Browsing the internet through the command line is an entertaining activity for tech enthusiasts. However, it can also be useful in certain situations. For instance, if someone is logged onto a remote computer via SSH and needs to check a page from that machine, or if they work on a server without any graphical user interface and need to look up something on the internet urgently.
In such cases, text-based browsers can be useful tools as they primarily display text content and not visuals. These browsers used to be much more popular when web pages were linear text, and several tools were available. Even today, websites are still written in HTML, but the language has evolved, characterized by much more than just hypertext.
However, some websites like Wikipedia and Stack Overflow still use mostly text with links that text-based browsers easily display. Google search can also be useful, but many browser projects are becoming outdated and no longer maintained.
Two of the best-known active text-based browsers are Lynx and w3m, with Lynx being the oldest browser still maintained. W3m is also popular and has relatively recent maintenance due to being forked by a Linux distribution.
Overall, using text-based browsers can be a good idea for some specific scenarios. While they have limitations, they can still be convenient and powerful tools when appropriately used.
