DOS ain't dead

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

---
AUSREG Consultancy http://www.ausreg.com
Tadpole Tunes http://www.tadpoletunes.com
Sna Keo Il http://www.tadpoletunes.com/sna_keo_il/

Thank you for posting it!

It's good to see that Mikulas Patocka added my idea of saving the clipboard to a file on DOS as a feature. It will be very useful. Now I can call external programs such as WGET very easily compared to the previous workarounds. It's not the first time he actually reacts to the feedbacks of users to constantly improve the application. This is one of the best application programs of today's DOS.

> http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

---
DOS isn't about why. It's about why not.

Hi,

seem latest version of links can work on TOR mode (anonimous)..
Someone have tested if work also in DOS?

Sun Nov 25 17:27:29 CET 2018 mikulas:

Automatically enable tor mode when the socks port is 9050

Sun Nov 25 17:01:20 CET 2018 mikulas:

When we are in tor mode, invert the colors on the top line and bottom
line, so that the user can immediatelly see it

and ..someone can help to add new services in JS part of source for "upgrading" S capability of links?

regards

Roberto iw2evk

Hi,

i'e downloaded and install ast binaries, set proxy choosing une aster frim this list :

http://free-proxy.cz/en/proxylist/port/9050/ping

but nothing appears after insert a valid adress..

> Thank you for posting it!

FYI, I again mirrored this to iBiblio for FreeDOS. But I haven't tried it (under QEMU or VBox) yet. BTW, the bug in VBox networking for DOS has been fixed in latest 6.0.2.

> It's good to see that Mikulas Patocka added my idea of saving the clipboard
> to a file on DOS as a feature. It will be very useful. Now I can call
> external programs such as WGET very easily compared to the previous
> workarounds.

Which WGET are you using? I was sometimes using the latest build from Michael Kostylev, but since I never verified its sources fully, I never mirrored it for us. (Things like that are usually hard or impossible to rebuild without a miracle.)

And here's my point. He's removed it from his server. Granted, I still have it locally, but still ... that's a bit surprising (but only barely). N.B. He still seems to have wget.exe (from 2017?) but no full install .7z anymore nor even any sources, very odd.

In other news, he does appear to have a build of latest Curl 7.63.0 (which is pointed to on Curl's own official download page). I haven't tried it, but just FYI, it's here. Also, previous builds of Curl didn't work very well for me, so I preferred Wget, but YMMV.

EDIT: This Curl build seems to work correctly, in limited testing, under QEMU 2.5.0 atop Xenialpup (aka, 64-bit PuppyLinux).

And just to mention this also, since it's related to networking, ....

ftp://ftp.gnu.org/README

> (Updated October 13 2017):
>
> Because of security concerns with plaintext protocols, we still
> intend to disable the FTP protocol for downloads on this server
> (downloads would still be available over HTTP and HTTPS), but we
> will not be doing it on November 1, 2017, as previously announced
> here. We will be sharing our reasons and offering a chance to
> comment on this issue soon; watch this space for details.
>
> If you maintain scripts used to access ftp.gnu.org over FTP,
> we strongly encourage you to change them to use HTTPS instead.

I swear, everything legacy gets thrown away. I like the simplicity of FTP. I like using mTCP. But decisions like this make it almost impossible.

This is why we really need good (updated! reproducible!) ports of Curl and/or Wget and/or Links2. We just don't have much of a choice. So many sites are going "HTTPS only".

And maybe one day it will finally add mouse wheel support...

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> And maybe one day it will finally add mouse wheel support...

A TSR mouse wheel driver would be more useful. It should read the wheel input and write it to the keyboard buffer as specific keytrokes. Almost every DOS program is scrollable with keys or combinations. Although I am not shure if it could work with UEFI legacy mouse API since I don't know whether it forwards the wheel motions or not.

---
DOS isn't about why. It's about why not.

