ELinks is a
free text-based web browser
A text-based web browser is a web browser that renders only the text of web pages, and ignores most graphic content. Under small bandwidth connections, usually, they render pages faster than graphical web browsers due to lowered bandwidth demand ...
for
Unix-like
A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also in ...
s.
It began in late 2001 as an experimental fork by Petr Baudiš of the
Links Web browser, hence the E in the name. Since then, the E has come to stand for Enhanced or Extended. On 1 September 2004, Baudiš handed maintainership of the project over to
Danish
Danish may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark
People
* A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark
* Culture of Denmark
* Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
developer Jonas Fonseca, citing a lack of time and interest and a desire to spend more time coding rather than reviewing and organising releases.
[
On 17 March 2017, ]OpenBSD
OpenBSD is a security-focused, free and open-source, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by forking NetBSD 1.0. According to the website, the OpenBSD project em ...
removed ELinks from its ports tree, citing concerns with security issues and lack of responsiveness from the developers.
On 17 November 2017, ELinks was forked into another program called felinks meaning ''forked elinks''. It is being actively maintained with the latest version at 0.15.0 dated 24 December 2021.
Features
* HTTP and Proxy authentication
* Persistent HTTP cookie
HTTP cookies (also called web cookies, Internet cookies, browser cookies, or simply cookies) are small blocks of data created by a web server while a user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer or other device by the user's w ...
s
* Support for browser scripting in Perl
Perl is a family of two high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming languages. "Perl" refers to Perl 5, but from 2000 to 2019 it also referred to its redesigned "sister language", Perl 6, before the latter's name was offici ...
, Ruby
A ruby is a pinkish red to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum ( aluminium oxide). Ruby is one of the most popular traditional jewelry gems and is very durable. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sa ...
, Lua
Lua or LUA may refer to:
Science and technology
* Lua (programming language)
* Latvia University of Agriculture
* Last universal ancestor, in evolution
Ethnicity and language
* Lua people, of Laos
* Lawa people, of Thailand sometimes referred t ...
and GNU Guile
GNU Ubiquitous Intelligent Language for Extensions (GNU Guile) is the preferred extension language system for the GNU Project and features an implementation of the programming language Scheme. Its first version was released in 1993. In addition ...
* Tabs (though still text mode)
* HTML tables
An HTML element is a type of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) document component, one of several types of HTML nodes (there are also text nodes, comment nodes and others). The first used version of HTML was written by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993 ...
and HTML frames
In the context of a web browser, a frame is a part of a web page or browser window which displays content independent of its container, with the ability to load content independently. The HTML or media elements shown in a frame may come from a ...
* Background download with queueing
* Some support for Cascading Style Sheets
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a style sheet language used for describing the presentation of a document written in a markup language such as HTML or XML (including XML dialects such as SVG, MathML or XHTML). CSS is a cornerstone techno ...
* Some support for ECMAScript
ECMAScript (; ES) is a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different browsers. It is standardized by Ecma International in the documenECMA-262
ECMAScript is commonly used for client-side scripting o ...
by using Mozilla
Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, spreads and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting exclusively free software and open standards, wi ...
's SpiderMonkey
SpiderMonkey is the first JavaScript engine, written by Brendan Eich at Netscape Communications, later released as open source and currently maintained by the Mozilla Foundation. It is used in the Firefox web browser.
History
Eich "wrote ...
JavaScript engine
A JavaScript engine is a software component that executes JavaScript code. The first JavaScript engines were mere interpreters, but all relevant modern engines use just-in-time compilation for improved performance.
JavaScript engines are typica ...
* Editing of text boxes in external text editor
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. Such programs are sometimes known as "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be us ...
* Mouse support (including wheel scroll)
* Colour text display
* Protocols supported:
** local files, finger
A finger is a limb of the body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of most of the Tetrapods, so also with humans and other primates. Most land vertebrates have five fingers ( Pentadactyly). Chambers ...
, http
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is an application layer protocol in the Internet protocol suite model for distributed, collaborative, hypermedia information systems. HTTP is the foundation of data communication for the World Wide Web, ...
, https
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It is used for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protocol is enc ...
, ftp
The File Transfer Protocol (FTP) is a standard communication protocol used for the transfer of computer files from a server to a client on a computer network. FTP is built on a client–server model architecture using separate control and data ...
, fsp, smb, IPv4
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the fourth version of the Internet Protocol (IP). It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. IPv4 was the first version de ...
, IPv6
Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) is the most recent version of the Internet Protocol (IP), the communication protocol, communications protocol that provides an identification and location system for computers on networks and routes traffic ...
** experimentally: BitTorrent, gopher
Pocket gophers, commonly referred to simply as gophers, are burrowing rodents of the family Geomyidae. The roughly 41 speciesSearch results for "Geomyidae" on thASM Mammal Diversity Database are all endemic to North and Central America. They are ...
, nntp
The Network News Transfer Protocol (NNTP) is an application protocol used for transporting Usenet news articles (''netnews'') between news servers, and for reading/posting articles by the end user client applications. Brian Kantor of the Univers ...
See also
*Text-based web browser
A text-based web browser is a web browser that renders only the text of web pages, and ignores most graphic content. Under small bandwidth connections, usually, they render pages faster than graphical web browsers due to lowered bandwidth demand ...
*List of web browsers
The following is a list of web browsers that are notable.
Historical
Layout engines
* Gecko is developed by the Mozilla Foundation.
** Goanna is a fork of Gecko developed by Moonchild Productions.
* Servo is an experimental web brow ...
* Comparison of web browsers
References
External links
*
*
Gopher clients
POSIX web browsers
MacOS web browsers
Text-based web browsers
Free web browsers
Lua (programming language)-scriptable software
Software forks
2001 software
Discontinued web browsers
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