w3m is my go to console browser. It does a better job displaying a site in a coherent way than lynx (IMO).

I should add a lynx/w3m useragent test to my site and display images in AAlib for text browsers, that'd be a funny easter-egg.

> I should add a lynx/w3m useragent test to my site and display images in AAlib for text browsers, that'd be a funny easter-egg.

well there goes my weekend :) I didn't know this was possible, thank you

Lynx won't load Google Analytics scripts for sure. On the other hand your user agent string will be pretty much unique on the web. Partly because approximately no one is using Lynx and partly because Lynx leaks the versions of itself and just about every related library on your system in the UA string.

Fortunately you can easily override the UA string in Lynx: https://electrictoolbox.com/lynx-user-agent/

lynx -useragent="Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html)" -head -dump http://www.example.com/

Also netsurf is a good one, if you don't really care about using js. And google seems to still work on it.

Yes! CLI based browsers are awesome.

Apologies for nitpicking, but Lynx is not a CLI program. CLI programs are non-interactive, composable via stdio / shell scripting, designed to do their one task and return you to your shell prompt. Lynx is an interactive, terminal-based (character cell grid) program, that takes over your shell session - it has every quality of a GUI program, except it's using a terminal emulator as its toolkit.

But of course - it's still awesome, it's just not CLI.

Often people distinguish between "command-line interfaces" (CLI) and "text user interfaces" (TUI). So "sed" is a CLI program, while vim is a TUI program.

But it's also common to use "CLI" to include "TUI" programs, so I don't think your parent is wrong.

> But it's also common to use "CLI" to include "TUI" programs [...].

It is indeed common, and (IMO) it is harmful, as TUI programs are just GUI programs in disguise. They do have two unique strengths: readily accessible over a serial console or an SSH session; and being the lowest common denominator of GUI programming. But they don't share any of the typical (desirable) qualities of CLI programs; typically, any CLI features (if present at all) are an afterthought.

    $ ls | vim
    Vim: Warning: Input is not from a terminal

Denotatively, you're 100% correct.

Connotatively, I have no concerns and won't revisit the comment, but will keep the distinction in mind when addressing a technical audience.

The other way around,

    vim | ls

Is a 100% foolproof and very “loud” sign that today is a scatterbrained day and I should write off the idea of being productive. Or I should have another cup of coffee.

Thank you for drawing this distinction. I had not mentally realized the difference before, this makes me interested in trying TUI programs. Will go check lynx out today.

It's a "TUI."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_user_interface

I greatly appreciate the correction and feedback.