LINKS2(1)

👑 LINKS2(1) — General Commands Manual 👑

okay bestie, welcome to the General Commands Manual page for LINKS2(1) — yes, that's the whole manpage name, and no, we are not skipping a single line of it. grab a snack 🍓 and get comfy, because this one is long and it comes in 2 parts, and this is part 1. every single flag is coming with us. no cap. 💅

---

🌸 NAME 🌸

links — a lynx-like alternative character mode WWW browser 🦋

---

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

links2 [options] URL

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so links2 is a text mode WWW browser with an ncurses interface, and it's genuinely giving main character energy. what it's serving:

• colors 🌈
• correct table rendering — tables that actually line up, we are obsessed
• background downloading ⬇️
• a menu driven configuration interface 🎀
• and slim code — she's on a diet and she is thriving 💅

Frames are supported. fr fr. 🖼️

you can have different file formats associated with external viewers 🫶 — links2 will hand stuff off to other programs when it needs to.

mailto: and telnet: are supported via external clients. iconic. ✨

and links2 can handle local (file://) or remote (http:// or ftp://) URLs. local bestie and internet bestie, both at once. 💖

---

💅 OPTIONS 💅

real talk first: most options can be set in the user interface or config file, so usually you do not need to care about them 🙈. but we're listing every single one anyway, because that's literally the job of a manpage. buckle up, queen. 👑

reminder bestie: every default, every number, every 0/1 below is straight from the page. i am not making anything up. ✨

