Text-only websites are quite useful, especially today, because web pages are increasingly filled with ads, videos, and bandwidth-heavy content.
Here is a list of text-only news sites:
U.S. News
- CNN Text Only — U.S. news from CNN
- New York Times Wire
- Christian Science Monitor Text Only — news from Christian Science Monitor
- NPR News Text Only — news from National Public Radio (US)
- PBS Lite — U.S. news from the Public Broadcasting Service
Canadian News
- CBC Low Bandwidth — low-bandwidth version of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
- Radio Canada Mini — low-bandwidth version of Radio Canada News in French
UK News
- Minimalist Today’s Guardian
- UK Daily Mail Text-Base
- Neuters – a text-only version of the Reuters home page
- Post Online — a text-only Post Online (UK) — focuses on “global events that impact the US and world economies”
Technology News
- Readspike — More news headlines condensed
- Hckr News — a condensed version of Hacker News
- HackerWeb — a more accessible version of Hacker News
- Lobsters — computing topics — centered around link collection and discussion
- Cyber Report — cyber security news in text format
- Alterslash — the unofficial Slashdot digest
- 1MB Club — a collection of performance-focused web pages weighing less than 1 megabyte
Lightweight Interfaces To Popular Sites
- LibReddit — a lightweight Reddit hosted by Riverside Rocks
- LibReddit — a lightweight Reddit hosted by Strongthany
- LibReddit — a lightweight Reddit hosted by PussTheCat
- Teddit — a lightweight interface to Reddit that retains the Reddit-style design
- Invidious — a lightweight and minimalist interface for Youtube
- Nitter — a lightweight and minimalist interface for Twitter
- Scribe — a lightweight and minimalist interface for Medium
- SearXNG — a lightweight alternative to Google Search
Wikipedia-Based News
- LegibleNews — news from Wikipedia in an easy-to-read format (Global)
- Wikipedia Current Events — current events from Wikipedia
- Mobile Wikipedia — mobile web version of Wikipedia
- Kidlat — posts the best Creative Commons stories
- News As Facts — concise world news
- Current Events — Wikipedia’s current events, delivered daily
General News Aggregators
Brutalist Report — A text-only compilation of news articles.
Here are selected subsections of the Brutalist Report: Tech – News – Business – Science – Culture – Politics
SkimFeed — this site also aggregates many news sources.
Here are selected subsections: Design – Investing – Long Reads – Mobile – News – Politics – Reddit – Science – Tech – Trend – Youtube – Weather
Weather News
Wttr.In provides text-only weather reports. There’s also a text-only weather from the National Weather Service.
Use Reader Mode In Your Web Browser To Get Text-Only Pages
You can also use “Reader Mode” in many web browsers. This mode strips the page down to text and content-related images. You can read how to enable this mode in various browsers here.
Textise: Browse Sites In Text-Only Mode
You can also use the Textise service, which will create a text-only version of the web page.
Human Rights Watch just launched a text only site to better reach audiences in countries/counties where Internet speeds are too long or data plans too expensive: https://text.hrw.org
This seems to be the most complete list of text-based news sites I’ve found anywhere. I’ve added a few to my bookmarks today. Thanks! A couple of suggestions:
add: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/textbased/channel-561/index.html
edit: https://www.csmonitor.com/text_edition
It seems the CNN link should be https://lite.cnn.com/en. If it used to be cnn.io, it has changed. thanks.
oh sorry, didn’t read prior comments and looks like it has been changed already, must have cached old link.
Your link to the text only version of CNN is outdated.
The new URL is https://lite.cnn.com/
Did we not pay enough to keep lite (dot) cnn going?
It disappeared a couple days ago with a server cannot be found error.
Thanks!
Yes, it seems it like it might be gone for good 🙁
https://lite.cnn.com/ works fine
I guess it’s back!
Could well be my bad. After reading Miserly’s comment, I checked and my bookmark called for http lite.cnn.io vs https lite.cnn.com. That one, as he reports, seems fine. Thanks for the help!
https://wikiless.org/
https://github.com/Metastem/wikiless
A free open source alternative Wikipedia front-end (No JS/ads) focused on privacy.
a few additions for your list
https://lite.pbs.org/
https://brutalist.report/
https://cyber.report/
https://newsasfacts.com/
https://currentevents.email/
Cool I added them
Hey, nice list! Can I suggest a news site I launched?
https://rc-lite.xyz
It’s a low bandwidth version of https://ici.radio-canada.ca (Canadian news in French)
Hey, I made an update to the domain for this project!
It’s now at https://radiocanadamini.ca
Cool, I’ll add to the web page list.
Rather ironic that when I attempt to access this page via Lynx, I get a 403 error. 🙂
here is a nice little website that i check once in a while: https://kidl.at
news articles and essays
Thanks, I added it.
Thanks for the link. Interesting website.
while it has images and videos
https://teddit.net/
is a much lighter and less java script mirror of reddit you might appreciate.
Added, thanks.
https://www.cbc.ca/lite/trending
Low bandwidth version of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Cool – added.
http://68k.news/ is a text only version of google news.
Thanks — ddded.
http://frogfind.com/ is from the same developer. It does to google search the same as 68k.news does to google news (although using DDG results I believe). All results are also stripped to basic HTML. It’s fantastic not only for old browsers but also for limited speed connections.
https://eink.link/ is a text only web page designed for the simple browsers in some ereaders.
How’s about the Bloomfield Information Project at bloomfieldinfo.org?
https://alterslash.org/ is a text only headlines and top comments of slashdot.org that might fit your criteria for tech news.
Music, ahh music when on the treadmill.
However, wouldn’t it be nice to see a txt only, screen scrolling news site that can also have voice-enabled, as an option, for those wanting this type of service when walking on our treadmills.
I thoroughly appreciate the efforts that you’ve made on our behalf with your work here.
Thank you,
VictorD
good
https://lite.cnn.io/en
The lite version of CNN is text-only.
Thanks, I added it.
lite.poandpo.com is a text version of POST Online Media, very nice move from them.
Thanks, I’ll add that site.
amazing list I need it sir for my website thanks so much