Well, I don't know. I downloaded it as binaries, without sources and docs. It's output only says:

GNU Wget 1.11.1, a non-interactive network retriever.
Usage: wget.exe [OPTION]... [URL]...

---
DOS isn't about why. It's about why not.

A TSR that adds wheel support for DOS. I haven't tried it yet, but you can.

http://ninho.users.micso.fr/wheelk/

Wheelk was discused here some years ago. The problem is that it stops working when Links loads. It works only in SOME dos programs but not Links... I expect when Q2DOS implemented wheel support it shouldn't be hard to add it in Links too.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Wheelk was discused here some years ago. The problem is that it stops
> working when Links loads. It works only in SOME dos programs but not
> Links... I expect when Q2DOS implemented wheel support it shouldn't be hard
> to add it in Links too.

Also Wheelk only supports two keystrokes as legacy interface, but for a multitude of programs different keystrokes are better. For Links, for example, p and l are the scrolling keys. An external driver sould be adjustable for applications and also should access the wheel on its own instead of depending on CTMOUSE, which I, personally don't even use. It is good and small, but I experienced some compatibility problems with it.

---
DOS isn't about why. It's about why not.

> Wheelk was discused here some years ago. The problem is that it stops
> working when Links loads. It works only in SOME dos programs but not
> Links... I expect when Q2DOS implemented wheel support it shouldn't be
> hard to add it in Links too.

Actually, WHEELK will stop working when ANY program that natively knows how to use a mouse is loaded. The problem is not with WHEELK itself, but is a problem in the way the mouse interface is designed. You should be able to get WHEELK to work if you temporarily "shell" out to DOS, re-initialize WHEELK, and then exit back to the program again (I don't know if LINKS has a "shell" option/feature that would allow this or not). A PITA I realize, but something that is very difficult to avoid simply because of the way the mouse interface is designed. You are correct that it shouldn't be too difficult to add wheel support to any program that is still being updated and already knows how to use a mouse, including LINKS.

> Also Wheelk only supports two keystrokes as legacy interface, but for a
> multitude of programs different keystrokes are better. For Links, for
> example, p and l are the scrolling keys. An external driver sould be
> adjustable for applications and also should access the wheel on its own
> instead of depending on CTMOUSE, which I, personally don't even use. It is
> good and small, but I experienced some compatibility problems with it.

I agree, WHEELK should support options for different keystrokes. You can talk to the author about that.

As far as WHEELK not depending on CTMOUSE for wheel functions, that's simply not possible, again because of the way the mouse interface is designed. You're not using CTMOUSE, but you are using some other mouse driver (most likely one from Microsoft or Logitech) that doesn't, and will probably never, have wheel support. CTMOUSE specifically and uniquely added support for a scroll wheel and no other DOS mouse driver does it. If you want to use a wheel in DOS you have no viable choice in today's world except CTMOUSE. So, unless you're willing to create your own driver or update CTMOUSE yourself, you're kind of stuck with CTMOUSE as it is. I do wish the CTMOUSE interface would be updated again to support a second (horizontal) wheel and possibly additional buttons as well, since some modern mice (especially USB mice) have those features.

Yes, when I load Wheelk from Links's DOS shell it does something after return back but instead of scroll it jumps over links on the viewed page. So it would need be configured for a different key scan code. But better would be to extend CTmouse (sources available) to make this feature integrated and more persistent.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> Yes, when I load Wheelk from Links's DOS shell it does something after
> return back but instead of scroll it jumps over links on the viewed page.
> So it would need be configured for a different key scan code. But better
> would be to extend CTmouse (sources available) to make this feature
> integrated and more persistent.

The way the "layering" works with DOS mouse drivers it really wouldn't make sense to change CTMOUSE. The mouse driver (CTMOUSE) is not, and should never be, responsible for what the mouse "types" as keystrokes in any particular program. The changes really need to be made in either LINKS or WHEELK (or both).

Hi! Thanks for trying WheelK & more thanks for reporting about yr experience
and wishes !

