How to simply my browser

September 28, 2005 2:42 PM

I want to disguise my browser. I want all text to be black on white background, all images replaced by the "alt" text. I wouldn't mind if all text were one font as well. Can I do this?

I would prefer a Firefox extension, but really any browser for Windows would work. Lynx is out, I tried it for a couple of days, and it was just too convoluted to work.

posted by patrickje to computers & internet (15 comments total)

You don't need an extension, this is built into Firefox:

1. Tools -> Preferences -> General -> Fonts and Colors: choose the colors you want for "text", "background", and links, pick your desired font sizes, and check "always use my (fonts, colors)".


2. Tools -> Preferences -> Web Features: uncheck "load images".

posted by Galvatron at 2:54 PM on September 28, 2005

It sounds like an interesting project for any browser that allows you to specify your own style sheet.
posted by gimonca at 2:58 PM on September 28, 2005

You might want to look into ghostzilla, depending on how hidden you want your browser to be.
posted by philscience at 3:05 PM on September 28, 2005

Even if lynx is out, links might suit your needs.
posted by advil at 3:09 PM on September 28, 2005

What Galvatron said, and you'll probably also want to disable Java and Javascript under "Web Features" to keep some images from loading.

I am trying all this right now, and it doesn't, in my opinion, really disguise the fact that you are surfing the Web, mostly because of page layouts and the characteristic look of links. But you may disagree.
posted by keatsandyeats at 3:09 PM on September 28, 2005

I am using Ghostzilla right now, and it's pretty cool. Thanks, philscience!
posted by everichon at 3:20 PM on September 28, 2005

seconding ghostzilla, which I found from another AskMe thread along the lines of "How do I make my browser look like a spreadsheet?"

It's really a great hidden browser, even if you're not trying to be surreptitious. I use it daily now, since it doesn't directly interfere with my work. It looks for a piece of the current application that it can overlay itself upon, like the Preview pane in Outlook, or the code window in Visual Basic Editor, and then it appears in that spot when you move your mouse in a specific pattern (left right left, touching each edge). If your cursor leaves the web area, the browser vanishes and your work appears just as it was.

I really enjoy it. It's meant to run from a CD, so that it leaves absolutely no traces on the harddrive, but I'm just running it from the harddrive, since I don't care about this particular feature.
posted by odinsdream at 3:26 PM on September 28, 2005

OK...it seems to be working pretty well.

I have my colors set to white on black, and my font set to Courier New. My link colors are dark and light grey.

I turned off the image loading and ugly broken image links came up, so I brought up about.config and changed browser.display.show_image_placeholders to false. Now the browser works exactly like I would like, thanks a million!
posted by patrickje at 3:32 PM on September 28, 2005

Heh, I bet that looks just like lynx via telnet.
posted by smackfu at 3:40 PM on September 28, 2005

On Opera, you can go to View->Style->User Mode and select "Emulate text browser"
posted by gyc at 4:22 PM on September 28, 2005

Until I decided that they don't pay enough attention to me at work for it to matter, I had the following lines in my userContent.css:

*{
background-color:#ccc ! important;
font-size:8pt ! important;
font-family: Tahoma ! important;
font-weight: normal ! important;
line-height: normal ! important;
letter-spacing: normal ! important;
color:#333 ! important;
border-style: none ! important;
text-decoration:none ! important;
}
b, strong {font-style: italic ! important}
input, textarea, button {border: 1px solid #eee ! important;}
img {background: #ddd ! important;}
hr {color: #eee ! important}
a, a *{font-family: serif ! important;}
a:hover {text-decoration:underline ! important;}
blink { text-decoration: none ! important; }
posted by skryche at 12:18 PM on September 29, 2005

Awesome stuff! Now is there a Firefox extension that allows me to easily switch between some of the settings above and my current settings?

For the record, I'm not trying to hide my slacking at work (after all, I don't try to hide the fact that I'm doing work when I'm at home). I just get uncomfortable when people look over my shoulder at what I'm doing when I'm using my laptop in public. When they see a screen full of text, they tend to back off.
posted by Eamon at 10:40 AM on September 30, 2005

Another tip, which you can also use on Internet Explorer, or mobile devices such as Blackberries or Plam Pilots:
IYHY is a completely free proxying service that will strip out all images and will re-format content really "thin". I have no idea what their business model is, but I use that site to fulfill the need you describe.
posted by crazyray at 2:22 PM on October 1, 2005

You can handle this very well via a bookmarklet as well. Since it's JavaScript, let's see if the thing will reproduce here. Bookmarklet.
posted by WCityMike at 9:29 AM on October 2, 2005

Looks like it really didn't work well posting it here. I had also posted it in a blog entry on my blog here.
posted by WCityMike at 9:31 AM on October 2, 2005