If the only browser in Windows is dead, how to connect to the Internet?

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.

Solution 1:

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.

Solution 2:

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.)

Solution 3:

You could use an FTP client to download a browser. Of course, you would have to know the address of an FTP site that had a browser available for download.