> Also Wheelk only supports two keystrokes as legacy interface, but for a
> multitude of programs different keystrokes are better. For Links, for
> example, p and l are the scrolling keys.

Well it's been 2 (?) years and counting since I released wheelk, & this is
all but the 1st time I hear back from a user ! That had led me to conclude that either all users were content, or that WheelK did not have any users (the latter being really a subcase of the former, as logics teaches us).

Thus your desires shall be my order, time and health allowing.
But 1st thing first, as I don't have DOSlinks : are the desired keys really :'p' for up / 'l' (down), no typo ? Please confirm !

Asking because I'm aware of some old-style uniXish programs using letterkeys from the center of the standard kbd for a fake arrow-pas ( Y G H B ?) ...
P/L look like queer choices somehow, but should you confirm that is what 'links' wants, so be it...

Since I want to keep it KISSSS°, I think I shall be giving WheelK a closed
choice of up/down key pairs, selected at the command line, like so :
/0 : temp. disable wheelk
/1 : up/down arrows (standard)
/2 : PgUp/PgDn 'fast' arrows
/3 : y/b or whatever the common (Unix) standard for fake pad asks for
/4 : p/l ? (DOS Links)
... more ?

° keep it oh!so small, simple, stupid :=)

---
Ninho

> Asking because I'm aware of some old-style uniXish programs using
> letterkeys from the center of the standard kbd for a fake arrow-pas ( Y G H
> B ?) ...

Hmm... looking down at the darned keyboard, I think I recall those would be
(u hj n) rather. Whatever...

---
Ninho

It would be nice to have multiple KB key choices.
But more important would be to make it persistent after links loaded.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

> It would be nice to have multiple KB key choices.

I agree ... it had been my intention from the start when I built this wheelk
to add alternate keys following up to popular demand but then again, nobody asked till KormaX posted in this thread :=)

We can make it happen now, tho: let's build a short list of the most useful key-pairs as used in popular DOS programmes that might sensibly be generated in response to wheel up/down actions.

> But more important would be to make it persistent after links loaded.

You wrote in antoher part of thread :
Rayer: ... when I load Wheelk from Links's DOS shell it does something after return back but instead of scroll it jumps over links on the viewed page. So it would need be configured for a different key scan code. . Quotation end.

Hence my understanding is : you found WheelK does work within Links, only the keycodes it currently generates are not those which you (and links) have been expecting. this will be remedied as soon as I am sure WHICH keys it wants. KormaX wrote 'p' and 'l' if i recmember clearly, is that so ?

Are you ALSO saying that Links will unactivate WheelK immediately, or after awhile, by recapturing the 'mouse user procedure' (MUP) ? And by the way, is DOS Links itself supposed to recognise Mouse (clicks, movements) natively, i.e. without Bret's Mousekey ? - If the Links browser, or any programme, doesn't know about a Mouse at all, then it is very unlikely it can block WheelK from working (or Mousekey for that matter).


Lastly, unrelated - I seem to remember I mailed a 'special wheelk' built just for you (not made public) - back then, for some machine of yours which did not have the int 16 function 5 'stuff keyboard buffer' available in its BIOS. Did it work OK on your HW ? It was you, right ? At 70 y.o. and counting, my wetware needs extra-refresh circuitry badly.

---
Ninho

Yes, links use 'p' key for up and 'l' key for down. I think that combinations you sumarized before are OK.

I don't remember if I got some special version, I have WHEELK.COM dated 30.7.2016, size: 838B, MD5: 9411095A739FDB419DD7FCFB64592FE3
I use latest CTmouse 2.1 b4 with PS/2 mouse.
Links is not the only program after which is loaded the wheelk stops working.

---
DOS gives me freedom to unlimited HW access.

Can works Jason Hood`s MouseClip with Links for DOS?

