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UNIX browsers

There are a number of browsers available for UNIX systems, both line mode browsers and graphical browsers that use the X Window System. Binary distributions are often available for the common workstations and most browsers are also available in source form. A browser even exists for the GNU Emacs editor. UNIX browsers generally start external applications to display resources not handled within the browser itself, according to the MIME type of the resource. The mapping from a MIME type to an application is usually determined by a mailcap file, as shown below:

    # Sample mailcap file

    # use xdvi to display TeX dvi files
    text/x-dvi;                 xdvi s 2> /dev/null
    application/x-dvi;          xdvi s 2> /dev/null

    # ghostview for postscript
    application/postscript;     ghostview s 2> /dev/null

    # xv can handle virtually any image format
    image/*;                    xv s 2> /dev/null

    # mpeg_play for mpeg video files
    video/mpeg;                 mpeg_play s 1>&2 2> /dev/null

    # playaudio for audio files
    audio/basic;                playaudio s 2> /dev/null

Spinning the Web by Andrew Ford
© 1995 International Thomson Publishing
© 2002 Andrew Ford and Ford & Mason Ltd
Note: this HTML document was generated in December 1994 directly from the LaTeX source files using LaTeX2HTML. It was formatted into our standard page layout using the Template Toolkit. The document is mainly of historical interest as obviously many of the sites mentioned have long since disappeared.