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I just love this huge bluish background with the text "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.". I guess in 2018 I need scripting even to display some te

I just love this huge bluish background with the text "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.". I guess in 2018 I need scripting even to display some text and images.

phjesusthatguy3 9y ago
I allow 1st party scripts by default, so I didn't see that error in their page. I had to allow scripts from a 3rd party CDN to read the text. I don't think I'm a kook, but anytime I have to go into uMatrix more than twice I reconsider reading the article at all. That doesn't apply to this particular article, but it happens more often than I am comfortable with.
- mivanchev 9y ago
  I'm more conservative since I don't really see how the lack of scripting prevents them from dumping the content and it works OK normally, but here it's just an empty page with the said "error" message and a single <script> element downloading a JS file which is quite unacceptable. This is ridiculous, really.
dpark 9y ago
Why is it that people disable JavaScript and then act surprised that random sites break? Whether or not this site should need JavaScript, the presence of JavaScript support in modern browsers is almost universally assumed at this point. If you want to browse with Netscape Navigator 1.0, go for it. But stop feigning surprise that random things don’t work.
- mivanchev 9y ago
  Random things like displaying text you mean? I don't think this has changed that much since the Netscape days. It would be OK if the site needs scripting for some legitimate task to compute a nicer layout, play some animation, interact with social networks, process payments etc. Detect NoScript, dump the text of the article, show "You are viewing a reduced version, because of your script blocker", done.
  - brazzledazzle 9y ago
    You're not wrong but I think this exchange might have gone differently if the tone wasn't so incredulous from the start. Perhaps something like this: "I know JavaScript is assumed to be universal these days but since this is really just text it would be great if it just displayed the raw text as a fallback for when JavaScript wasn't available." I know it's kind of silly but how we present something can dramatically change the response. But in fairness sometimes a direct and plain explanation for why something is bullshit is the only way to get things noticed or done too.
    - mivanchev 9y ago
      I have no other option, but to agree with you fully. Thanks for giving me a perspective :) Have a nice day!!!
- samastur 9y ago
  As I am one of these people at least for me it is not surprise as much as disappointment as it is often so unnecessary as it is really not that difficult to build a page that can be displayed without Javascript in browser EVEN if it is built with Javascript (reference: I am a web developer). And the reason why I have JS turned off by default is not some kind of misplaced nostalgia. It is to prevent random shit running in my browser.
- berdon 9y ago
  This. Pointing out lack of no-javascript support is tantamount to starting every dinner conversation with "I'm a vegetarian". It's OK to turn javascript off but we've long since left the world where javascript wasn't the norm.
  - logfromblammo 9y ago
    It is not okay to design your site such that it requires permission to use browser features that are not necessary for the presentation. Asking for script permission to display text is as bad as asking for microphone permission for an app that does not use audio. Presentation of text has always been possible in HTML without the use of script. You don't need script permission. Don't ask for it. Don't require it. Just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean we should ever stop complaining about it (bandwagon fallacy). It is wrong. The people who do it are doing it wrong. They may not be aware of it, so someone needs to mention it. Every time.