(See http://adoxa.altervista.org/mouseclip/index.html )

The new release of Links for DOS it's out:

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/


ChangeLog:

=== RELEASE 2.19 ===

Sun Mar 31 15:59:40 CEST 2019 mikulas

Disable high-DPI scaling on Windows

Links makes it possible to specify scaling of text and images in the
dialog windows, so this should preferably be used instead of
system-level scaling

Sat Mar 30 21:56:02 CET 2019 mikulas:

Fixed a crash on invalid IDN URL, such as http://test,ï.com/
(found by lsxvdqe@gmail.com)

Tue Mar 12 23:02:33 CET 2019 mikulas:

Make it possible to select other fonts, using fontconfig and freetype

Tue Feb 26 19:50:11 CET 2019 mikulas:

Show certificate authority in the "Document info" box

Sat Feb 2 19:30:08 CET 2019 mikulas:

Use international error messages

Sun Jan 27 18:57:34 CET 2019 mikulas:

The -dump switch didn't report an error if write to stdout failed

The new release 2.20 of Links for DOS it's out:

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/


Changelog:

http://links.twibright.com/download/ChangeLog

> The new release 2.20 of Links for DOS it's out:
>
> http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/
>
>
> Changelog:
>
> http://links.twibright.com/download/ChangeLog

Release 2.20.1 appeared today.
But there's no DOS build. From the Changelog it seems, only OpenBSD is affected.

---
Forum admin

Glad I did a search as I was going to ask about links for dos.
What is the chief difference between the lite and full versions? Is there
a discussion forum for the project?

Thanks,
Karen


> http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

> What is the chief difference between the lite and full versions?

Have a look at: link 2.15 with JS for dos it's out

---
Forum admin

Links for DOS 2.20 is very compressible.

For example, if "links-2.20-lite.exe" is compressed with "UPX", its size is reduced to 1458904, and if it is compressed with "7-ZIP", it is reduced to 1244005.

This allows you to install it on MS-DOS floppy image files, with packet drivers..., in disk-less client machines...



See:

Links
http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

UPX
https://upx.github.io/

7Zip
http://www.7-zip.org

7Zip decoder for DOS
http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/util/file/7zip/7zdecode/

Hey, I'm no expert, by far, but ....

> Links for DOS 2.20 is very compressible.
>
> For example, if "links-2.20-lite.exe" is compressed with "UPX", its size is
> reduced to 1458904, and if it is compressed with "7-ZIP", it is reduced to
> 1244005.

"Lite" doesn't have HTTPS/SSL support nor graphics. So I personally would rather try PAQ8o8 or PAQ8f (-1 or -5) on the "full" Links2 .EXE first, just out of curiosity.

"upx --best --lzma --all-filters" is probably fairly close to optimal (as far as .EXE compressors are concerned).

7-Zip is different. It uses LZMA2, 16 MB dictionary, and -mx5 by default (so you can crank that to -mx9). It does have .EXE filters for even better compression, but your file must have the actual .EXE extension in its name (which isn't common on, say, Linux). LZMA2 also is better for multi-threading (multiple blocks) and maybe has .WAV filter (not sure, can't remember).

Different methods (LZMA, PPMD, etc.) have different benefits, and specific filters (EXE, BMP, WAV, TXT) can help a lot, too. The various PAQ8, LPAQ, ZPAQ compressors had various filters and could use lots of memory (at least a GB or two, even in DOS). But overall, 7-Zip is obviously one of the best overall archivers nowadays (in speed, portability, RAM efficiency, compression ratio).

> This allows you to install it on MS-DOS floppy image files, with packet
> drivers..., in disk-less client machines...

Ever seen my MetaDOS 1.44 MB floppy image (only half full by default)? Far from perfect, but it uses packet drivers (ne2000 or pcntpk under VBox or QEMU). It only comes with mTCP's FTP + DHCP by default, but you can then grab Links2 from iBiblio with that.

> See:
>
> Links

Links2 is quite brilliant work (the DJGPP port especially).

> UPX

Also brilliant, but be careful that default is UPX-NRV while older UPX-UCL builds exist. Just saying, the latter is slightly worse for non-LZMA (esp. 16-bit DOS binaries) but nothing much.

