multiple lines.
+So you can add as many as you want, just bear in mind if you have too many,
+then you are going to essentially have quite a big long list to walk you way through.
+So it's only if you want to test out, if you want to open things on different sites,
+that I would recommend that.
+No, then.
+So I mean, that's pretty much it.
+The one thing that I would really like to be able to do with this,
+that I can't seem to, is to change the key bindings.
+And I've looked a few times at this, and it doesn't seem to be an obvious way.
+It seems to be that they're kind of hardwired.
+And there are ones where you can use it to use things like them, key bindings and things,
+but as far as making your own ones, I still would really like that,
+controlling, control P to be something a wee bit nicer.
+But at the end of the day, I can live with this.
+Now, is this going to become your default browser?
+I wouldn't believe so.
+However, like I said, I initially wrote it off when I first seen it.
+I thought, this is an outdated scheme.
+It's just good for nostalgia.
+It's good for a wee bit of retro theme.
+If you want a wee bit of retro browsing.
+But I've actually started using it more and more.
+Like I said, specifically when I don't want distractions,
+there's no adverts there telling me to go anywhere.
+There's no, there's no anything.
+Even if I wanted to go to watch a video,
+it's not even there in my face.
+I would really have to go ahead of the way and make an effort to it.
+So I would recommend it if you find you're distracted very easily
+on your productivity and you're just looking for information.
+You're just looking for raw text.
+This is absolutely ideal.
+Is it the prettiest browser in the world?
+Absolutely not.
+Is it even the most functional?
+No.
+However, that's actually an advantage because it means it can't run
+on over a lot of these scripts that might potentially damage
+your computer or give away information.
+Just one thing to be aware of though,
+it does use cookies if you accept them.
+So just be aware of that.
+Well, that's always kind of a bit of a security issue there.
+Just to want to watch.
+Right.
+So I believe that is all I've got to say on this.
+I'd recommend you check it out.
+Like I said, up to you, if you did check this out
+and you actually used it rather than just for a two minute thing,
+then why not record a show and give your experience on it
+or leave a message in the comments.
+But the show would definitely be preferable.
+So this is Kaby signing off.
+And as always, tune in tomorrow for another great episode
+of Hacker Public Radio.
+You have been listening to Hacker Public Radio
+at HackerPublicRadio.org.
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+On this otherwise stated, today's show is released
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