The reasons vary from having a slow computer to actually wanting something simple that starts up really quick. For my case, it was an incompatibility issue between Firefox and Skype (I should precise that I’m on Ubuntu 9.04, 64-bit). Whenever I start Firefox, the probability of having a successful Skype call goes from 1 to 0. So, everytime I need to Skype, I have to restart my laptop.

Then came Links. I assure you, I knew about Links (Links on Wikipedia) well before. So I decided that Links, being a lightweight browser, would allow me to have Skype calls while browsing. I was not wrong. This lightweight browser works wonders. It does not support Flash, iframes and pretty much anything a Facebook aficionado would find cool, but it does the job for me.

Facebook page on Links, lightweight browser

I presume people who can’t live without beautiful websites would have a hard time with this lightweight browser. Facebook, for instance, simply does not work. Floating CSS elements do not float. Pages are just a long, large column of text. This is pretty much how search engines see your site. And it also brings you back to a time when pages were just text, links and occasional images.

If you want to get a hold of this lightweight browser, head over to the Links Sourceforge page.