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 deman ...
for
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, pac ...
,
DOS, and
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
operating system
An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs.
Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
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 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 operating system, security-focused, free software, Unix-like operating system based on the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD). Theo de Raadt created OpenBSD in 1995 by fork (software development), forking NetBSD ...
removed ELinks from its ports tree, citing concerns with security issues and lack of responsiveness from the developers.
On , ELinks was forked into another program called felinks, meaning ''forked elinks''. On , the felinks repository on GitHub was renamed to elinks, with permission from Baudiš, as the old ELinks was no longer being actively maintained.
elinks is being actively maintained: preview version 0.18.0rc1 was released , while stable version 0.18.0 was released .
Features
* HTTP and Proxy authentication
* Persistent HTTP cookie
HTTP cookie (also called web cookie, Internet cookie, browser cookie, or simply cookie) is a small block of data (computing), data created by a web server while a user (computing), user is browsing a website and placed on the user's computer o ...
s
* Support for browser scripting in Perl
Perl is a high-level, general-purpose, interpreted, dynamic programming language. Though Perl is not officially an acronym, there are various backronyms in use, including "Practical Extraction and Reporting Language".
Perl was developed ...
, Python, Ruby
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 sapph ...
, Lua and GNU Guile
* 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
* Background download with queueing
* Some support for Cascading Style Sheets
* Some support for ECMAScript
ECMAScript (; ES) is a standard for scripting languages, including JavaScript, JScript, and ActionScript. It is best known as a JavaScript standard intended to ensure the interoperability of web pages across different web browsers. It is stan ...
by using Mozilla
Mozilla is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape. The Mozilla community uses, develops, publishes and supports Mozilla products, thereby promoting free software and open standards. The community is supported institution ...
's SpiderMonkey
SpiderMonkey is an open-source JavaScript and WebAssembly engine by the Mozilla Foundation. The engine powers the Firefox Web browser and has used multiple generations of JavaScript just-in-time (JIT) compilers, including TraceMonkey, Jäg ...
JavaScript engine
* Editing of text boxes in external text editor
A text editor is a type of computer program that edits plain text. An example of such program is "notepad" software (e.g. Windows Notepad). Text editors are provided with operating systems and software development packages, and can be used to c ...
* Mouse support (including wheel scroll)
* Colour text display
* Protocols supported:
** local files, finger
A finger is a prominent digit (anatomy), digit on the forelimbs of most tetrapod vertebrate animals, especially those with prehensile extremities (i.e. hands) such as humans and other primates. Most tetrapods have five digits (dactyly, pentadact ...
, http
HTTP (Hypertext Transfer Protocol) 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, wher ...
, https
Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure (HTTPS) is an extension of the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). It uses encryption for secure communication over a computer network, and is widely used on the Internet. In HTTPS, the communication protoc ...
, 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 dat ...
, fsp, smb, IPv4
Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) is the first version of the Internet Protocol (IP) as a standalone specification. It is one of the core protocols of standards-based internetworking methods in the Internet and other packet-switched networks. ...
, 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
BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...
, 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 ar ...
, gemini, nntp
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 deman ...
*List of web browsers
The following is a list of web browsers that are notable.
Historical
Layout engines
* Gecko (software), Gecko is developed by the Mozilla Foundation.
** Goanna (software), Goanna is a fork of Gecko developed by Moonchild Productions ...
*Comparison of web browsers
This is a comparison of both historical and current Web browser, web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost.
General information
Basic general information about the browsers. Browsers listed on a light purpl ...
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
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