> 7Zip

Which version?? 7za 9.20 ran under HX, but I don't recall trying newer ones. There are also various p7zip (DJGPP) builds over the years, but they are somewhat buggy, incomplete, and hard to use.

> 7Zip decoder for DOS [7zdec]

It's fairly small (60 kb?) and supports LZMA, LZMA2, PPMD.

[SNIP]
> > See:
> >
> > Links
>
> Links2 is quite brilliant work (the DJGPP port especially).
[SNIP]

I just wish it was easier to recompile Links2 for DOS/djgpp. I've made several attempts and still haven't figured it out. Linux was much easier to resolve.

> > Links for DOS 2.20 is very compressible.

PAQ8o8z -5 compressed "lite" to under a MB, but then you have to also account for decompressor (on floppy) and how slow it is.

7-Zip using original LZMA is, on average here, 5% better than (nowadays default) LZMA2.

Caveat emptor.

Wow... PAQ8o8z compressed "lite" to under a MB
I'm going to experiment with the PAQ family of compressors

"links-2.20-lite.exe" doesn't have HTTPS/SSL support... ?

However, I was viewing the following "HTTPS" pages with this program, without any problem:

https://www.lemonde.fr

https://www.thetimes.co.uk

https://www.corriere.it

https://www.faz.net

https://www.nytimes.com

https://www.lanacion.com.ar


In a quick search, I did not find any official document that explains the limitations of the "lite" version of Links.

I would like to find out the true difference between both versions of the program.


I seen the MetaDOS floppy image... Good work...

We could all try to prepare a 2.88 or 1.44 MB boot floppy image with Links / Links lite

Release 2.21 of Links for DOS it's out:

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/




Changelog:

=== RELEASE 2.21 ===

Sun Aug 2 15:26:02 cet 2020 mikulas:

Workaround for a crash on OS/2 caused by gcc3 bug

Thu Apr 16 18:17:39 CEST 2020 Emir Yasin SARI <bitigchi@me.com>:

Updated Turkish translation

Wed Jan 8 18:25:17 CET 2020 mikulas:

Fix a bug that textarea was broken if it immediatelly followed a list

Sun Nov 3 09:33:08 CET 2019 pluvano <me@pluvano.com>:

Delete the 4-pixel border in Xwindow

Tue Oct 8 20:26:47 CEST 2019 mikulas:

Fix a bug that an image would not be properly resized sometimes

=== RELEASE 2.20.2 ===

Wed Sep 18 18:39:07 CEST 2019 mikulas:

If the user runs links on a framebuffer and switches to a differnt
framebuffer, links would incorrectly respond to mouse clicks.

=== RELEASE 2.20.1 ===

The new release 2.22 of Links for DOS it's out:

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/


Changelog:

http://links.twibright.com/download/ChangeLog


Among several improvements, this version of Links incorporates a new Spanish translation

The new release 2.23 of Links (and Links-lite ) for DOS it's out:

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

=> links-2.23.exe
06-Jun-2021 22:02
7.0M

=> links-2.23-lite.exe
23-May-2021 21:39
2.9M


Changelog:

=== RELEASE 2.23 ===

Tue May 18 20:35:55 CEST 2021 mikulas:

Fix a bug that the user could set floating-point parameters to nan
via command-line argument or config file option

Tue May 18 20:22:35 CEST 2021 mikulas:

Fix broken display if the user uses custom font and non-default
aspect ratio

Wed May 12 20:08:48 CEST 2021 mikulas:

Fix a bug that the code incorrectly assumed that mktime returns UTC

Sat May 1 17:56:50 CEST 2021 mikulas:

Add an option that enables cookie saving

=== RELEASE 2.22 ===

Sat Jan 23 18:11:41 CET 2021 mikulas:

Save and restore the terminal using xterm escape codes

Sat Nov 28 19:27:47 CET 2020 mikulas:

