How to do web searches in text-only web browsers

Question

I usually use google but whenever I load it in a text browser I have to press down several times to go to the field where you enter the search string. This is redundant. How do people use text-only web browsers to do web searches?

Answer 1

For most search engines, you can just modify the URL, append ?q=<term> and do the search. E.g. -

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=hello

https://www.google.com/search?q=hello

http://www.bing.com/search?q=hello

Answer 2

+1 for Bibhas answer (try searching with eg links www.duckduckgo.com :/ ).

Surfraw can automatize that. It provides a fast unix command line interface to a variety of popular WWW search engines and other artifacts of power:

Surfraw uses your prefered text or graphical browser to display the result. This can be customized via ~/.surfraw.conf (XDG's supported: ~/.config/surfraw/conf):

SURFRAW_graphical_browser=/usr/bin/Firefox
SURFRAW_text_browser=/usr/bin/links
SURFRAW_graphical=no

An then,

• Search DDG for "foo":

  $ sr duckduckgo foo
  

• See Stackexchange's latest unanswered questions:

  $ sr stack -sort=null
  

Where duckduckgo and stack are Elvi Full list of Elvi, just like DDG bangs!