• -help — print a help screen ✨
• -version — prints the links version number and exits. 👋
• -lookup <hostname> — does name lookup, like the command host. 🔍
• -g — run Links2 in graphics mode. if not given, Links2 will run in text mode. running in graphics mode means Links2 will probe all compiled-in graphics devices and run on the first found. if none are found, links2 will not run in graphics mode. this option works only if --enable-graphics was given to ./configure. 💀
• -no-g — run in text mode (overrides a previous -g).
• -driver <driver name> — graphics driver to use. the drivers are: x, svgalib, fb, directfb, pmshell, atheos. the list of drivers will be shown if you give it an unknown driver. available drivers depend on your operating system and available libraries. 🖥️
• -mode <parameter> — pass a parameter to the graphics driver. on SVGAlib, this is widthxheightxdepth (where depth is 16, 256, 32K, 64K, 16M or 16M32) and it defines the graphics mode; on X the format is WIDTHxHEIGHT and it defines the window size.
• -display <x-display> — set Xwindow display.
• -force-html — treat files with unknown type as html rather than text. (can be toggled with the '\' key) 🔁
• -source <url> — write unformatted data stream to stdout.
• -dump <url> — write formatted document to stdout.
• -width <number> — for dump, the document will be formatted to this screen width (but it can still exceed it if lines can't be broken).
• -codepage <codepage> — for dump, convert output to the specified character set — for example iso-8859-2, windows-1250.
• -anonymous — restrict links so that it can run on an anonymous account. no local file browsing. no downloads. executing of viewers is allowed, but the user can't add or modify entries in the association table. 🔒
• -no-connect — runs links2 as a separate instance — instead of connecting to an existing instance.
• -download-dir <path> — default download directory. (default: actual dir) 📁
• -language <language> — set user interface language.
• -max-connections <max> — maximum number of concurrent connections. (default: 10)
• -max-connections-to-host <max> — maximum number of concurrent connections to a given host. (default: 2)
• -retries <retry> — number of retries. (default: 3)
• -receive-timeout <sec> — timeout on receive. (default: 120)
• -unrestartable-receive-timeout <sec> — timeout on non restartable connections. (default: 600)
• -timeout-when-trying-multiple-addresses <sec> — timeout for connection when trying multiple addresses or when resuming a keepalive connection. (default: 3)
• -bind-address <ip address or interface name> — use a specific local IP address.
• -bind-address-ipv6 <ipv6 address or interface name> — use a specific local IPv6 address.
• -no-libevent — don't use the libevent library.
• -no-openmp — don't use OpenMP.
• -download-utime <0>/<1> — set the time of downloaded files to the last modification time reported by the server. 🕰️
• -format-cache-size <num> — number of formatted document pages cached. (default: 5)
• -memory-cache-size <bytes> — cache memory in bytes. (default: 1048576)
• -image-cache-size <bytes> — cache memory in bytes. (default: 1048576)
• -font-cache-size <bytes> — cache memory in bytes. (default: 2097152)
• -aggressive-cache <0>/<1> — always cache everything regardless of the server's caching recomendations. many servers deny caching even if their content is not changing, just to get more hits and more money from ads. 🙄
• -address-preference <0>/<1>/<2>/<3>/<4> — (default 0) 0 — use system default. 1 — prefer IPv4. 2 — prefer IPv6. 3 — use only IPv4. 4 — use only IPv6.
• -http-proxy <host:port> — host and port number of the HTTP proxy, or blank. (default: blank)
• -ftp-proxy <host:port> — host and port number of the FTP proxy, or blank. (default: blank)
• -https-proxy <host:port> — host and port number of the HTTPS proxy, or blank. (default: blank)
• -socks-proxy <user@host:port> — userid, host and port of Socks4a, or blank. (default: blank)
• -append-text-to-dns-lookups <text> — append text to dns lookups. it's useful for specifying a fixed tor exit node. (default: blank)
• -no-proxy-domains <domain,domain...> — no proxy for the specified domains. (default: blank)
• -only-proxies <0>/<1> — "1" means Links won't initiate any non-proxy connection. it's useful for anonymization with tor or similar networks. 🕵️
• -ssl.certificates <0>/<1>/<2> — (default 1) 0 — ignore invalid certificate. 1 — warn on invalid certificate. 2 — reject invalid certificate.
• -ssl.builtin-certificates <0>/<1> — (default 0; on DOS and OpenVMS default 1) use built-in certificates instead of system certificates.
• -ssl.client-cert-key <filename> — name of the PEM encoded file with the user private key for client certificate authentication.
• -ssl.client-cert-crt <filename> — name of the PEM encoded file with the user certificate for client certificate authentication.
• -ssl.client-cert-password <text> — password for the user private key.
• -async-dns <0>/<1> — asynchronous DNS resolver on(1)/off(0).
• -dns-over-https <url> — DNS over HTTPS url.
• -http-bugs.http10 <0>/<1> — (default 0) "1" forces using only the HTTP/1.0 protocol (useful for buggy servers that claim to be HTTP/1.1 compliant but are not). "0" enables using both HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1.
• -http-bugs.allow-blacklist <0>/<1> — (default 1) "1" defaults to using a list of servers that have broken HTTP/1.1 support. when links2 finds such a server, it will retry the request with HTTP/1.0.
• -http-bugs.bug-no-accept-charset <0>/<1> — (default 0) do not send the Accept-Charset field of the HTTP header. because it's too long, some servers will deny the request. other servers will convert content to plain ascii when Accept-Charset is missing.
• -http-bugs.no-compression <0>/<1> — (default 0) "1" means links won't advertise HTTP compression support (but it will still accept compressed data). use it when you communicate with a server that has broken compression support.
• -http-bugs.retry-internal-errors <0>/<1> — (default 0) retry on internal server errors (50x).
• -http.fake-firefox <0>/<1> — (default 0) fake that the browser is Firefox in the HTTP header. 🦊
• -http.do-not-track <0>/<1> — (default 0) send a "do not track" request in the HTTP header.
• -http.referer <0>/<1>/<2>/<3>/<4> — (default 0) 0 — do not send referer. 1 — send the requested URL as referer. 2 — send fake referer. 3 — send real referer. 4 — send real referer only to the same server.
• -http.fake-referer <string> — fake referer value.
• -http.fake-user-agent <string> — fake user agent value.
• -http.extra-header <string> — extra string added to the HTTP header.
• -ftp.anonymous-password <string> — password for anonymous ftp access.
• -ftp.use-passive <0>/<1> — use the ftp PASV command to bypass firewalls. 🔥
• -ftp.use-erpt-epsv <0>/<1> — use EPRT and EPSV commands instead of PORT and PASV.
• -ftp.set-iptos <0>/<1> — set IP Type-of-service to high throughput on ftp connections.
• -smb.allow-hyperlinks-to-smb <0>/<1> — allow hyperlinks to the SMB protocol. disabling this improves security, because internet sites cannot exploit possible bugs in the SMB client. 🛡️
• -menu-font-size <size> — size of font in menu.
• -menu-background-color 0xRRGGBB — set menu background color in graphics mode. RRGGBB are hex. 🎨
• -menu-foreground-color 0xRRGGBB — set menu foreground color in graphics mode. RRGGBB are hex. 🎨
• -scroll-bar-area-color 0xRRGGBB — set color of scroll bar area. RRGGBB are hex. 🎨
• -scroll-bar-bar-color 0xRRGGBB — set color of scroll bar. RRGGBB are hex. 🎨
• -scroll-bar-frame-color 0xRRGGBB — set color of scroll bar frame. RRGGBB are hex. 🎨
• -bookmarks-file <file> — file to store bookmarks.
• -bookmarks-codepage <codepage> — character set of bookmarks file.
• -save-url-history <0>/<1> — save URL history on exit.
• -enable-cookies <0>/<1> — enable cookies. 🍪
• -save-cookies <0>/<1> — save cookies on exit.
• -max-cookie-age <fp-value> — maximum cookie age in days. 0 — unlimited.
• -display-red-gamma <fp-value> — red gamma of display. (default 2.2)
• -display-green-gamma <fp-value> — green gamma of display. (default 2.2)
• -display-blue-gamma <fp-value> — blue gamma of display. (default 2.2)
• -user-gamma <fp-value> — additional gamma. (default 1)
• -bfu-aspect <fp-value> — display aspect ration. (the page says "ration", and i am simply the messenger 💅)
• -dither-letters <0>/<1> — do letter dithering.
• -dither-images <0>/<1> — do image dithering.
• -display-optimize <0>/<1>/<2> — optimize for CRT (0), LCD RGB (1), LCD BGR (2).
• -gamma-correction <0>/<1>/<2> — type of gamma correction: (default 2) 0 — 8-bit (fast). 1 — 16-bit (slow). 2 — automatically detect according to the speed of the FPU.
• -overwrite-instead-of-scroll <0>/<1> — overwrite the screen instead of scrolling it (valid for svgalib and framebuffer). overwriting may or may not be faster, depending on hardware.
• -font <file> — font file for normal text.
• -font-bold <file> — font file for bold text.
• -font-monospaced <file> — font file for monospaced text.