Save and restore the console using "cons.saver" from
Midnight Commander

Sat Nov 28 11:05:42 CET 2020 mikulas:

Support UTF-8 frames

Sun Nov 22 17:20:29 CET 2020 Emir Yasin SARI <bitigchi@me.com>:

Updated the Turkish translation

Sat Aug 22 10:05:27 CEST 2020 Ing. Daniel G. Gionco <dggionco@hotmail.com>:

Updated the Spanish translation

Wed Aug 12 20:04:38 CEST 2020 mikulas:

Fixed a bug in displaying non-printable characters
(reported by Jean-Philippe MENGUAL <jpmengual@debian.org>)

=== RELEASE 2.21 ===

The new release 2.24 of Links for DOS it's out (13-Sep-2021):

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/


Changelog:

http://links.twibright.com/download/ChangeLog

The new release 2.25 of Links for DOS it's out (03-Oct-2021):

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/


=== RELEASE 2.25 ===

Fri Oct 1 18:27:25 CEST 2021 mikulas:

Delete the expired Let's encrypt certificate from the builtin
certificate store

Thu Sep 30 21:45:10 CET 2021 mikulas:

Set the flag X509_V_FLAG_TRUSTED_FIRST, so that Let's encrypt works
with openssl-1.0.2




Changelog:

http://links.twibright.com/download/ChangeLog

The new release 2.26 of Links for DOS it's out (10-Apr-2022):

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/


=== RELEASE 2.26 ===

Wed Apr 6 18:13:16 CEST 2022 mikulas:

Fix a display glitch if the list is empty and the user presses '*'

Sat Mar 26 11:09:12 CET 2022 mikulas:

Add a possibility to pass gopher:// URLs to an external program

Sat Jan 1 14:46:06 CET 2022 Martin Michel <martin.famic.de>:

Updated the German translation
Updated the initial bookmarks

Fri Dec 24 12:47:58 CET 2021 zinov@waifu.club:

Fix a bug when form submit url contained '#'

Sun Dec 5 18:17:11 CET 2021 mikulas:

Support WEBP images

Fri Dec 3 17:40:55 CET 2021 mikulas:

Support DNS-over-HTTPS

Sun Nov 21 11:36:45 CET 2021 mikulas:

Try multiple IPv4 addresses on systems that don't have getaddrinfo

Sun Nov 14 20:55:11 CET 2021 Timur Adamov <nbvec222@gmail.com>:

Handle the "TD" tag outside "TR" the same way as in other browsers

Tue Oct 19 18:42:50 CEST 2021 mikulas:

Make it possible to bind a socket to a network interface
It could be activated by specifying interface name in the "Bind to local
IP address" box

Changelog:

http://links.twibright.com/download/ChangeLog

Nice changelog!
BTW can someone recommend some application for passed Gopher links?

---
DOS-u-akbar!

> Nice changelog!
> BTW can someone recommend some application for passed Gopher links?

http://gopherus.sourceforge.net/

---
Forum admin

The new release 2.27 of Links for DOS it's out (27-May-2022):

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/


Changelog:

http://links.twibright.com/download/ChangeLog

The new release 2.28 of Links for DOS it's out (01-Oct-2022):

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/


Changelog:

=== RELEASE 2.28 ===

Sat Sep 17 21:54:44 CEST 2022 mikulas:

Disable cache when following redirects from consent.google.com

Sat Sep 10 16:05:02 CEST 2022 mikulas:

On Windows, change the default directory to the "Downloads" directory,
so that downloaded files are placed there

Sat Sep 10 15:31:20 CEST 2022 mikulas:

Compile the 32-bit Windows version without SSE2 instructions

Tue May 31 21:07:51 CEST 2022 mikulas:

Fix a display glitch on framebuffer, if the user doesn't have mouse and
if he presses F5, F6, F7 or F8

The new release 2.29 of Links (and Links-lite ) for DOS it's out:

