Arachne: a self-contained graphical web browser for DOS and Linux

Given its age, probably quite little, actually. It can run without a display server, but so can links. I guess Arachne's greatest trick is that it runs on DOS.

To add on to a sibling comment, it's the default browser for FreeDOS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FreeDOS

You don't need to install an X server on the remote box you're connecting to with SSH and X11 forwarding, you just need the graphical application and the libraries it depends on for using the X protocol (xlib or xcb, usually with a higher level toolkit). Accessing real graphics hardware or putting things in /usr require root, but you shouldn't need to do either one.

The TigerVNC binaries on bintray run fine everywhere I've tried them and they don't require installation. Encrypted too.