Unchecked

w3m

From Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search
w3m
File:W3m-wikipedia.png
w3m running in an xterm displaying the Wikipedia main page.
Original author(s)Akinori Ito
Developer(s)Fumitoshi UKAI, Tatsuya Kinoshita, Rene Kita, et al.
Initial release1995
Written inC
Operating systemOS/2,[1][2] Unix & Unix-like (Solaris, SunOS, HP-UX, Linux, FreeBSD and EWS-UX (EWS-4800),[3] Windows (with Cygwin), macOS (with Homebrew)
Available inEnglish and Japanese
TypeWeb browser, Terminal pager
LicenseMIT license

w3m is a free and open source text-based web browser licensed under the MIT license. It differs from other early text-based browsers by supporting elements such as tables, frames, and, in some distributions, images.[4][5]

History

[edit | edit source]

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(WWWを見る)", which is Japanese for "to see the WWW", and where "W3" is a numeronym of "WWW".[6] The original project is no longer active. A different developer, Tatsuya Kinoshita, was maintaining a fork until early 2024.[7] Kinoshita left the project after a few months.[8] A new fork was created as a result,[9] which continues to be developed as of 2026.[10]

Functions

[edit | edit source]

w3m runs in terminal emulator programs such as xterm and GNOME Terminal.[11] The browser has tabbed browsing, right click menus, and image support,[11] along with support for tables and frames. It also functions as a terminal pager.[4] 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.[12]

w3m can be used within Emacs.[13]

Some distributions require the installation of a second package, w3m-img, to render images using w3m.[14]

See also

[edit | edit source]

References

[edit | edit source]
  1. ↑ TOKORO, Kyosuke. "w3m 0.2.1–3 for OS/2 WARP". Archived from the original on 4 May 2001. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  2. ↑ Watson, Dave (September 2001). "Text-Mode Web Browsers for OS/2". The Southern California OS/2 User Group. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  3. ↑ w3m manual page
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Rutland, David (2 November 2022). "The 3 Best Terminal-Based Web Browsers for Linux". MUO. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  5. ↑ Negus, Christopher (28 January 2005). Linux Bible. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-7645-8974-4.
  6. ↑ "W3M FAQ". Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  7. ↑ Das, Ankush (20 October 2020). "Best Terminal-based Web Browsers for Linux Users". It's FOSS. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  8. ↑ Kita, Rene (1 August 2024). "w3m Maintenance". GitHub. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  9. ↑ "w3m: Fork of Debian's w3m". SourceHut. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  10. ↑ "~rkta/w3m: master log". SourceHut. Retrieved 25 May 2026.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 Hoffman, Chris (23 January 2012). "How to Browse From the Linux Terminal With W3M". How-To Geek. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  12. ↑ "How to use the W3M text-based web browser on Linux". AddictiveTips. 17 April 2021. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  13. ↑ "EmacsWiki: w3m". www.emacswiki.org. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  14. ↑ Rankin, Kyle (2006). Linux Multimedia Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video. O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 978-0-596-10076-6.
[edit | edit source]

Template:Gopher clients Template:Lightweight web browsers

Retrieved from "https://wiki.tachyony.co.uk/w/index.php?title=W3m"