How and why I (attempt to) use Links as main browser

# 2020-07-21T18:38:58+00:00

How and why I (attempt to) use Links as main browser
====================================================

Many browsers today are gigantic resource hogs, which are basically
VMs for various web applications. On the other hand, [Links] is a HTML
browser. It is not able to do everything. It allows me to avoid most
distractions and control the content-experience. The goal of this
exercise is not to force anyone to use this browser, but just to be
watchful and conscious of their hypertext based internet usage (one
might use gopher, and this phlog is available there, but probability
tells me that a person reading this reads this from hypertext source
and I am sure they are lovely).

## How?

I use links compiled with X11 support and with [Xembed patch] for
[tabbed]. I execute it using [a script], and then I use [surfraw with
dmenu] to have a uniform search function and bookmarks that work with
all my browsers. That is all you need to know. Interesting trivia:
Julian Assange made surfraw. Huh.

## CSS

First, I want to focus on 'destruction' of CSS. As Links does not
support modern CSS it renders most of the internet as-is, and will
only contain images (on which I will write later). CSS causes the
internet to become a baroque set of arbitrary design decisions, and
does not contribute positively to the general experience. Links (after
2.19) allows me to pick my own font, my own background/foreground/url
color. Thus, I have a uniform experience. In that I already visibly
save time/energy/brain processing power, etc. To deal with senselessly
complex sites (news pages with >1 MB JS, I am looking at you) I use
and [tedu's miniwebproxy]. It delimits the content even more, and
removes elements that are not of interest for me (top,bottom,side
bars, recommended content, etc.).

## JS

JS is the main cause for the way internet changed, for better or
worse. It changed content into dissimilar applications. It allowed for
measurement of attention and penalization of the experience. I am
critical of that, and Links has no JS support. Perfect. Nothing more
to be spoken of. If I need JS I will use another browser which
emulates anything Google considers good internet experience. But, that
*currently* is not my goal.

## Images

Now, going from a little controversy to a giant controversy. Images (in the
modern web) are uninformative, but are simply advertisements of
content. They are made to take over your attention and again, make the
experience less uniform. Links does not force you to disable images
(as there are cases when they are useful - i.e. Wikipedia), but has a
function to not load them. Again, as with everything it allows for
more uniformity.

## Sad facts

The word attempt is key here, and primarily I use it for Wikipedia
articles, directed searches (with surfraw), browsing youtube
through [invidio.us], browsing twitter through [nitter.net], but sadly
majority of my usage still ends up in a Chrome-like (that includes
Firefox). But writing and thinking like this allows to see what are
the issues with the modern web and how they can be approached. Using Links
is a radical solution, but as with many [via negativa] solutions, they
teach us what are the things that are needed for valuable UX.

## Should I?

I think trying is great. I have not explained how to do it, cause the
task of that is manpages and other analysis to get to know your wanted
experience, and not the wanted experience of someone else. Although,
it just maybe a continuation of a liberal dream of ability to control
your own consumer experience. The reality is you never have to, as
there is no possibility of changing the entire *internet* for better,
but you might find things that you can make better. Or only not worse.
You can also try out [gopher], but it is much more radical experience.

[Links]: http://links.twibright.com/
[Xembed patch]: https://dataswamp.org/~lich/patches/01-links-tabbed.patch
[tabbed]: https://tools.suckless.org/tabbed/
[a script]: https://github.com/hngt/scriptsanddotfiles/blob/master/bin/glinks
[surfraw with dmenu]: https://github.com/hngt/scriptsanddotfiles/blob/master/bin/dsurfraw
[tedu's miniwebproxy]: https://flak.tedunangst.com/post/miniwebproxy
[invidio.us]: https://invidio.us
[nitter.net]: https://nitter.net
[via negativa]: https://www.rationalwalk.com/via-negativa-wisdom-through-subtraction/
[gopher]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gopher_(protocol)