    - berdon 9y ago
      You're building a strawman's narrative here. This website uses javascript for _far_ more than displaying text. Additionally, "requires permission to use browser features that are not necessary for the presentation" is deflective and misleading. Your monitor isn't necessary for presentation either - you could print out the website.
      - logfromblammo 9y ago
        You are absolutely correct. The monitor is not necessary. Only the text characters are necessary. They might never appear on any screen. They might be converted to audio by a screen reader, or rendered on a Braille display. They might be fed into a webcrawler robot to be indexed. Any additional features also implemented in script are not relevant to the delivery of the text. Whatever else the javascript may do, it is not necessary to transmit text. The text is all I care about. Other people might want additional bells and whistles, but I just want the human-readable text. The web is a consumer's medium. You cannot mandate that anyone experience the content you send them in any particular way. Whatever it is that you send may be blocked, filtered, or modified before ever reaching human eyes. It is therefore polite to provide many options for the manner in which users may experience your content, such as by providing graceful degradation all the way down to someone opening up a raw telnet connection to port 80 and typing in their HTTP request by hand. (Have you ever done that? I have.) Remote transmission of alphabet characters has been a part of human networking since 1793. If I ask a question using an optical semaphore tower, I don't want your response to be sending a minstrel to me in person, with a bunch of hand puppets and marionettes to act out the answer.
- rlpb 9y ago
  It's not necessarily surprise, but that doesn't stop it being user hostile and doesn't negate the need to call it out. For a web app, Javascript is fine. To present what is primarily a textual article, it's ludicrous. Just because it's becoming increasingly common doesn't mean stop it being so.
- cooervo 9y ago
  also they seem to need to publicize this to the whole world. I disable JS. -_-'
- phjesusthatguy3 9y ago
  This didn't happen this time but: If your site displays nothing without JS, I have to be desperate to see your content to, well, turn on JS to see your content. You as a site owner are asking a whole lot more from me by allowing just anyone on the net to run code on my computer than I am of you.
amelius 9y ago
There's nothing wrong with JavaScript, since it can run inside a sandbox. What's wrong with browsers is that they allow JavaScript to do anything once it's enabled (like make network requests). So talk to your browser vendor. Ask them to implement a mode where JavaScript can be run with custom privileges.
- samastur 9y ago
  Or since I will be ignored just don't run Javascript by default.
- throwaway76543 9y ago
  "There's nothing wrong with JavaScript, since it can run inside a sandbox." This is not true, as Meltdown and Spectre have recently taught us. A site which can degrade gracefully in the absence of js features is a higher bar than a static, js free site. At the end of the day, disabling js entirely is a custom privilege level of zero.
- rlpb 9y ago
  > There's nothing wrong with JavaScript, since it can run inside a sandbox. Spectre and Meltdown have shown that there is no such thing as a true sandbox. You're always safer not running a sandbox as this way you're safe from the next sandbox breaking vulnerability that already exists but has yet to be discovered.
  - amelius 9y ago
    > Spectre and Meltdown have shown that there is no such thing as a true sandbox. On the Intel platform, perhaps. But that's only because of performance optimizations, so that statement is not universally true.
    - pilsetnieks 9y ago
      Meltdown is Intel only; Spectre is the one that affects most platforms, and is exploitable from Javascript, although it's harder to exploit, and browser makers have deployed fixes.

