How to permanently enable Cookies in Lynx text
browser - Disable accept cookies prompt in lynx console
browser
The default behaviour of
lynx -
console text browser
on Linuces, BSD and other free OSes is to always ask, for the
accept cookies prompt once an internet web page is opened that
requires browser cookies to be enabled.
I should admin, having this "secure by default" (always ask for new
cookies) behaviour in lynx was a good practice from a security
point of view.
Another reason, why this cookies prompt is enabled by default is
back in the days, when
lynx was actively developed by
programmers the websites with cookies support was not that many and
even cookies was mostly required for user/pass authentication (all
those who still remember this days the websites that requires
authentication was a way less than today) ...
With this said the current continuing security cautious behaviour
in the browser, left from its old days is understandable.
However I personally sometimes, need to use
lynx more
frequently and this behaviour of
always opening a new website in
text mode in console to prompts me for a cookie suddenly
becomes a big waste of time if you use lynx to browser more than
few sites. Hence I decided to change the default way
lynx
handles cookies and make them enabled by default instead.
Actually even in the past, when I was mainly using internet in
console on every new server or home Linux install, I was again
making the cookies to be permanently accepted.
Everyone who used lynx a few times already knows its "annoying" to
all time accept cookie prompts ... This provoked me to write this
short article to explain how enabling of constant cookie accepting
in lynx is done
To enable the persistent cookies in lynx, one needs to edit
lynx.cfg on different GNU / Linux and BSD* distributions
lynx.cfg is located in different directory.
Most of the
lynx.cfg usual locations are
/etc/lynx/lynx.cfg or
/etc/lynx.cfg as of time of
writting this post in
Debian Squeeze GNU / Linux the
lynx.cfg is located in
/etc/lynx-cur/lynx.cfg, whether for
FreeBSD / NetBSD / OpenBSD users the file is located in
/usr/local/etc/lynx.cfg
What I did to allow all cookies is open
lynx.cfg in
vim edit and change the following lines:
a)
#FORCE_SSL_COOKIES_SECURE:FALSE
with
FORCE_SSL_COOKIES_SECURE:TRUE
b)
#SET_COOKIES:TRUE
uncomment it to:
SET_COOKIES:TRUE
c) next, change
ACCEPT_ALL_COOKIES:FALSE
ACCEPT_ALL_COOKIES:TRUE
Onwards opening any website with lynx auto-accepts the
cookies.
For people who care about there security (who still browse in
console (surely not many anymore)), permanently allowing the
cookies is not a good idea. But for those who are ready to drop off
little security for convenience its ok.