Today's web is complex, dynamic, and media-driven. Servers and browsers can communicate asynchronously. Caching, cookies, and CDNs speed the delivery of graphic-heavy content. Both website administrators and web users protect their connectivity and their data with services like Cloudflare and tools like encryption, two-step verification, and private browser windows.

With all this web complexity, using a text-based browser like Lynx can be a breath of fresh air. Lynx renders web pages in a terminal window, ignoring images, JavaScript, and other dynamic content. Especially compared to today's mega-browsers, Lynx is agile and lightweight — it works well for simple browsing needs on a headless Raspberry Pi. Along with tools like wget, Lynx reminds us that the web is still built on two basic things: client requests and server responses.