Does links allow access to password-protected pages?

**DominikHoffmann** · January 17th, 2002, 06:08 PM

In a post about "web surfing ... from darwin", forum user slur suggests to use the unix program links.

I downloaded the compiled version from slur's site, and was able to look at the MacInTouch page with it, pretty cool. However, I couldn't access a different page, which is password-protected. Is links not capable of handling password protected Web pages?

Dominik Hoffmann

**DominikHoffmann** · January 18th, 2002, 12:22 AM

In the post I mentioned a contributor mentions links.sourceforge.net, with that spelling.

But perhaps lynx, if compiled for Mac OS X, might deal with authentication.

Dominik

**jcpowers21** · January 18th, 2002, 08:22 AM

Links and Lynx are two different browsers. I prefer links over lynx though. I have no idea what your problem is though.

Justin

**scruffy** · January 19th, 2002, 02:33 AM

lynx doesn't render html as well as links - doesn't do tables or page layout all that well. links doesn't do password authentication.

Ah well.

From the links discuss mailing list archives:

Current links _has_ HTTP authentication support, but it is manually disabled in the source code, as it is buggy and needs a rewrite. If you want somewhat more stable HTTP authentication support, move to elinks (http://pasky.ji.cz/elinks/) and check out HTTP_AUTH branch, which contains this support
...
However, please note that this support is still unstable and you may get into some problems occassionally. Please update frequently if you will use it, as more fixes may follow soon.

credit petr 'pasky' baudis