CurlUp

A terminal web browser. CurlUp uses Chrome to render pages and shows you the text with numbered links.

First Time Setup

You need three things: Chrome, ChromeDriver, and Rust.

Step 1: Make sure Chrome is installed

You probably already have it. If not, download from https://google.com/chrome

Step 2: Install ChromeDriver

ChromeDriver lets CurlUp control Chrome. It must match your Chrome version.

macOS:

brew install chromedriver

# Fix the quarantine warning (required on macOS)
xattr -d com.apple.quarantine $(which chromedriver)

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu):

sudo apt install chromium-chromedriver

Manual install (any OS):

1. Check your Chrome version: Chrome menu > About Google Chrome
2. Download matching ChromeDriver from https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/
3. Put it in ~/.local/bin/ or somewhere in your PATH

Step 3: Install Rust (if you don't have it)

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh
source ~/.cargo/env

Step 4: Build CurlUp

git clone https://github.com/Rw1942/CurlUp.git
cd CurlUp
cargo build --release

Step 5: Run it

# From the project directory:
./target/release/curlup

# Or copy to your PATH for global access:
cp target/release/curlup ~/.local/bin/
curlup

Verify it works

curlup news.ycombinator.com

You should see Hacker News rendered as text with numbered links. Type 1 to follow the first link, b to go back, q to quit.

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Quick Reference

curlup                          # Start with site picker
curlup news.ycombinator.com     # Go directly to a site
curlup -m medium.com/article    # Multi-lens mode (cleaner articles)
curlup -N medium.com/article    # Full page (disable auto-condensed)
curlup -v mail.google.com       # Visible browser (for login)

While Browsing

The command bar shows where b (back) and f (forward) will take you. Type a command and press Enter to execute it.

Command	What it does
1-999	Follow that link number
b	Go back (shows destination)
f	Go forward (shows destination)
t	Scroll to top of page
h or 0	Return to site picker
C	Toggle condensed/reader mode
r	Refresh the page
u	Show current URL
q	Quit CurlUp
help	Show help
google.com	Navigate to any URL

Scrolling: Use t to jump to top, or use terminal scrollback (mouse wheel, trackpad, Shift+PageUp/Down).

Example: To follow link 5, type 5 then press Enter. Type b to go back (the footer shows where you'll go).

All Options

curlup [OPTIONS] [URL]

  -N, --no-condensed Disable condensed mode (show full page for articles)
  -m, --multilens    Smart extraction for articles
  -v, --visible      Show the browser window
  -u, --user-agent   Custom user-agent string
      --no-stealth   Disable anti-bot measures
      --no-focus     Show full page including navigation, ads
  -h, --help         Show help

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Common Issues

"ChromeDriver not found"

CurlUp looks for ChromeDriver in:

1. ~/.local/bin/chromedriver
2. Anywhere in your PATH

Check with:

which chromedriver

"ChromeDriver version mismatch"

Your ChromeDriver version must match Chrome. Check your Chrome version (Chrome > About) and download the matching driver from https://googlechromelabs.github.io/chrome-for-testing/

"Operation not permitted" (macOS)

Remove the quarantine flag:

xattr -d com.apple.quarantine $(which chromedriver)

ChromeDriver won't start

Kill any stuck processes and try again:

pkill chromedriver
curlup example.com

Page content looks wrong

Try multi-lens mode for cleaner extraction:

curlup -m thesite.com

Or use visible mode to see what's happening:

curlup -v thesite.com

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Condensed Mode

Condensed mode automatically activates when CurlUp detects article content, extracting just the article using Mozilla's Readability algorithm (same tech behind Firefox Reader View):

• Strips navigation, ads, sidebars, and clutter
• Shows article title, author, and estimated read time
• Preserves links within the article
• Auto-enabled when pages have readable article content

curlup medium.com/@user/some-article      # Auto-enters condensed mode
curlup -N medium.com/@user/some-article   # Force full page view

Press C while browsing to toggle between condensed and full page view.

Condensed mode works best on:

• News articles (BBC, NYT, Reuters)
• Blog posts (Medium, dev.to, personal blogs)
• Documentation pages
• Wikipedia articles

If a page doesn't have extractable article content, CurlUp will show the full page.

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Multi-Lens Mode

Use -m for articles, blog posts, and documentation. It runs multiple extraction strategies and picks the best result:

• CSS selectors (finds <article>, <main>, etc.)
• DOM traversal (skips nav, footer, sidebars)
• Text density analysis (finds content-heavy blocks)
• ARIA landmarks (uses accessibility markup)

curlup -m medium.com/@user/some-article

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Sites That Work Well

• News: Hacker News, Google News, BBC, NPR, Reuters
• Tech: GitHub, Ars Technica, TechCrunch, dev.to
• Docs: MDN, Python docs, Read the Docs
• Reference: Wikipedia, IMDb, Merriam-Webster
• Weather: wttr.in (ASCII art preserved)

Needs login (use -v): Gmail, LinkedIn, Medium, Twitter

Blocked: Product Hunt (Cloudflare)

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Development

cargo run -- example.com     # Run in dev mode
cargo test                   # Run tests
cargo clippy                 # Lint

See docs/ for architecture details.

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Starting CurlUp:

Opening Links

Opening pages in Reader mode

License

MIT

Credits

Built with fantoccini, scraper, dom_smoothie (condensed mode), html2text, tokio, clap.