Links (web browser) - Wikipedia

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2024-04-01 12:30:10

Links is a free software text and graphical web browser with a pull-down menu system.[2] It renders complex pages, has partial HTML 4.0 support (including tables and frames[3] and support for multiple character sets such as UTF-8), supports color and monochrome terminals, and allows horizontal scrolling.

It is intended for users who want to retain many typical elements of graphical user interfaces (pop-up windows, menus etc.) in a text-only environment.

The original version of Links was developed by Mikuláš Patočka in the Czech Republic. His group Twibright Labs later developed version 2 of the Links browser, which displays graphics, and renders fonts in different sizes (with spatial anti-aliasing), but no longer supports JavaScript (it used to, up to version 2.1pre28). The resulting browser is very fast, but does not display many pages as intended. The graphical mode works even on Unix systems without the X Window System or any other window environment, using either SVGAlib or the framebuffer of the system's graphics card.

The graphics stack has several peculiarities for a web browser. The fonts displayed by Links are not derived from the system,[4] but compiled into binary as gray scale bitmaps using the Portable Network Graphics (PNG) format. This allows the browser to be one executable file independent of the system libraries. However, this increases the size of the executable to about 5 MB. The fonts are anti-aliased without hinting; for small line pitches, they employ an artificial sharpening to increase legibility. Sub-pixel sampling further increases legibility on LCD displays. This allowed Links to have anti-aliased fonts when anti-aliased font libraries were uncommon.