Popular desktop browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Chrome won’t do much good if you have a poor internet connection. Although text-based browsers like w3m aren’t very visually appealing, they are the best choice if your internet speeds are back to the days of dial-up.
What is w3m?
w3m is a free and open-source text-based browser that allows users to browse the Internet from a terminal emulator window. Like other text-based browsers, w3m displays the web in plain text, without styling and scripts. However, it stands out from other text-based browsers because of its support for tables, cookies, frames, inline images and authentication.
By ignoring CSS and JavaScript, w3m can load pages faster than graphical web browsers, making it suitable for low-bandwidth connections. It offers tabbed browsing and in-depth customization options.
Besides being the best choice for poor network connections, the w3m browser is perfect for developers who want to keep their workflow entirely in the terminal and for people who use less powerful hardware like Raspberry Pis to surf the web.
The original w3m project started in 1995 as a lightweight, fast-loading alternative to Netscape. The developer has since abandoned it, but Tatsuya Kinoshita maintains a fork of the original version. The name “w3m” is an abbreviation of “WWW-wo-miru” which means: to see the WWW.
Besides being an Internet browser, w3m also works as a Linux pager that allows you to browse local documents on your computer.
How to install w3m on Windows and Linux
w3m is easy to install and does not take up much storage space (about 3 MB). It is compatible with Linux, Windows (with Cygwin) and macOS (with Homebrew).
Windows installation
To use w3m on Windows, you must first install the Cygwin emulator. Cygwin is a free and open-source Unix-like environment and terminal interface for Microsoft Windows.
Follow these steps to install Cygwin and w3m:
- Download the Cygwin installer. Run the installer and select the Install from the Internet option. Leave the other options as default.
- In the Select Packages window, use the search box to find the w3m package. In the New column, choose the latest version using the drop-down icon. Click Next to continue the installation. After installation, you can add desktop and Start menu icons.
- Once the installation is complete, open the Cygwin terminal and enter w3m to check if the browser is installed.
Linux installation
w3m is pre-installed on some Linux distributions, but can also be installed via apt install. To install w3m on Linux, open the terminal and type:
sudo apt-get install w3m 
Enter your password if prompted, and type Y continue. The installation does not take long. You should now be able to browse the Internet using the w3m web browser.
How to use w3m
To open Google.com with the w3m browser, enter the following command in the terminal:
w3m google.com w3m then opens a bare-bones version of the Google web page interface with text and clickable links. You can use a keyboard or mouse to navigate w3m. Googler is another terminal-based tool that allows you to perform Google searches from your Linux terminal.
Press Tab And Shift+Tab Allows you to switch between clickable links, buttons, and text boxes on the page. You can also use the cursor to select elements on the web page. Press Enter to open a hyperlink or enter text in a highlighted text box.
I came in makeuseof.com in the text box and clicked the Google Search button next to the text box (TabThan Enter).
Google’s search results page looks unfamiliar and a bit intimidating in plain text. However, it’s not that complicated once you get the hang of it. Text fragments of the web pages are white, while links are blue by default. At the bottom of the window there is a Back button (<<) and up and down arrows for scrolling through web pages.
W3m offers two display modes: color and black and white. Color mode is enabled by default and you can switch to a monochrome interface in the options. Press O to open the Options settings panela long list of options you can change to customize your w3m experience.
Most navigation options are available by right-clicking. You can find other w3m key commands with H (Offset + H). When done, use Shift + Q or Ctrl + Z to exit the program.
Alternatives to w3m
w3m isn’t the only text-based browser out there. There are several other alternatives, such as Lynx and Elinks. Launched in 1992, Lynx is the oldest browser still maintained and has significantly more documentation than w3m. However, it doesn’t offer tabbed browsing and can’t display images without external software. Elinks is a more recent text-based browser and supports much of the same functionality as w3m, but may be slower to load.
The w3m browser does not stream YouTube videos or open X (Twitter), to name a few. So it is not a complete replacement for a modern desktop browser with a graphical user interface. However, it works extremely well when looking up a document or reading a blog post with a weak network connection.
