Re: LYNX-DEV new to LYNX

[Jim Dennis]

> Will I be able to  browse the FULL INTERNET using LYNX?  
> I am using LYNX at my job, and the computer does not have window!

        The web is not the FULL INTERNET!

        Web browsers (such as Lynx, Mosaic, Netscape and MSIE) only
        access the web, ftp, and gopher.  These are only a few of 
        the services and protocols supported by the Internet.

        There is no such thing as "browsing" the "full Internet."
        Indeed, the phrase "full Internet" is meaningless.

        As to your implicit question:

                Will you be able to browse all public web sites
                using Lynx?

        ... the answer is no.

        Lynx is a browser that complies with as much of the HTTP and
        HTML specifications (the protocols and data representation
        (file formats) used by the "web") as possible -- within the 
        constraints of it various platforms (text only -- no "inline"
        graphics, no sound, no support for "Java" or "JavaScript" 
        (which aren't part of these specifications anyway).

        Therein lies the rub.  The client (Lynx) is able -- but many 
        of the servers aren't willing.  (In this case, by "servers" 
        I'm referring to the people and the sites -- not the software).

        Basically there are some sites that are "unfriendly."  They 
        make gratuitous use of tables, imagemaps, frames, Java applets,
        embedded JavaScript, cookies, ActiveX, active server pages (ASP) 
        and ISAPI, and other extensions.  They hope to win in some 
        "one-up-manship" contest of "coolness."  

        Most of these extensions were introduced or promoted by one or 
        another company (mostly Microsoft or Netscape) in their efforts
        to "capture" the "mindshare" -- which they hope will lead to 
        increased *market*-share for their browsers and "web developement
        tools" (at the expense of standards, interoperability, and -- most 
        especially -- their competitors).

        The "web development tools" are the most insidious power piece
        in this little chess game.  These tools (mostly Microsoft's 
        "FrontPage") seem to include these non-standard extensions 
        wherever possible -- with no warning, commentary, and mostly 
        with no option to avoid them.  Anyone who wants to produce "clean,"
        friendly, standards conformant code is basically reduced to 
        using a bare text editor -- and knowing the syntax inside and out.

        In some particularly notorious cases there are "active" or
        "dynamic content" sites that will slam the door shut on your
        browser just based on a prejudice about it's name.  By default
        your browser identifies itself to the server when fetching pages.
        Some sites are "just too cool" to have any textual content -- and
        shove a message down your throat:

                "Go get a 'real' browser, punk!"

        ... (the sheer effrontery of telling your "customers" what
        sort of vehicle to drive around on the "stupor hypeway" --
        it simply boggles the mind and gasts the flabber!).

        I've even encountered a couple of cases where some "dynamic
        sites" would shove hundreds of kilobytes of "search engine spam"
        to my copy of Lynx.  This was a crude effort to seed the 
        databases maintained by Yahoo!, InfoSeek, HotBot, and others with
        excessively favorable content rating (based on the notion that 
        most of these sites used "bots" (web robots, or "spiders") that
        identify themselves as "Lynx" (to avoid using the extra bandwidth
        on graphics that they couldn't use).

        There are also an increasing number of sites that require 
        SSL even for their non-secure information.  SSL is a set of
        encryption protocols which are primarily used to provide for
        server-authenticated (or mutually authenticated) and "secure"
        (encrypted) access to web forms (mostly for order Pizzas 
        without shouting your credit card number to every router in
        fifty states and a few countries).

        So, there are a number of places on the "full Internet" that 
        you can't adequately or comfortably browse with Lynx.

        The good news is that Lynx does support features to address 
        most of these problems.  You can get an SSL proxy (which you'd
        run on the same machine as you run Lynx), the current versions
        of Lynx will list all the "frames" (which are a Netscape 
        extension for displaying multiple separate HTML files concurrently),
        and can fetch some sorts of "map" files (the text files which 
        describe the "hot" (clickable) regions of an IMAGEMAP -- which 
        is a picture with "clickable" point therein) -- so you can browse 
        them.  Lynx can offer to accept cookies *<see note: cookies> for a 
        given session -- and, eventually, may offer options to save them.  

        The bad news, again from the site maintainers and devlopers, is
        that they often don't provide meaningful names for their frames,
        or within their image map files.  These are intended to be 
        "seen" by a site's users -- and often aren't "seen" by the site's
        developers (remember the "integrated web developer software we
        mentioned earlier?).

        The final bit of good news is this:

                Most sites that are particularly "Lynx-unfriendly"
                have not real content.  When I succumb to curiosity
                and view them in a GUI browser -- they are all flash
                and no substance.

        When we say "hypertext" they seem to hear "hype OR text"

        So, Lynx acts as a bit of a twit filter.  Visit a site first
        with a text browser (Lynx or emacs' W3 mode) and you'll know
        immediately whether their webmasters are hard of hearing or
        whether they "get it."




                <note: "cookies">
                * Cookies are another Netscape  extension
                which are  intended  to allow  web   site
                developers  a crude and unreliable way to
                "maintain state"   (distinguish   between
                users who might  be  at the same  site --
                like all   of the   AOL,  CompuServe, and
                Netcom   users  going   through     their
                respective   gateways).  Marketing people
                drool over  statistics based on "cookies"
                which can purport  to tell how many *new*
                and  *returning*  users  there are  to  a
                site, *who*  read *which* documents other
                nonsense.   However, for those statistics
                to be  even close enough for a marketeer,
                the use  of them must be almost universal
                (so we stop  non-cookies browsers  at the
                front  home page) and we  have to rely on
                them  being so  obscure   in the  browser
                software that  no  one tampers with  them
                (they essentially must be "sneaky").
                </note: "cookies">

PS:  I've copied this to my editor at the Linux Gazette -- since
I think it's a article for them to consider.  Maybe they'll reprint
it in "Websmith" (a feature of the Linux Journal, which is published
by SSC, the maintainers for the Linux Gazette webazine).  Interested
parties can view all of the back issues of LG the URL in my sig.
-- a site that is emminently "Lynx Friendly"

--
Jim Dennis,                               The Linux Gazette "Answer Guy"
Linux Gazette is Published under the GPL:       http://www.ssc.com/lg/

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