INTERNET & WEB BROWSING
SHORT TUTORIALS ON GETTING THE MOST OUT OF
LYNX AND OTHER UNIX INTERNET PROGRAMS

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Using wget & lynx

Peer-to-Peer File Sharing with gtk-gnutella

Pan: Newsreader for XWindows

Dillo: Fastest Browser of them all

Darwin Mozilla


Using wget and lynx

In the early days of OS X, when the Aqua interface was painfully slow, and many people (including myself) were running the OS on challenged hardware, there existed a compelling reason to use some of the internet tools available to the Darwin side of OS X. Nowadays, with quartz-extreme and the dominance of the G4 processor among new Mac models, there is much less of a reason. The development of fast web browsers such as Camino and Safari for OS X provide even less of a reason. But for those who are trying to run OS X on that old 333 MHz iMac, these programs may have some use. And even for those of us who are completely satisfied with the performance of Camino and Safari, there are other uses for these programs.

For example, wget (which must be installed via fink) can be used to download files from the internet. To download the latest nightly build of the Camino web browser, enter the following command into the terminal:
  wget http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/camino/nightly/latest/Camino.dmg.gz

Another nice feature of wget is the resumption of partial downloads. Let us assume that our connection to the internet was lost right in the middle of our download of Camino. No problem. Reconnect and use this command:
You can also use wget to download websites from the web — although there can be some difficulties involved. To download this Unix-on-Mac site, simply enter the following:
If you have a modem connection, you may want to press control-c to stop the downloading, because this command will download all the pages I have on the my .mac idisk, including those belonging to web pages that have nothing with unix or OS X. But you can at least get an idea how useful the program can be if you want to download entire websites, links and all. Read the wget web pages for more information.

Another useful tool for interacting with the web from the terminal is lynx, a text-based web browser (which also must be installed via fink). If you have a slow connection and all you want to do is read text on the web, lynx may be just what the doctor ordered. Despite being a command-line program, it is fairly easy to use:
You will be asked not to accept a cookie. Just press "n." You will find yourself on Apple's forum webpage. Use the arrow keys to move around. The vertical arrow keys allow you to go from link to link on the page. The horizontal arrow keys allow you to move back or forward from web page to web page. It's a little awkward at first, but over time you'll get the hang of it. Just keep your hands off the mouse: it is useless in lynx. You'll find lynx to be a very fast way to navigate through forums. I've used it here to find the "Unix" section of Apple's OS X forum:
Lynx has a large number of features. It can do just about everything normal web browsers can do except display graphic images. To tap into the features, just enter "h" and follow the links.

Peer-to-peer file sharing with gtk-gnutella

There is a lot of controversy among Mac P2P afficianados over the issue of P2P clients. What is the best P2P client on the Mac? Some say Acquisition, others Limewire, still others MacPhex. If you confine your inquiries to OS X applications, one of those applications probably is the best. But if you extend your inquiries to include all applications that run not only on, but along side OS X, then surely gtk-gnutella would win hands down as the best P2P client that can be found on the Mac.  It's leaner, more efficient, and quicker than all those native OS X (most of which are written in Java!) P2P clients that infest the Mac platform. Here's what it looks like:

It doesn't sport a very attractive interface, but its practical and it gets the job done. One problem is that searches tend to spawn a lot of junk, largely as a result of a bug in the text-based P2P client, mutella. But it is fairly easy to get around this problem. All the junk consists in small files, 500 KB or less. Simply click on the size tab and arrange the files by size, as shown in the screenshot. This will take care of the problem.

The rest of the program is fairly straight-forwand and intuitive. Click on the "config" text in the window in the upper left-hand corner to customize your settings. Click on the text on a file and then click on the "Download selected files" button. Also, if you right-click on a two-button mouse (or command-click on Apple's single-button mouse in X11), you access even more functionality.