---

and that's where part 1 stops, bestie 🦋 — the options keep going, so part 2 is coming right up. don't go anywhere. 💖

• -font-monospaced-bold <file> — the font file for monospaced bold text, bestie.
• -font-italic <file> — font file for italic text ✨
• -font-italic-bold <file> — font file for italic bold text.
• -font-monospaced-italic <file> — font file for monospaced italic text.
• -font-monospaced-italic-bold <file> — font file for monospaced italc bold text (yes the page rlly spells it "italc" and honestly? iconic. we keep her exactly as she is 💅).
• -html-assume-codepage <codepage> — when the webpage refuses to say what codepage it's using, just assume this one. Default? ISO 8859-1. no cap.
• -html-hard-assume <0>/<1> — always use the charset from -html-assume-codepage, idc what the server said. main character behavior, honestly.
• -html-tables <0>/<1> — render tables. Give it (0) and tables get rendered like in lynx instead.
• -html-frames <0>/<1> — render frames. (0) means frames get rendered like in lynx.
• -html-break-long-lines <0>/<1> — break those never-ending lines inside <pre> sections 🫶
• -html-images <0>/<1> — show links to unnamed images as [IMG].
• -html-image-names <0>/<1> — show the actual filename of an image instead of [IMG].
• -html-display-images <0>/<1> — display images in graphics mode 🎀
• -html-image-scale <percent> — scale images in graphics mode.
• -html-bare-image-autoscale <0>/<1> — autoscale images that are being displayed full screen.
• -html-numbered-links <0>/<1> — number the links in text mode, so you can pick one fast by typing its number and hitting enter. lowkey genius.
• -html-table-order <0>/<1> — in text mode, walk through a table by rows (0) or by columns (1).
• -html-auto-refresh <0>/<1> — actually process the refresh to the other page (1), or just display a link to that page (0).
• -html-target-in-new-window <0>/<1> — allow html to open new windows.
• -html-margin <number of spaces> — the margin, in text mode.
• -html-user-font-size <size> — font size for pages in graphics mode.
• -html-text-color <0>–*<15>* — text color in text mode.
• -html-link-color <0>–*<15>* — link color in text mode.
• -html-background-color <0>–*<7>* — background color in text mode.
• -html-ignore-document-color <0>/<1> — ignore whatever colors the html document tries to force on you, in text mode. the audacity of that document, fr.
• -html-g-text-color 0xRRGGBB — text color in graphics mode.
• -html-g-link-color 0xRRGGBB — link color in graphics mode.
• -html-g-background-color 0xRRGGBB — background color in graphics mode.
• -html-g-ignore-document-color <0>/<1> — ignore colors specified in the html document, in graphics mode.

