Are you tired of heavy, clunky browsers that hog all your bandwidth and slow down your already exhausted computer?
Can’t install or use a browser on your computer because your system administrator is a sociopath?
And your only window on the world is your dark terminal?
So, I have a little hope for you! It’s called Carbonyl, and it’s a Chromium-based browser designed to run in a terminal. Yes, you read that correctly—a browser in a terminal!
Yes, I know, I overdid the title of the article, but it’s crazy, and be careful, it’s nothing like Lynx or that kind of thing!
With Carbonyl, you can browse the web, watch videos, and even run code securely thanks to its REST communication protocol and encryption via HTTPS.
In addition to being fast, Carbonyl is lightweight and does not require a window manager (Server X… etc). It even works over SSH and comes with full support for all Web APIs, including WebGL, WebGPU, audio and video playback, animations, and more.
Carbonyl also has some nice features like a terminal-optimized layout, sub-second startup speed, 60 FPS frame rate, and zero CPU usage when you’re not doing anything with it (which is not the case for Chrome or Firefox).
Carbonyl will work on Linux, MacOS, and Windows and will require the same dependencies as Chromium if you are a Linux user. MacOS and Windows fans, however, will be able to download the compiled versions corresponding to their OS directly on the Carbonyl Github page.
You can also install it with npm like this:
npm install --global carbonyl carbonyl https://youtube.comOr directly via Docker:
docker run --rm -ti fathyb/carbonyl https://youtube.comIn comparison, Lynx, which you may be familiar with, does not support some modern web standards and cannot run JavaScript or WebAssembly functions. In this respect, Carbonyl is clearly superior!
Even Browsh, which I already told you about, works in headless mode and uses custom styles for the layout. It is, therefore, a little less light and faster than Carbonyl.
The only limitation of Carbonyl is that it does not support full-screen mode. However, this shouldn’t slow you down too much, I think.
In short, if you want to surf the zinterwebzzz without leaving your damn terminal, Carbonyl is for you.
