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W3m

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w3m is a free and open source text-based web browser licensed under the MIT license. It differs from other very early text-based browsers by supporting elements such as tables, frames, and images.[6][7]

History

The name "w3m" stands for "WWW wo miru (WWWを見る)", which is Japanese for "to see the WWW", and where "W3" is a numeronym of "WWW".[8] The original project is no longer active. A different developer, Tatsuya Kinoshita, was maintaining a fork until early 2024.[9] Kinoshita left the project after a few months.[10] A new fork was created as a result.[11]

Functions

w3m runs in terminal emulator programs such as xterm and GNOME Terminal.[12] The browser has tabbed browsing, right click menus, and image support,[12] along with support for tables and frames. It also functions as a terminal pager.[6] It can be navigated solely using the keyboard or with the mouse. There are two different display modes, one with colors and one that is monochrome.[13]

w3m can be used within Emacs.[14]

Some distributions require the installation of a second package, w3m-img, to render images using w3m.[15]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "w3m Files".
  2. ↑ "v0.5.3+git20230121".
  3. ↑ TOKORO, Kyosuke. "w3m 0.2.1–3 for OS/2 WARP". Archived from the original on 4 May 2001. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  4. ↑ Watson, Dave (September 2001). "Text-Mode Web Browsers for OS/2". The Southern California OS/2 User Group. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  5. ↑ w3m manual page
  6. 1 2 Rutland, David (2 November 2022). "The 3 Best Terminal-Based Web Browsers for Linux". MUO. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  7. ↑ Negus, Christopher (28 January 2005). Linux Bible. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-7645-8974-4.
  8. ↑ "W3M FAQ". Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  9. ↑ Das, Ankush (20 October 2020). "Best Terminal-based Web Browsers for Linux Users". It's FOSS. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  10. ↑ Kita, Rene (1 August 2024). "w3m Maintenance". GitHub. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  11. ↑ "w3m: Fork of Debian's w3m". SourceHut. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  12. 1 2 Hoffman, Chris (23 January 2012). "How to Browse From the Linux Terminal With W3M". How-To Geek. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  13. ↑ "How to use the W3M text-based web browser on Linux". AddictiveTips. 17 April 2021. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  14. ↑ "EmacsWiki: w3m". www.emacswiki.org. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  15. ↑ Rankin, Kyle (2006). Linux Multimedia Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video. O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 978-0-596-10076-6.