More options can be seen with links2 -h 👀

---

✨ NAVIGATION KEYS ✨

The keys you may use while navigating are, bestie, and yes there's a lot of them:

• ESC — menu/escape
• F9 — menu
• F10 — file menu
• TAB — next frame
• PGDN — page down
• Space — page down
• PGUP — page up
• b — page up
• CursorDOWN — next link/down
• CursorUP — prev link/up
• INS — scroll up
• ^P — scroll up
• DEL — scroll down
• ^N — scroll down
• [ — scroll left
• ] — scroll right
• HOME — home
• END — end of page
• CursorRIGHT — enter link/press button
• ENTER — enter link/press button
• CursorLEFT — go back
• d — download link
• / — search in the page
• ? — search back in the page
• n — find next match
• N — find next match backwards
• f — zoom actual frame
• ^R — reload page
• g — go to URL
• G — edit the current URL and goto the result
• ^G — edit the current link and goto the result
• s — bookmark manager
• q — quit, close window if more windows are open
• Q — quit without asking 😤
• = — document information
• \ — toggle HTML source/rendered view

---

🌸 EDITING KEYS 🌸

These ones work while you're editing a line or jumping to a URL:

• CursorRIGHT — move right
• CursorLEFT — move left
• HOME — jump at the beginning
• ^A — jump at the beginning
• END — jump at the end
• ^E — jump at the end
• ^X — cut to clipboard (text mode only)
• ^B — copy to clipboard
• ^INS — copy to clipboard
• ^V — paste from clipboard (text mode only)
• ENTER — enter line
• BACKSPACE — delete back character
• ^H — delete back character
• DEL — delete character
• ^D — delete character
• ^U — delete from beginning of the line
• ^K — delete to the end of the line
• ^W — auto complete line

---

📁 FILES 📁

• ~/.links2/links.cfg — the per‐user configfile, and links2 creates it for you automatically, no effort required 🫶

---

🌈 PLATFORMS 🌈

links2 is known to work on Linux, FreeBSD, Solaris, IRIX, HPUX, Digital Unix, AIX, OS/2, BeOS and Win32. she's versatile like that 💅

---

💀 BUGS 💀

okay so here's where it gets real. sit down.

• Can't connect to some FTP servers (Novell, NT). The connection just stays in "Request sent" state forever. awkward.
• Frames don't work if there's more frames with same name. Turn them off in such case, bestie.
• You can't upload large files; it takes lots of memory. like lots lots.
• You shouldn't press '^Z' when you are in a viewer 🙈

Please report any other bugs you find to Mikulas Patocka <mikulas@artax.karlin.mff.cuni.cz> — he wants to know, fr fr.

---

👑 LICENSE 👑

links2 is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. periodt.

---

🦋 AUTHOR 🦋

links2 was written by Mikulas Patocka, Karel 'Clock' Kulhavy, Petr 'Brain' Kulhavy, and Martin 'PerM' Pergel. See file AUTHORS for a list of people contributing to this project. so many icons in one project, we love to see it.

The homepage of links2 can be found at http://links.twibright.com/ ⭐

This manual page was written by Peter Gervai <grin@tolna.net>, using excerpts from a (yet?) unknown links2 fan for the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others). Updated by Karel Kulhavy. mystery fan, wherever you are, you ate 💖

---

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

• lynx(1)
• w3m(1)

---

and that's the whole page, bestie 🎀 this lil manual is from the links2 package, and she's dated Aug, 2006 — a whole elder but she still slays ✨ go read some web pages, you've earned it 💜