Popular desktop browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Chrome won’t do much if you have a poor internet connection. Although text-based browsers like w3m aren’t very visually appealing, they are your best bet when your internet speed is similar to the days of dial-up.
What is w3m
w3m is a free and open-source text-based browser that allows users to surf the web from a terminal emulator window. Like other text-based browsers, w3m renders the web in plain text without styling and scripts. However, it differs from other text-based browsers due to its support for tables, cookies, frames, inline images, and authentication.
By ignoring CSS and JavaScript, w3m can load pages faster than graphical web browsers, making it suitable for low-bandwidth connections. It offers tabbed browsing and deep customization options.
Besides being the best option for poor network connections, the w3m browser is perfect for developers who want to keep their workflow entirely in the terminal and people who use less powerful hardware like Raspberry Pis to surf the Internet.
The original w3m project began in 1995 as a lightweight, faster-loading alternative to Netscape. The developer has since abandoned it, but Tatsuya Kinoshita maintains a fork of the original version. The name “w3m” is an abbreviation of “WWW-wo-miru” which means to see the WWW.
In addition to being an Internet browser, w3m also works as a Linux pager for browsing local documents on your computer.
How to Install w3m on Windows and Linux
w3m is easy to install and doesn’t take up too much storage space (about 3MB). It is compatible with Linux, Windows (with Cygwin) and macOS (with Homebrew).
Windows installation
To use w3m on Windows, you must first install the Cygwin emulator. Cygwin is a free and open-source Unix-like environment and terminal interface for Microsoft Windows.
Pressing Tab and Shift+Tab allows you to move between clickable links, buttons, and text boxes on the page. You can also use the cursor to select elements on a webpage. Press Enter to open a hyperlink or input text into a highlighted textbox.
I entered makeuseof.com in the text box and clicked the Google Search button next to the text box (Tab, then Enter).
The Google search results page in plain text looks unfamiliar and a bit scary. However, it’s not so complicated once you understand it. Text excerpts from web pages are white, while links are blue by default. At the bottom of the window, there is a back button (<<) and up and down arrows for scrolling through web pages.
w3m offers two display modes: color and monochrome. Color mode is on by default, and you can switch to a monochrome interface in the options. Press O to open the Options Settings panel, a long list of options you can change to customize your w3m experience.
Alternatives to w3m
w3m is not the only text-based browser. There are also several other options, such as Lynx and Elinks. Launched in 1992, Lynx is the oldest browser still being maintained and has significantly more documents than w3m. However, it does not feature tabbed browsing and cannot render images without external software. Elinks is a more recent text-based browser and supports the same functionality as w3m, but it can be slow to load.
The w3m browser will not stream YouTube videos or open X (Twitter), just to name a few. Therefore, it is not a complete replacement for a modern desktop browser with a graphic user interface. However, it works pretty well when viewing documents or reading blog posts with a weak network connection.