TechnoHolics

What is Lynx ?

Lynx is a free open-source, text-only Web browser. Many search engines like Google recommend you to look at your site using Lynx browser as the search engine crawlers and bots ’see’ your pages the way Lynx sees.

Browsing in Lynx consists of highlighting the chosen link using cursor keys, or having all links on a page numbered and entering the chosen link’s number. Lynx cannot display various types of non-text content on the web, such as images and video, but it can launch external programs to handle it, like an image viewer or video player. The speed benefits of text-only browsing are most apparent when using low bandwidth internet connections, or older computer hardware that may be slow to render image-heavy content.

Why use Lynx now ?

Most search engine spiders see your site much as Lynx would. If fancy features such as JavaScript, cookies, session IDs, frames, DHTML, or Flash keep you from seeing all of your site in a text browser, then search engine spiders may have trouble crawling your site. As a bonus, providing text-only alternatives to rich-media content and functionality will make it easier for search engines to crawl and index your site, and also make your site more accessible to users who use alternative technologies such as screenreaders.

How to use Lynx ?

Download and install Lynx. The first time your run Lynx, you would be having no idea of how to use it. Press k from your keyboard to display series of keys and their functions. Here are some keys that you will use most often. And be careful, these ARE case sensitive.

• g – Enter URL to open a web page or website.
• q – Quit Lynx browser.
• v – See a list of bookmarks
• a – Add the current webpage to bookmarks

To Open A Site, press g from your keyboard, enter the URL of the web site and press Enter.

When you open a web page, use the down arrow key in your keyboard to browse though the links on that page and press Enter on the highlighted selected link. Press q at anytime to quit Lynx.

This is how Google looks when viewed from Lynx.

And this is how this site looks from Lynx

Download Lynx

I had a hard time searching for Windows version of Lynx that comes with a setup and actually works. You can download it from here.
Download Lynx 2.8.5rel.1 installer (1.68MB)
Lynx Home Page
Lynx For Windows Homepage

Lynx Viewer (Browser Emulation)

The Lynx Viewer allows webmasters to see what their pages will look like when viewed with Lynx. One does not need to install Lynx at all.
Yellowpipe Lynx viewer
Delorie Lynx Viewer

Hope this post was helpful