Links2
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Screenshot of a graphical Links
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| Developer(s) | Mikuláš Patočka |
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| Initial release | 1999 |
| Stable release | 2.14(3 November 2016) |
| Preview release | none (n/a) |
| Written in | C |
| Operating system | Windows, OS X, OS/2, Unix-like, OpenVMS, DOS |
| Type | Web browser |
| License | GPLv2+ |
| Website | links |
Links is an open source text and graphic web browser with a pull-down menu system. It renders complex pages, has partial HTML 4.0 support (including tables and frames 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, that displays graphics, renders fonts in different sizes (with spatial anti-aliasing) but does not support JavaScript any more (it used to, up to version 2.1pre28). The resulting browser is very fast, but it does not display many pages as they were 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 unusual for a web browser. The fonts displayed by Links are not derived from the system, but compiled into the binary as grayscale bitmaps in 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 and for small line pitch an artificial sharpening is employed to increase legibility. Subpixel sampling further increases legibility on LCD displays. This allowed Links to have anti-aliased fonts at a time when anti-aliased font libraries were uncommon.
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