web browsing... in DOS

Web browsing... in DOS

modern browsing in dos isn't exactly a cakewalk, i mean sure, being able to do some minimal things in, say links, can be a huge help, but you can only do so much on today's internet without HTML5, javascript, and ipv6...

Dillo

Dillo Splash screen - Dillo

Dillo, a super-lightweight browser that is mainly developed for unix-like systems, has a fork for dos, or rather a fork of a windows port that isn't associated with the main dillo development team, and that has various bugs, but at least has tabs and multiple windows... I give it credit for that much...

The user interface is similar to the standard *nix Dillo,  with FLTK, css, and the usual screen layout. the bookmarks work like a drop-down menu instead of a DPI-generated webpage. One thing not found in the "official" dillo, is a configuration dialog. a useful feature. though this version of dillo lags when the mouse is over certain elements of the ui like links and text boxes. noticeable even on a 397Mhz Pentium II, and can make dillo for dos nearly unusable in a slower VirtualBox vm.

unfortunately, even this ports upstream, unix-like cousin, is still working on implementing https, and this port has a few strange issues, such as the file loading dialog spitting out junk into the path box when you try to navigate or even press backspace, and on occasion the browser will just crash, leaving the user unceremoniously at a DJGPP fault screen...

Arachne

FreeDOS website - arachne

Arachne is an impressive dos internet suite, that has quite a few interesting features, and even its own add-ons, it has a file manager, a "desktop", bookmarks, ftp support, email, and even partial gopher support.

The user interface is responsive enough, even if it looks a tad dated in 2017. While links is designed with a minimalist UI, arachne is clean on the other end of the spectrum, with fancy features like "virtual screen" scrolling, an a huge sidebar to the right of the screen. Arachne is somewhat unusual in that most of its features and setup screens work like local web pages.

The problem is, the web browsing isn't exactly up to modern standards, lacking even https, and also suffers from some rather dated design decisions, decisions that might have made sense in its day, but in 2017... not so much...

jpeg and png images are converted to bitmaps before being cached, (yes you read that right) and if your system doesn't have its temp folder on a ramdisk, expect delays... and the lack of https support means that many webpages fail to load at all, even when they are ipv4...

links

FreeDOS website - links

links is by far my most-used dos browser, like the other browsers here, it can't do ipv6, (though thats actually a network stack limitation, as links on other systems can load ipv6 just fine)

The user interface is sparse, and can prove tedious for someone who doesn't know the keyboard shortcuts. images look fine, text is quite readable, though I'm curious, why the giant mouse cursor?

at one point links had javascript support, but it was disabled, but as far as both text browsers and graphical browsers, links tends to be the most usable, given its the only one of the three Ive mentioned here that actually can load https webpages... and its also the only one with an update within the past 4 years... considering links' dos port is considered beta quality, its surprisingly reliable and stable. and at least i can search DuckDuckGo using this one...

what i think a modern dos browser needs

• HTML5
• javascript (I know, but this thing is here to stay for a long time)
• file manager (this is one of the things i like about arachne, though a dedicated file manager component would be even better, and proper file load and save dialogs are even more so of a necessity)
• proper, windowed UI. (this is one of DilloDOS's strongpoints... perhaps that DOS FLTK port could be used?)
• support for http/https and ipv4/ipv6, ftp, ect.

Other Ideas:

• perhaps it should have a few tools, like a calculator and editor?
• irc client?

Feel free to share some thoughts in the comments.

screenshots captured from within virtualbox.