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Federation Bot
Federation Bot
@Federation_Bot  ·  activity timestamp 2 weeks ago

A small collection of text-only websites

https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/12/a-small-collection-of-text-only-websites/

A couple of years ago, I started serving my blog posts as plain text. Add .txt to the end of any URl and get a deliciously lo-fi, UTF-8, mono[chrome|space] alternative.

Here's this post in plain text - https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/12/a-small-collection-of-text-only-websites.txt

Obviously a webpage without links is like a fish without a bicycle, but the joy of the web is that there are no gatekeepers. People can try new concepts and, if enough people join in, it becomes normal. I'm not saying the plain-text is the best web experience. But it is an experience. Perfect if you like your browsing fast, simple, and readable. There are no cookie banners, pop-ups, permission prompts, autoplaying videos, or garish colour schemes.

I'm certainly not the first person to do this, so I thought it might be fun to gather a list of websites which you browse in text-only mode. If you know of any more - including your own site - please drop a comment in the box!

  • Terence Eden's blog - add .txt to any URl.
  • Daring Fireball - add .text to any URl.
  • Zach Flowers - replace .html with .txt.
  • Fabien Benetou's PIM - add ?action=source to any URl.
  • M0YNG - add .txt to any URl.
  • Gwern - add .md to any URl or send an HTTP Accept for Markdown.
  • Dan Q's textplain.blog - the entire blog is plain text!
  • Matt Hobbs - there is a feed of plaintext which allows you to read recent posts.

If you'd like to add a site, please get in touch. The rules are simple - content which has the MIME type of text/plain. No HTML, no multimedia, no RTF, no XML, no ANSI colour escape sequences.

Emoji are fine though; emoji are cool.

#blogging #blogs #text #unicode #utf8
https://fabien.benetou.fr/Content/SwappingPartsOfTheRestrictionStack?action=source
https://m0yng.uk/2025/03/Tracking-the-benefits-of-Solar-and-Battery.txt
A pet cat typing on a computer keyboard.
A pet cat typing on a computer keyboard.
A pet cat typing on a computer keyboard.
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Morten Juhl-Johansen
Morten Juhl-Johansen
@mjj@mstdn.dk replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@blog So how is it done? I am guessing you have a system in place to just write once and publish?

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Terence Eden
Terence Eden
@Edent@mastodon.social replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@mjj @blog it is described in the first link in the article.

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Morten Juhl-Johansen
Morten Juhl-Johansen
@mjj@mstdn.dk replied  ·  activity timestamp last week

@Edent @blog Very sorry, misinterpreted that as a link to the old announcement.
It is clever!

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