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

=> links-2.29.exe
21-Mar-2023 19:53
7.0M

=> links-2.29-lite.exe
21-Mar-2023 19:53
2.9M


Changelog:

=== RELEASE 2.29 ===

Thu Mar 9 19:51:20 CET 2023 Florian Weimer <fweimer@redhat.com>:

Add "#define _GNU_SOURCE" to the configure test for memrchr

Thu Mar 9 18:37:12 CET 2023 Juhani Krekela <juhani@krekela.fi>:

Implement strike formatting

Wed Mar 8 20:08:01 CET 2023 mikulas:

Fixed a bug that image was sometimes displayed with too small size

Mon Jan 23 19:25:18 CET 2023 mikulas:

Fixed a bug that webp images from local disk could not be displayed

Mon Jan 23 19:24:06 CET 2023 notcancername <notcancername@protonmail.com>:

Support AVIF images

Sun Oct 9 15:54:06 CEST 2022 Jakub Bogusz <qboosh@pld-linux.org>:

Updated Polish Translation

Nice!
BTW, it seems that Links is the only DOS program capable to display WEBP and AVIF images

---
DOS-u-akbar!

> Wow... PAQ8o8z compressed "lite" to under a MB
> I'm going to experiment with the PAQ family of compressors
>
> "links-2.20-lite.exe" doesn't have HTTPS/SSL support... ?
>
> However, I was viewing the following "HTTPS" pages with this program,
> without any problem:
>
> https://www.lemonde.fr
>
> https://www.thetimes.co.uk
>
> https://www.corriere.it
>
> https://www.faz.net
>
> https://www.nytimes.com
>
> https://www.lanacion.com.ar
>
>
> In a quick search, I did not find any official document that explains the
> limitations of the "lite" version of Links.
>
> I would like to find out the true difference between both versions of the
> program.

File links-2.29/mk-dos reads:
#!/bin/sh
if [ "$1" = dbg ]; then
        CFLAGS="-fgnu89-inline -O0 -g -Wall"
        export CFLAGS
        ./configure --enable-debuglevel --enable-graphics --without-ipv6
elif [ "$1" = lite ]; then
        CFLAGS="-fgnu89-inline -march=i386 -Os -fomit-frame-pointer -Wall -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations"
        export CFLAGS
        ./configure --disable-graphics --without-lzma --without-lzip --without-brotli --without-ipv6
else
        CFLAGS="-fgnu89-inline -march=i386 -mtune=pentium -O2 -fomit-frame-pointer -frename-registers -fweb -Wall -Wextra -Wno-unused-parameter -Wstrict-prototypes -Wmissing-prototypes -Wmissing-declarations"
        export CFLAGS
        ./configure --enable-graphics --without-ipv6
fi

So, the "lite" version does indeed not disable SSL support, but graphics and some compression algorithms.

---
Forum admin

................
>
> So, the "lite" version does indeed not disable SSL support, but
> graphics and some compression algorithms.

Thanks

> Nice!
> BTW, it seems that Links is the only DOS program capable to display WEBP
> and AVIF images

yes.
and look to my page on LINKS
in DOS it looks the same as in a modern regular browser

---
ie5.pp.ua // downgrade.me.eu.org // old.net.eu.org // fnd.pp.ua // w10.host

The new release 2.30 of Links (and Links-lite ) for DOS it's out:

http://links.twibright.com/download/binaries/dos/

=> links-2.30.exe
28-Jul-2024 21:57
7.0M

=> links-2.30-lite.exe
28-Jul-2024 21:57
2.9M


Changelog:

=== RELEASE 2.30 ===

Sat Jul 27 18:41:39 CEST 2024 mikulas:

Disable asynchronous DNS on Windows because of some Cygwin bug

Sun Jul 21 19:58:03 CEST 2024 mikulas:

Fix the configure script to work with GCC 14

Sun Jul 21 17:22:30 CEST 2024 mikulas:

Fix window title on kwin