$ Linux Command

Network

elinks

Full-featured text-mode web browser.

webbrowsertextterminalhtml

Additional Notes

elinks is a feature-rich text-mode web browser for the terminal. It renders HTML pages as formatted text, supports tabs, frames, tables, cookies, SSL, and scripting. It can display images in terminal emulators that support image protocols, or alias them with text labels.

It is useful for browsing the web over SSH sessions, on systems without a graphical environment, or for automated page fetching in scripts. elinks supports multiple protocols including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, and local files. It also includes a built-in bookmarks manager and download manager.

Syntax

elinks [options] [url]

Parameters

  • url: URL to open. If omitted, elinks opens to the configured start page or a blank page.

Common Options

  • --dump: Render the page as plain text to stdout and exit. Useful for scripting.
  • -source: Print the raw HTML source of the page.
  • -no-numbering: With --dump, do not prefix links with numbers.
  • -no-references: With --dump, do not show link references.
  • -anonymous: Restrict to anonymous mode (disable cookies, scripts, etc.).
  • -config-dir dir: Use an alternate configuration directory.
  • -default-mime-type type: Set the default MIME type for unknown files.
  • -remote command: Send commands to a running elinks instance.
  • -session-restore: Restore the previous session's tabs.
  • -touch-files: Enable file touch for expiry checking.

Examples

elinks https://example.com

Open a URL in interactive mode.

elinks --dump https://example.com

Render the page as plain text and print it to the terminal.

elinks -source https://example.com

Print the HTML source of a page.

elinks --dump -no-numbering -no-references https://example.com

Dump page text without link numbers or references, ideal for clean text extraction.

Practical Notes

  • elinks is a fork of the older links browser with more features. The original links is still maintained as a simpler alternative.
  • Navigation uses the arrow keys, Tab, and Enter. Esc opens the menu system.
  • Use elinks --dump to fetch and format web pages for display in other tools (e.g., elinks --dump https://news.ycombinator.com | head).
  • For lightweight scripting, curl or wget are better for file downloads; elinks excels at rendering.
  • Configuration files are stored in ~/.elinks/.