That depends on what kind of information you're looking for. When you say "modern web", does that mean all the flashy and shiny pages, or the entire web? You'd be surprised what links can do. And there's also a "GUI" version of links2 which I also use sometimes. It doesn't support all formatting styles, but that's what makes it so fast. Reading textual information doesn't require ability to load images, java and such. Stuff such as wikipedia or documentation pages are quite readable in the "GUI" version links . It reads images, but not those annoying flying ads. It simply doesn't support them.
They say that prevention is better than cure
, but I say being oblivious is even better. 