Lynx is the text-based browser that began in 1992 and was the oldest still-maintained browser as of 2025.
Lynx originated at the University of Kansas, where Lou Montulli, Michael Grobe, and Charles Rezac developed it for a campus-wide information system. The first version was a hypertext browser for distributing university information and browsing Gopher resources, before it gained broader Internet capabilities.
A beta release was announced on Usenet on July 22, 1992. In 1993, Montulli added an Internet interface and released Lynx 2.0. The browser later supported protocols including HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, Gopher, and WAIS, allowing it to remain useful even though it displays pages primarily as text and links rather than rich graphics.
Lynx is still valuable for accessibility, remote connections, automated testing, and checking how pages work without visual presentation. It is often confused with Links, ELinks, or w3m because all are text-mode browsers, but those are separate projects. Lynx’s unusually long development history and continuing volunteer maintenance make it the canonical answer here.