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Console-Based Web Browsing With W3M
I've been browsing the web with a 27-year-old, text-only browser for a couple of months now and it has made me like the web again. I don't ever want to go back to a graphical browser.
The web is a steaming pile of JavaShit though, so I do from time to time have to open pages in a graphical browser. But I much prefer w3m and I always start there now. If the page I'm after works, I am happy, if it doesn’t I get to decide: begrudgingly open it in a graphical browser or just skip it. It’s remarkable how often the second option is the one I chose. It’s made me question what all I do on the web, most of it turns out to be unimportant and unnecessary.
But it isn't the lack of JavaScript that makes browsing with w3m great. That does help clear up clutter, but it's really an entirely different experience that, the more I use it, the more I love it.
With w3m I find myself focused on a single task in a way that I am not in Vivaldi. With w3m I get the information I want faster. I can open an entire rendered page in Vim with a single keystroke, and then I can copy and paste things to my notes or just save the whole page as text. When I'm done I quit and move on to something different. Opening w3m is so fast I don't keep it open. I use it when I need it and then I close it.
This, I've come to think, is the key to eliminating distractions, staying focused and getting actual work done: close the browser when you don't need it. You don't think of an open web browser as multitasking, but it is and that's a recipe for distraction. Unitasking is the way forward most of the time, when you're done with the page, close the browser.
This is very cumbersome with a graphical browser which has to boot up a ton of stuff and then load all those open tabs you have and it ends up taking so long enough that only a crazy person would close it when they were done with a single task. It'd be like shutting off your laptop every time you closed the lid.
With w3m though this is exactly what I do and I swear I waste less time because of it. Often I even close out the terminal window that it was in because foot is pretty speedy too. Then I find myself staring at my desktop, which happens to be a somber image I took a long time ago in the swamps of Florida, and it always makes me want to close my laptop and go outside, which is why I use it as a desktop.
What does this have to do with w3m? Very little I suppose, other than to say, if you're finding yourself wasting time browsing the internet for hours, try using w3m, you might like it, and I can almost garantee you'll save yourself some time that you'd otherwise waste on pointless internet things. Go make something instead. Or give someone a hug or a high five.
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