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I honestly think the security/privacy arguments are the only valid argument against requiring JS as standard. The idea of browsers sending data that the user h

I honestly think the security/privacy arguments are the only valid argument against requiring JS as standard. The idea of browsers sending data that the user has explicitly elected to send (in addition to, if we're being pedantic, that the server put there in the first place) is very compelling in this day and age - only problem being that in order for that to have any meaningful impact on web security in the general case, you'd have to more or less universally deprecate JS support, which would set the web in a very different direction indeed.

pasta 9y ago
What about power consumption as another valid argument? Your battery will last longer without Javascript.
- VMG 9y ago
  It will last even longer without CSS
  - 4c2383f5c88e911 9y ago
    And most websites that work without JS also work fine without CSS. Almost like a pattern that can be found in properly built websites.
    - VMG 9y ago
      Why doesn't the market care? Where is the JS-less Facebook/Twitter/Airbnb competitor that blows the customers away with "properly built" websites?
      - gpderetta 9y ago
        As the number of people that won't put up with the JS crap anymore and start using JS blockers increase, we will see such websites. Same thing that is happening with ads and ad blockers.
        computerex 9y ago
        Ad blockers are now going in the other direction with non-intrusive ads being shown.
        gpderetta 9y ago
        I would be extremely happy to use a JS block that allows non intrusive JS.
        alexseman 9y ago
        Privacy Badger is what you're looking for. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
        marssaxman 9y ago
        So far as I know there has been exactly one such ad blocker released, and it was promptly abandoned in favor of the kind of adblockers people actually want to use. All ads are intrusive to some degree.
      - asfdsfggtfd 9y ago
        In the Facebook case this is supported by Facebook themselves. mbasic.facebook.com :)
    - computerex 9y ago
      WTF? You do realize most of the users on the internet don't even know what CSS/JS is and would be thoroughly displeased at being presented with a page with no styling. They don't appreciate that the rendering is done without JS/CSS. A properly built website is one that caters to most users, not developers or power users concerned about JS being enabled in 2017.
    - cr0sh 9y ago
      You know - at one time we built plenty of websites - and in some cases applications - using little to no javascript (either it didn't exist, or it was only used for very minimal things) or any CSS (it didn't exist). So what could we do today? That is - if we purposefully limited ourselves to just basic HTML, and server-side processing, without any (or minimal) CSS or javascript, and only using the (expanded) tag and attribute HTML we have today? I don't know for sure - but I believe we could create some amazing things. Think about it this way: Look at what demoscene people are able to create when they put extremely artificial challenges in front of themselves; we could try to do the same - and see what happens? Perhaps there needs to be a demoscene-like competition space for this kind of stuff (how much can you get done in under 100k browser-side? 10k? 1k? Limit bandwidth to the backend, too, and maybe server-side size of code?). Just some random thoughts - it might be something I'd have to try myself, but maybe this post might inspire someone to do it as well...
      - andai 9y ago
        What kind of things are you imagining people would get done with such a limitation? Recently I was using an expensive mobile connection and I discovered w3m, a text based browser (runs in the terminal). I was amazed at how much faster everything worked. Most of the sites were still perfectly usable (w3m has pretty good HTML rendering) but some were very difficult to navigate. My point is, without JS and CSS, the web is just... text. And when you browse with w3m you realize, that actually the web has always been text. It can be quite refreshing to get all the decorative crap out of the way. -- edit: I now see you didn't say to remove JS, but to challenge yourself to see how much you can make in a tiny amount of JS. Such competitions exist! web pages https://a-k-apart.com/ https://a-k-apart.com/ java games http://www.java4k.com/ http://www.java4k.com/
- saltedmd5 9y ago
  That would be a valid reason to provide a JS alternative depending on context, not so much a valid argument for JS-free alternatives as standard. There will always be something you can do to reduce power consumption: expecting (or advocating) JS-free versions of all websites for that reason is a completely arbitrary line to draw.
- accountyaccount 9y ago
  It will last longer without a screen too.

pasta 9y ago

What about power consumption as another valid argument? Your battery will last longer without Javascript.

VMG 9y ago
It will last even longer without CSS
- 4c2383f5c88e911 9y ago
  And most websites that work without JS also work fine without CSS. Almost like a pattern that can be found in properly built websites.
  - VMG 9y ago
    Why doesn't the market care? Where is the JS-less Facebook/Twitter/Airbnb competitor that blows the customers away with "properly built" websites?
    - gpderetta 9y ago
      As the number of people that won't put up with the JS crap anymore and start using JS blockers increase, we will see such websites. Same thing that is happening with ads and ad blockers.
      - computerex 9y ago
        Ad blockers are now going in the other direction with non-intrusive ads being shown.
        gpderetta 9y ago
        I would be extremely happy to use a JS block that allows non intrusive JS.
        alexseman 9y ago
        Privacy Badger is what you're looking for. https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
        marssaxman 9y ago
        So far as I know there has been exactly one such ad blocker released, and it was promptly abandoned in favor of the kind of adblockers people actually want to use. All ads are intrusive to some degree.
    - asfdsfggtfd 9y ago
      In the Facebook case this is supported by Facebook themselves. mbasic.facebook.com :)
  - computerex 9y ago
    WTF? You do realize most of the users on the internet don't even know what CSS/JS is and would be thoroughly displeased at being presented with a page with no styling. They don't appreciate that the rendering is done without JS/CSS. A properly built website is one that caters to most users, not developers or power users concerned about JS being enabled in 2017.
  - cr0sh 9y ago
    You know - at one time we built plenty of websites - and in some cases applications - using little to no javascript (either it didn't exist, or it was only used for very minimal things) or any CSS (it didn't exist). So what could we do today? That is - if we purposefully limited ourselves to just basic HTML, and server-side processing, without any (or minimal) CSS or javascript, and only using the (expanded) tag and attribute HTML we have today? I don't know for sure - but I believe we could create some amazing things. Think about it this way: Look at what demoscene people are able to create when they put extremely artificial challenges in front of themselves; we could try to do the same - and see what happens? Perhaps there needs to be a demoscene-like competition space for this kind of stuff (how much can you get done in under 100k browser-side? 10k? 1k? Limit bandwidth to the backend, too, and maybe server-side size of code?). Just some random thoughts - it might be something I'd have to try myself, but maybe this post might inspire someone to do it as well...
    - andai 9y ago
      What kind of things are you imagining people would get done with such a limitation? Recently I was using an expensive mobile connection and I discovered w3m, a text based browser (runs in the terminal). I was amazed at how much faster everything worked. Most of the sites were still perfectly usable (w3m has pretty good HTML rendering) but some were very difficult to navigate. My point is, without JS and CSS, the web is just... text. And when you browse with w3m you realize, that actually the web has always been text. It can be quite refreshing to get all the decorative crap out of the way. -- edit: I now see you didn't say to remove JS, but to challenge yourself to see how much you can make in a tiny amount of JS. Such competitions exist! web pages https://a-k-apart.com/ https://a-k-apart.com/ java games http://www.java4k.com/ http://www.java4k.com/
saltedmd5 9y ago
That would be a valid reason to provide a JS alternative depending on context, not so much a valid argument for JS-free alternatives as standard. There will always be something you can do to reduce power consumption: expecting (or advocating) JS-free versions of all websites for that reason is a completely arbitrary line to draw.
accountyaccount 9y ago
It will last longer without a screen too.