# Lynx web browser

42 Hacker News commenters recommended Lynx web browser and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** A free, text-only web browser that renders text-heavy sites quickly on old or low-power machines and works well with scripts and piped text. Critics say many modern sites that need JavaScript no longer work in it.

## Why people recommend it

- Fast on any hardware (2 comments): "It was fast, and barely had any compatibility issues because HTML that time was simpler." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46608649)) "Lynx on today's hardware is extremely fast." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50331678))
- Renders text-heavy sites well (2 comments): "Lynx renders websites remarkably well and keeps me away from the seedy stripmall the internet of today is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46138956)) "text based web browser. works surprisingly well on some sites like wikipedia" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45869833))
- Scriptable from the command line (2 comments): "but lynx -dump manages to get the text" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49888374)) "`pandoc "$@ | lynx -stdin`" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47891929))
- Avoids the modern web's clutter (2 comments): "Lynx renders websites remarkably well and keeps me away from the seedy stripmall the internet of today is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46138956)) "It's about as stripped-down as the web can get." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47844900))

## What people warn about

- Breaks on JavaScript-heavy sites (4 comments): "It was a great browser until websites become unusable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47038724)) "It's way better than the crusty old lynx and links on sites that need JS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46587528)) "Lynx and other tui browsers are not usable on today's web" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48250923))
- Too limiting for everyday browsing (3 comments): "I can't imagine trying to use links/lynx" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48477833)) "I would never go back to using lynx." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49522907)) "I couldn't last longer than a week" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46801312))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [w3m](https://hackerapproved.com/p/w3m.md): 19 recommend
- [Links web browser](https://hackerapproved.com/p/links.md): 18 recommend
- [Browsh](https://hackerapproved.com/p/browsh.md): 7 recommend
- [Offpunk](https://hackerapproved.com/p/offpunk.md): 7 recommend
- [ELinks](https://hackerapproved.com/p/elinks.md): 6 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Lynx web browser", https://hackerapproved.com/p/lynx/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).