EWW (Emacs Web Wowser)
Ranked 5 of 8 text browsers by recommenders
Built-in text browser in Emacs that renders pages without JavaScript and strips clutter with readable mode.
Built-in text browser in Emacs that renders pages without JavaScript and strips clutter with readable mode.
10 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 2
- approval share
- 80%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Renders pages without JavaScript
“If you mostly use the browser for reading, you'd be surprised how much EWW actually renders.”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “EWW, the Emacs browser you underestimate” “If Emacs can't render the HTML then the website is not worth using.”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Ask HN: What browser do you use?” “It rendered perfectly, without JavaScript, in Emacs EWW.”
Comment from 14 Feb 2026 in “Building a TUI is easy now” Works well within Emacs
“all tends to work very well with eww”
Comment from 23 Mar 2026 in “Emacs is the display server. Headless Firefox is the renderer” “most of the browsing in eww”
Comment from 14 May 2026 in “MacBook Neo Deep Dive: Benchmarks, Wafer Economics, and the 8GB Gamble”
Other text browsers people recommend
The four most recommended other text browsers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lynx web browser | 42 | 10 | 81% | 12 | — | Approved |
| w3m | 19 | 1 | 95% | 7 | — | Approved |
| Links web browser | 18 | 4 | 82% | 9 | — | Approved |
| Chawan terminal web browser | 12 | 0 | 100% | 6 | — | Approved |
| EWW (Emacs Web Wowser)This page | 8 | 2 | 80% | 6 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“If Emacs can't render the HTML then the website is not worth using.”
“If you mostly use the browser for reading, you'd be surprised how much EWW actually renders.”
“most of the browsing in eww”
“For reading articles I just use eww. it has (eww-readable) that removes all the fluff like banners.”
“all tends to work very well with eww”
“I often find myself wishing eww had javascript support”
“I don’t think EWW has ever made my Emacs crash.”
“it sometimes made whole Emacs crash at unpredictable times”
“It rendered perfectly, without JavaScript, in Emacs EWW.”
“Emacs has both a TUI web browser (EWW) and info browser already.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.