Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 16, 2026

W3m

w3m is a free and open source text-based web browser licensed under the MIT license. It differs from other early text-based browsers by supporting elements such as tables, frames, and, in some distributions, images.

Last revised
Jul 16, 2026
Read time
≈ 2 min
Length
456 w
Citations
17
Source
Wikipedia ↗
w3m
Original authorAkinori Ito
DevelopersFumitoshi UKAI, Tatsuya Kinoshita, Rene Kita, et al.
Initial release1995
Stable release
0.5.61 Edit this on Wikidata / 23 January 2026
Written inC
Operating systemOS/2,23 Unix & Unix-like (Solaris, SunOS, HP-UX, Linux, FreeBSD and EWS-UX (EWS-4800),4 Windows (with Cygwin), macOS (with Homebrew)
Available inEnglish and Japanese
TypeWeb browser, Terminal pager
LicenseMIT license
Websitegit.sr.ht/~rkta/w3m Edit this on Wikidata
Repository

w3m is a free and open source text-based web browser licensed under the MIT license. It differs from other early text-based browsers by supporting elements such as tables, frames, and, in some distributions, images.56

History

The name "w3m" stands for "WWW wo miru (WWWを見る)", which is Japanese for "to see the WWW", and where "W3" is a numeronym of "WWW".7 The original project is no longer active. A different developer, Tatsuya Kinoshita, was maintaining a fork until early 2024.8 Kinoshita left the project after a few months.9 A new fork was created as a result,10 which continues to be developed as of 2026.11

Functions

w3m runs in terminal emulator programs such as xterm and GNOME Terminal.12 The browser has tabbed browsing, right click menus, and image support,12 along with support for tables and frames. It also functions as a terminal pager.5 It can be navigated solely using the keyboard or with the mouse. There are two different display modes, one with colors and one that is monochrome.13

w3m can be used within Emacs.14

Some distributions require the installation of a second package, w3m-img, to render images using w3m.15

See also

See also

References

References

  1. "NEWS".
  2. TOKORO, Kyosuke. "w3m 0.2.1–3 for OS/2 WARP". Archived from the original on 4 May 2001. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  3. Watson, Dave (September 2001). "Text-Mode Web Browsers for OS/2". The Southern California OS/2 User Group. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
  4. w3m manual page
  5. Rutland, David (2 November 2022). "The 3 Best Terminal-Based Web Browsers for Linux". MUO. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  6. Negus, Christopher (28 January 2005). Linux Bible. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-7645-8974-4.
  7. "W3M FAQ". Retrieved 8 April 2022.
  8. Das, Ankush (20 October 2020). "Best Terminal-based Web Browsers for Linux Users". It's FOSS. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  9. Kita, Rene (1 August 2024). "w3m Maintenance". GitHub. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  10. "w3m: Fork of Debian's w3m". SourceHut. Retrieved 1 August 2025.
  11. "~rkta/w3m: master log". SourceHut. Retrieved 25 May 2026.
  12. Hoffman, Chris (23 January 2012). "How to Browse From the Linux Terminal With W3M". How-To Geek. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  13. "How to use the W3M text-based web browser on Linux". AddictiveTips. 17 April 2021. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  14. "EmacsWiki: w3m". www.emacswiki.org. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  15. Rankin, Kyle (2006). Linux Multimedia Hacks: Tips & Tools for Taming Images, Audio, and Video. O'Reilly Media, Inc. ISBN 978-0-596-10076-6.
External links