Posted on 04/05/2014 1:36:00 PM PDT by re_nortex
With the news about the Mozilla Foundation and the desire of many FReepers to drop the Firefox browser, there are some viable (IMHO) alternatives, both of which are character-based:
Links is text WWW browser with tables and frames. It runs on Linux, Unix, OS/2 and Windows.
Lynx is a text browser for the World Wide Web. Lynx 2.8.7 runs on Un*x, MacOS, VMS, Windows 95/98/NT, DOS386+ (but not 3.1, 3.11), as well as OS/2 EMX.
lynx http://www.freerepublic.comAnd with that aforementioned single keystroke, a '=' in the case of Lynx, one can see useful information such as this:
File that you are currently viewing Linkname: Latest Articles URL: http://www.freerepublic.com/tag/*/index Charset: iso-8859-1 Server: nginx/1.2.4 Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2014 22:27:39 GMT Owner(s): None size: 514 lines mode: forms mode Link that you currently have selected Linkname: Search Free Republic URL: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/search
why would I want to quit the Mozilla suite of services?
sudo apt-get install lynx links
If you're using a Red Hat-descended system, this will work:
sudo yum install lynx links
If Windows is your platform, well, good luck. :)
Virtually all of Firefox’s revenue comes from Google!
On that subject, numerous threads over the past few days have been posted here on Free Republic, one of which is: Conservative activist launches boycott of Firefox browser.
I notice Windows XP and Windows 7 are not on the list of compatible OS’s.
None of that makes a lick of sense to those of us who aren’t techies. I’m looking for an alternative, but you’ll have to lay it out a bit simpler for many of us to understand how those choices compare and work next to Firefox.
Generally when I think of non-technical user's platform, I presume some variant of Windows is involved. Since I don't use Windows (only *nix: Linux, BSD and Solaris), I'm totally out of my element there. However, this link may be of some assistance:
Windows console applications. Web browsers.
I hope it helps! If not, as Kernighan and Ritchie phrased it, "...check with a local expert...".
Pale Moon. Almost identical to Firefox.
http://www.palemoon.org/download-ng.shtml
I had it installed, running with all of my bookmarks in less than five minutes. Not a single hiccup.
Also:
From the Pale Moon Facebook page:
Since several people have been asking about this: Pale Moon is in no way associated or affiliated with the Mozilla Corporation.
https://www.facebook.com/PaleMoonBrowser
I use Lynx in a bash script to check/update my ping list.
My guess -- and it's only that -- since Windows is unfamiliar territory for me is that Cygwin may provide the "platform within a platform" for these text-based browsers, regardless of the Windows variant involved.
There's one more lightweight, text-based browser to add to the list and that's Elinks: A Full-Featured Text WWW Browser.
And of course in recent Emacs versions, there's always this command (which gives me a chuckle when I invoke it):
M-x ewwThat's the mode for browsing the web and it's quite feature-rich but still very fast. It's what I used to post this response, BTW.
FReepers help is greatly appreciated.
But I still don’t see the reason to inconvenience myself with something that seems to not affect mozilla.
How would they know I stopped using FF? Call me ignorant.
I do understand the point. Just don’t understand the results of making my web-surfing less convenient.
Bookmark
Well, Pale Moon DOES have a, “Donate,” link. To which I have done just that.
I’d bet that it’ll make Mozilla nervous....
You too? :)
Two years ago, I used Lynx to maintain my Titanic ping list. I did cheat just a little bit since I spawned it from Perl instead of a shell script. Arrays, hashes and all that stuff. I'd be dead in the water in terms of the web without Lynx, curl and wget.
Fight the Free Sh☭t Nation
Internet Explorer works fine for those of us who do not aspire to be computer geeks.
I’ve been using Windows and Internet Explorer since 1998.
Perhaps I’ve been lucky to just use Windows 98, XP, and Windows 7.
But they worked fine.
They have always worked fine.
As a completely average computer user, I have never understood the pathological hatred so many people have for Microsoft products.
“As a completely average computer user, I have never understood the pathological hatred so many people have for Microsoft products.”
So many were Firefox users .... Now???
A very small, very fast browser for Linux distributions is Dillo. It’s great on slow connections and pages load really fast.
“navigation with your fingers never leaving your hand! “
I use windows. My fingers never leave my hand!
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