browsh
A modern text-based browser that renders web pages and apps to terminals and browsers using headless Firefox.
What is browsh?
Browsh is a fully interactive, real-time text-based browser that renders modern web pages and applications to terminals and browsers. It solves the problem of browsing the web on extremely low-bandwidth connections or low-powered devices by using a headless Firefox backend to process web content and deliver a text-only version.
Developers, sysadmins, or users who need to browse the web over slow or unstable internet connections (e.g., via SSH on a tethered phone), or those wanting to offload browser CPU usage from low-powered hardware.
Browsh uniquely combines modern browser capabilities (JavaScript, HTML5) with the efficiency of text-based rendering, offering a practical solution for low-bandwidth scenarios where traditional graphical browsers or VNC are impractical.
Overview
A fully-modern text-based browser, rendering to TTY and browsers
Use Cases
Best For
- Browsing the web over SSH on a very slow internet connection
- Offloading browser CPU usage to save battery on a laptop or Raspberry Pi
- Accessing modern web apps from a terminal-only environment
- Reducing bandwidth consumption while retaining JavaScript support
- Using MoSH for stable browsing on unreliable networks
- Running a browser in a headless server for text-based automation
Not Ideal For
- Users requiring rich multimedia experiences like video playback or image galleries
- Web developers needing visual debugging tools for CSS layout inspection
- Environments where installing and maintaining a headless Firefox instance is not feasible
- Applications that depend on graphical user interactions or real-time animations
Pros & Cons
Pros
Uses headless Firefox to handle JavaScript and HTML5, ensuring compatibility with contemporary websites and web apps, unlike traditional text-based browsers.
Designed for connections as slow as 3kbps by transmitting only text, drastically reducing data consumption for low-bandwidth scenarios.
Offloads CPU-intensive browsing to remote servers, extending battery life on devices like laptops or Raspberry Pi, as highlighted in the README.
Integrates with SSH and MoSH for reconnectable connections and diff-only screen updates, ideal for unstable networks, per the documentation.
Cons
The browser client lacks feature parity with the terminal client, as noted in the README, leading to potential usability gaps and inconsistent experiences.
Requires Firefox to be installed separately, adding setup complexity and maintenance overhead, as stated in the installation instructions.
Renders web pages as text only, making it unsuitable for visually rich content or media-heavy sites, which limits its use cases.
Frequently Asked Questions
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