BOBCAT is a simple site that catalogs other sites that look good when rendered with text-oriented browsers such as Lynx or Emacs' Web Wowser.
If you're reading this page with Lynx, I suggest using the arrow, tab or shift-tab keystrokes to change which link is highlighted. When a link you're interested in is highlighted, press <enter> to visit the site or press 'a', then 'l' to save the link to your bookmarks.
Emacs' EWW mode operates similarly (arrow, tab and shift-tab change which link is highlighted.) When a link you're interested in is highlighted, press <enter> to visit the site or press 'b' to save the link to your bookmarks.
We also have a FAQ.
The good people at DuckDuckGo maintain a low complexity site that's easy to use and has zero cruft.
SearXNG is an open source meta-search engine which presents a decent text-based interface into Google's search engine. The SearXNG project maintains a list of public instances at searx.space, but it requires JavaScript to render. I picked BareSearch at random as an example instance, but if you have a browser that supports JavaScript, you can pick a different instance. SearXNG seems to work well with Lynx, but generates a "Too Many Requests" error when used with EWW. YMMV.
NPR maintains a "thin" version of their site which works well with text-based browsers.
This is the "lite" version of the CNN web page. I bet it was created for older mobile devices, but it renders beautifully with Lynx and doesn't bombard you with ads.
A pleasantly rendered news feed from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
The CSM is a well-regarded news source in North America. Despite being named after the Christian Science religious movement founded by Mary Baker Eddy, it does not seem to evangelize and does not approach news stories from a religious viewpoint. It does, however, provide a very nice "lite" site which renders well in Lynx and EWW.
It seems weird to include a site which links primarily to video resources, but the meta-data and video descriptions render well. Perhaps in the future a tool like yt-dlp or mvp could consume pbs.org video URLs and save or display them in the terminal.
This is the "lite" version of the main poandpo.com site. I don't know much about this organization, but like that they have several RSS feeds.
Neuters uses Reuters' public APIs to present a text-oriented interface to the day's news.
Legible News is a curated collection of interesting, recent content with a reasonable text interface.
This site aggregates news from several sourcs including the NYT, NPR, Al Jazeera and Fox. Most of the links point to full-HTML / JavaScript enabled pages, however. YMMV.
Another aggregator. I can't say that it renders beautifully in text-based browsers, but it does index a broad variety of tech-lifestyle pages (Lifehacker, Fast Company, Engadget, etc.)
This is kind of nice. It looks like it's using IP geolocation to give you a regional, text-based weather forecast. It doesn't render well in Lynx unless your terminal is 127 or more columns wide, but renders fine in EWW.
In their own words, HRW "investigates and reports on abuses happening in all corners of the world." The politics of civil rights abuses can be controversial in some corners of the Internet. But I include it on this list because it renders well without JavaScript and in a text-only browser.
If you're unfamiliar with Hacker News, it's like the SlashDot of old, but with a simplified landing page and slightly less drama. Sadly, the search function only works with JavaScript enabled, so neither Lynx nor EWW work with it.
"Lobsters is a computing-focused community centered around link aggregation and discussion." It's also the home of a pleasant and informed community. Posting a comment via Lynx or EWW is hit-or-miss, but browsing comments seems to work.
One of the original tech-themed internet comments sections. It's still surprisingly readable via the textweb. Alterslash bills itself as a "digest" of Slashdot content. It's slightly easier to read, but only presents the most recent articles.
For people who like their news with a dash of infotainment, the Daily Mail provides a lite version of the day's events. The text-based rendering isn't the best, you have to tab past quite a few topic headings before reaching the list of articles. But articles seem to be rendered well once you get to them.
This is a site similar to Bobcat. It lists a few sites that work well in text-only browsers. Some of the entries seem to be a bit dated, however.
This site is a human curated list of web sites that are "useful" but are smaller than 1 MegaByte. Their attitude towards SSL/TLS is delightfully anachronistic.
Self-reference is not so vile a sin as self-neglect. Including this site for completeness.
From the U.S. Digital Services, the playbook lists thirteen key "plays" describing successful "Best Common Practices."
This is the world's first web page, archived at CERN and is delightfully spartan.
This is less of a "complete" service and more of a toolbox. If you know the URL of a particular post on medium.com, you can construct a URL by joining the front half of the scribe URL with the back half of the Medium URL to link to a page which renders nicely in text-based browsers. A more-or-less complete HOWTO is provided at the page referenced above.
The Wikipedia's mobile site renders reasonably well in text-oriented browsers. Finding the search box with EWW is difficult (it's between the "Wikipedia" and "Search" lines.) But that's more of an issue with EWW and less to do with the Wikipedia. It seems to render fine in Lynx.
Of course my home page is going to be pleasant to look at with lynx. I have some technical writings and fiction I wrote. It's fun, if you're into that kind of thing.
Last updated January 18th, 2025.