7 Things I Do In the Terminal Instead of My Browser

Web browsers have evolved into aircraft to be made, but these are not always the fastest or most effective tools for work. The integrated macOS command line, on the other hand, is a question of efficiency and speed.

I have made a concerted effort over the years to kiss the power of the terminal, and you should also. In fact, you could read this article now from the command line.

7

Download and install software

The most common reason for which I turn to the terminal application is to install software. I do it with the help of the excellent MacOS, Homebrew packages manager. You can consider Homebrew as a large collection of public applications and services, each of them can be installed quickly with a single order. Since most uses below depend on Homebrew downloads, it is logical to install it first.

Open the terminal and glue the following, then press Back to execute it:

/bin/bash -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/HEAD/install.sh)"

Enter your administrator password, return to return, then wait for Homebrew to settle down. To finalize the installation, first execution:

echo 'eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)' >> /Users/$USER/.zprofile

And now, end up:

eval $(/opt/homebrew/bin/brew shellenv)

Congratulations, you have now installed Homebrew. From there, you can use the brew order to see what is possible. I would recommend running brew update First of all so that your list of available applications is underway.

Homebrew allows you to download barrels and formulas. The barrels are applications like the others on your Mac. They have a graphic user interface (GUI) and you will find them in the Applications folder. An example would be the web browser firefox or the application for notes simplenote.

The formulas are command line tools, which you will have to invoke using a command in a terminal window. An example would be the versioning tool git or container manager docker. These will not appear in your application file. You can see a full list of everything you have installed by running brew list.

To install something using Homebrew, just type brew install . Whenever I see a free tool on the web that I want to download, I first turn to Homebrew. This allows me to skip the manual download process, to avoid setting up DMG files, and HomeBREW even takes care of the remains by deleting them for you.

Most of the things I download via Homebrew were discovered when browsing the web, in forum publications or via guides. Sometimes, however, I like to look for the HomeBrew archives archives for appropriate tools. You can do it using the brew search Command, which is looking for in the repository for all the barrels and names of formulas which correspond to the request.

But it is not exhaustive, because not all the tools are named according to their main function. Fortunately, Homebrew includes a brief description with each application, and you can search for this to get a better transverse cut of tools. To do this, use the following command:

brew search --desc --eval-all

THE --eval-all Flag simply tells Homebrew to find the entire catalog. For example, to find a full list of relevant tools for YouTube, I replaced with youtube. I use then brew info For more information.

5

Perform an internet speed test

Sometimes it’s a good idea to test your connection speed, that you suspect that your service provider lets you fall or test the router placement for better results. I used to turn to Ookla’s Speedtest website for that, but the sad irony is that this process is quite slow (and the site is plastered in advertisements). This is where speedtest-cli come.

First, run the following command to install the formula using Homebrew:

brew install speedtest-cli

You can now perform a speed test when you wish by performing speedtest-cli in a terminal window. This will run a simple speed test that automatically detects the nearest server to calculate your download and download speed, plus a ping. Add -help To see an exhaustive list of flags, you can use for more options.

4

Download installers and complete IPSW MacOS

You don’t need Homebrew for it, because the command is integrated into MacOS. This can be useful if you want to enter a complete installer for macOS without using the web or integrated software update tools. It is particularly practical if you want to deploy the installer on a computer other than the one you are currently using, or if you want to take an earlier version of a macOS installer.

To start, run the following command:

softwareupdate --list-full-installers

You should see a list of all the installers available. If you are looking for a beta installer, be sure to register your device in the Apple beta program and activate the beta update chain under System> General> Software update (then try again; sometimes a restart is necessary).

You can now download the relevant version using the version number, as:

softwareupdate --fetch-full-installer --full-installer-version 26.0

This will place the relevant complete installation application in your application file, so that you can execute it or send it elsewhere.

If you are looking for IPSW image files instead, so you can install MacOS in a virtual machine, you can use a command line called ipsw. To start, install it using the following homebrew command:

brew install ipsw

From there you can run ipsw To see a list of available commands and flags. To cut the pursuit, here is the command to list all the macOS images available:

ipsw download macos

From here, you can use the arrow keys to select an installer. Note that this includes beta versions as well as the obsolete versions of macOS.

3

Download videos and images

It is not necessarily easy to download integrated videos in web pages. Sometimes you can right -click and save, other times, you have to count on potentially shaded browser extensions that swallow RAM and require access to all your navigation activities to work. This is why I use a free command line tool called yt-dlp for this purpose.

Download it by performing the following command:

brew install yt-dlp

Basic use implies a simple command such as:

yt-dlp -P path/to/folder/ "URL"

For some websites, you will have to be a little more precise. Take YouTube, for example, which by default a particularly low quality video when using this command. Instead, you can specify resolution like this, which downloads a 1080p file instead:

yt-dlp -P path/to/folder/ "URL" -S res:1080

Naturally, the resolution you choose depends on the video supporting it.

Likewise, the gallery-dl The utility operates about the same way for mass image downloads. Start by downloading it using Homebrew:

brew install gallery-dl

You can now use it to download images of whole galleries from websites supported using an order like:

gallery-dl -D "path/to/folder/" "URL"

2

Browse the web (sometimes)

It would be fallacious for me to claim that I mainly use the terminal to browse the web instead of using a web browser. I would estimate that 98% of my browsing on the web is done in Safari, 1% in Firefox, and the other 1% take place in a browser called Links. It is an actively maintained web browser that runs in the terminal, and you can install it via Homebrew by performing the following:

brew install links

You can then run the browser by running the links command, or better yet, use links howtogeek.com To browse a website directly. This is a seriously stripped web browsing experience, but that works very well for most websites. You will not see images, which means that you will not see most web ads either. Forget to watch videos or consult images; It is a text browser only which reduces a web page to its most basic form.

You can use your mouse while browsing the web with links, so you can click on the hyperlinks and use a menu that appears at the top of the screen (press ESC to reveal it). It is ideal for cutting occupied websites, but it is even better as a fun way to browse the web when combined with a terminal emulator like Cool-Retro-Term (also available via Homebrew).

1

Manage big downloads

There are many ways to download a file using the command line, but my favorite method uses wget. As always, the easiest way to download this is to use the following homebrew command:

brew install wget

You can then use the wget Order to download a single file, reflect an entire website, download an entire directory, etc. Just add it wget Order with what you want to download. Consult our full guide to use WGET for more advice such as continuous downloads, download speed limitation and downloading a file list.

Alternately, you can also call on a download accelerator like axelAlso available via Homebrew:

brew install axel

Now use the axel Order followed by an URL list to download a single file from several sources.

Are you looking for more homebrew applications? Discover the essential homebrew applications that I install on each Mac. The command line you discourage you? Homebrew also has a graphical interface in the form of cork.