Pan: free newsreader for xwindows

If you're looking for a fast, efficient newsreader that will work on a Mac running OS X, pan may be precisely what you're looking for. It is easily the best free newsreader available on the Mac platform. Like gtk-gnutella, pan requires XWindows — either Apple's X11, or XDarwin. It's easy to use, especially if you tap into the power of the multiple button mouse. It features a very practical interface, easy to use filtering system, and, when run in XDarwin, sports very spiffy anti-aliased fonts. Here's a what it looks like:

The left window gives you all the newsgroups. A little menu allows you to choose between subscribed newsgroups, new groups, all groups, and the folders on your hard drive containing messages that you've saved or posted. An especially nice feature is the ability what newsreader other posters are using. This poster, for instance, although complaining about one of the dreadful carbon-based newsreaders available on the OS X platform, is actually using Tin, a unix command-line newsreader.

Speeding through the web with Dillo

Another very fast web browser available on the Unix side of the Mac OS is dillo, the fastest graphical web browser I have ever used on any platform. When I used to run OS X on an old 333 MHz iMac, dillo was the browser I used most often. It is clearly faster than even Camino and Safari. 

But if it's so fast, why hasn't been loudly championed within the Mac community? Well, as usual with such matters, there is a catch. Dillo is very fast, but it's also very limited. It can't handle any kind of java or JavaScript; it detests encryption; it chokes on cookies; and its html display engine is primitive at best, obnoxious at worst. It looks somewhat decent here, in this snapshot taken from one of my other sites:


You might notice the "—"  in the paragraph under the heading "The Next Big Thing." That is supposed to be a dash mark. Dillo has trouble with slightly unusual punctuation marks or lettering. It can do odds things with tables as well. Consider the horrors it perpetuates upon this site's homepage:

Not only are the tables out of alignment (they shouldn't be), but the headings are rendered in very small type. You will surely find other annoying non-features in the program. But don't forget: dillo is free and very fast. Life is all about trade-offs.

Another odd things about dillo involves entering web addresses. You can enter a web address in the text box just like in other web browsers, but it won't take you to that address. You must enter the web address in a special dialogue box, which can be accessed in the "F" menu. This is somewhat awkward and annoying. In the past, I have bookmarked (right-click on web page)  the sites I have wanted to visit in dillo and proceeded by clicking on the bookmark function. Unfortunately, the bookmarking feature, in versions 7.x, is broken. But in earlier versions, it worked pretty well.

Using Darwin Mozilla

I can still remember when the Darwin version of Mozilla was the best all around browser that could be used on the OS X platform. With the emergence of Safari and Camino, it's not so true any more. But you it is still the fastest full-featured browser available to users of OS X. It contains all the features of the OS X carbon version of Mozilla with the speed of Camino.

What's the catch this time around? Two major drawbacks afflict Darwin-Mozilla: first, no anti-aliasing of fonts; and second, poor SSL and javascript support. I no longer find this a compelling browser to use, although I still occasionally find myself resorting to it. I prefer the way it handles pop-up menus. In all OS X web browsers, pop-up menus appear in a long, scrolless menu, which must be navigated by running the arrow to the end of menu and letting the list fly by. In very long menus, like the ones that appear at Berkshire Record Outlet, this is most annoying. But in Darwin-Mozilla, you get scroll bars with your pop-up menus, as illustrated by these two snapshots, the one on the left from Safari, the one on the right Darwin-Mozilla:


I can easily scroll to anywhere on the menu in Darwin-Mozilla; but in Safari, I have to wade through this long list of over a thousand entries.

I cannot think of any other reasons to use Darwin-Mozilla at the present moment, unless you prefer the Mozilla browser because of its full range of features but want something a bit snappier with less memory leaks than the native OS X version. It may also be a compelling choice on slower platforms. It really depends on what you want to do with the browser. To date, there is no single browser on the OS X platform that will likely satisfy the needs of everyone. Safari will be perfect for all my needs when it Apple finally releases the version that supports tabs and auto-fill. Until then, I will occasionally find myself using Internet Explorer, despite its appalling carbon heritage.