Lets say you are running Windows and there is only one browser installed. What if one day this browser dies, would it be still possible to connect to the Internet somehow (to search for the solution or at least download some file or patch)?
In other words, can you work with Internet without a browser in Windows? At least some basic operations - view page in text format or even html sources, download file through http.
Type the things in bold...
telnet www.google.com 80
Trying 74.125.45.100...
Connected to google.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
GET /search?q=ftp+download+browser HTTP/1.1
Host: www.google.com
[press Return for one blank line]
(And to stop, hold down Ctrl and press ], if the connection is not closed automatically, and type quit or bye.)
Well, there is always the ftp program that comes by default - you could probably download an alternative browser that way.
If you can install additional utilities, there is Telnet through the Windows installer, so you can browse sites through port 80. (Telnet is no longer installed by default in Vista and 7)
There are many other nice tools such as wfetch, however, I think Telnet and ftp are the only programs that are built into Windows for internet that are not tied into Internet Explorer.
Actually, the internet is not equal to the world wide web. I assume, you mean the WWW in your question.
But as it just fits in fine here I wanted to mention that the WWW is just a little part of the internet. Say, together with e-mail it is the tip of the iceberg that "normal" PC users only see and know (and need to know, I think).
I just have another idea that could be helpful. Although there are steps necessary before the browser dies ...
I have once more come across portable apps to be installed on a USB memory stick, for example Lupo PenSuite or PortableApps Suite
Well, it does not have to be the whole suite, but you never know if the browser is the only application that "dies".
This issue came up when EU ruled that bundling of IE on Windows is a violation of antitrust laws, and consequently, Microsoft was told to remove IE from future Windows versions sold in EU.
So, without a browser, how are users expected to download another browser? Thus the answer to your above question of "In other words, can you work with Internet without a browser in Windows? At least some basic operations - view page in text format or even html sources, download file through http.", is no, you can't.
FTP might get you somewhere, but you are probably limited to that, and only that.
Windows has built-in WebDAV support (which is apparently usable even for loading runtime libraries). This could be used to download a web browser. Of course, there's SMB (samba) too.
may be you should download a new browser from your friend's computer...Then use a flash disk to install it to your own computer to fix the error.That's it...
