This is very cool, but dedicated newsreaders (like trn) were easier to use to browse USENET than edbrowse is to browse Hacker News..
If you were forced to surf the web using a teletype, this is your tool.
Edit: actually it's growing on me. My one complaint is that I wish it would retain the printing mode when you follow a link. For example, type "g2" to follow the 2nd link on the line. Right now I should be able to hit Enter or z to display lines from this link, but annoyingly you have to enter something like "1" to start it going.
I think the main "selling point" of edbrowse for sighted people might be its scripting capabilities. You can automate a lot of browsing with it if you take the time. See the user guide: http://edbrowse.org/usersguide.html#script
I've been curious about edbrowse for a long time, finding it a fascinating and inspiring project. It's a somewhat hidden gem for sure. Then again, I failed to build it on my (tiny) distro, and I occasionally think that maybe the internal scripting language, mail client, etc create "too many" temptations for a casual user.
A simple line-mode website pager that encourages Unix pipes for any user-defined task (maybe even the javascript engine could be built as an external application?) would be enough for a modest hobbyist coder like me, I guess. Something like the nmh mail handler, but for web browsing: https://www.unix.com/man-page/linux/7/nmh/
This is by no means meant as a harsh critique or whining, though. As indicated, the project, Karl Dahlke, Chris Bannon and other devs do deserve tremendous respect. It is quite possible that a heavily pipes-oriented web browsing would be too fragmented for actual, day-to-day usage.
The line-editing paradigm nonetheless has its beauty and a compelling simplicity, even in 2022. Keep it going!
If you were forced to surf the web using a teletype, this is your tool.
Edit: actually it's growing on me. My one complaint is that I wish it would retain the printing mode when you follow a link. For example, type "g2" to follow the 2nd link on the line. Right now I should be able to hit Enter or z to display lines from this link, but annoyingly you have to enter something like "1" to start it going.