I just love this huge bluish background with the text "You need to enable JavaScript to run this app.". I guess in 2018 I need scripting even to display some text and images.

phjesusthatguy3 9y ago

I allow 1st party scripts by default, so I didn't see that error in their page. I had to allow scripts from a 3rd party CDN to read the text. I don't think I'm a kook, but anytime I have to go into uMatrix more than twice I reconsider reading the article at all. That doesn't apply to this particular article, but it happens more often than I am comfortable with.

mivanchev 9y ago
I'm more conservative since I don't really see how the lack of scripting prevents them from dumping the content and it works OK normally, but here it's just an empty page with the said "error" message and a single <script> element downloading a JS file which is quite unacceptable. This is ridiculous, really.

dpark 9y ago

Why is it that people disable JavaScript and then act surprised that random sites break? Whether or not this site should need JavaScript, the presence of JavaScript support in modern browsers is almost universally assumed at this point. If you want to browse with Netscape Navigator 1.0, go for it. But stop feigning surprise that random things don’t work.

mivanchev 9y ago
Random things like displaying text you mean? I don't think this has changed that much since the Netscape days. It would be OK if the site needs scripting for some legitimate task to compute a nicer layout, play some animation, interact with social networks, process payments etc. Detect NoScript, dump the text of the article, show "You are viewing a reduced version, because of your script blocker", done.
- brazzledazzle 9y ago
  You're not wrong but I think this exchange might have gone differently if the tone wasn't so incredulous from the start. Perhaps something like this: "I know JavaScript is assumed to be universal these days but since this is really just text it would be great if it just displayed the raw text as a fallback for when JavaScript wasn't available." I know it's kind of silly but how we present something can dramatically change the response. But in fairness sometimes a direct and plain explanation for why something is bullshit is the only way to get things noticed or done too.
  - mivanchev 9y ago
    I have no other option, but to agree with you fully. Thanks for giving me a perspective :) Have a nice day!!!
samastur 9y ago
As I am one of these people at least for me it is not surprise as much as disappointment as it is often so unnecessary as it is really not that difficult to build a page that can be displayed without Javascript in browser EVEN if it is built with Javascript (reference: I am a web developer). And the reason why I have JS turned off by default is not some kind of misplaced nostalgia. It is to prevent random shit running in my browser.
berdon 9y ago
This. Pointing out lack of no-javascript support is tantamount to starting every dinner conversation with "I'm a vegetarian". It's OK to turn javascript off but we've long since left the world where javascript wasn't the norm.
- logfromblammo 9y ago
  It is not okay to design your site such that it requires permission to use browser features that are not necessary for the presentation. Asking for script permission to display text is as bad as asking for microphone permission for an app that does not use audio. Presentation of text has always been possible in HTML without the use of script. You don't need script permission. Don't ask for it. Don't require it. Just because a lot of people do it doesn't mean we should ever stop complaining about it (bandwagon fallacy). It is wrong. The people who do it are doing it wrong. They may not be aware of it, so someone needs to mention it. Every time.
  - berdon 9y ago
    You're building a strawman's narrative here. This website uses javascript for _far_ more than displaying text. Additionally, "requires permission to use browser features that are not necessary for the presentation" is deflective and misleading. Your monitor isn't necessary for presentation either - you could print out the website.
    - logfromblammo 9y ago
      You are absolutely correct. The monitor is not necessary. Only the text characters are necessary. They might never appear on any screen. They might be converted to audio by a screen reader, or rendered on a Braille display. They might be fed into a webcrawler robot to be indexed. Any additional features also implemented in script are not relevant to the delivery of the text. Whatever else the javascript may do, it is not necessary to transmit text. The text is all I care about. Other people might want additional bells and whistles, but I just want the human-readable text. The web is a consumer's medium. You cannot mandate that anyone experience the content you send them in any particular way. Whatever it is that you send may be blocked, filtered, or modified before ever reaching human eyes. It is therefore polite to provide many options for the manner in which users may experience your content, such as by providing graceful degradation all the way down to someone opening up a raw telnet connection to port 80 and typing in their HTTP request by hand. (Have you ever done that? I have.) Remote transmission of alphabet characters has been a part of human networking since 1793. If I ask a question using an optical semaphore tower, I don't want your response to be sending a minstrel to me in person, with a bunch of hand puppets and marionettes to act out the answer.
rlpb 9y ago
It's not necessarily surprise, but that doesn't stop it being user hostile and doesn't negate the need to call it out. For a web app, Javascript is fine. To present what is primarily a textual article, it's ludicrous. Just because it's becoming increasingly common doesn't mean stop it being so.
cooervo 9y ago
also they seem to need to publicize this to the whole world. I disable JS. -_-'
phjesusthatguy3 9y ago
This didn't happen this time but: If your site displays nothing without JS, I have to be desperate to see your content to, well, turn on JS to see your content. You as a site owner are asking a whole lot more from me by allowing just anyone on the net to run code on my computer than I am of you.

amelius 9y ago

There's nothing wrong with JavaScript, since it can run inside a sandbox. What's wrong with browsers is that they allow JavaScript to do anything once it's enabled (like make network requests). So talk to your browser vendor. Ask them to implement a mode where JavaScript can be run with custom privileges.

samastur 9y ago
Or since I will be ignored just don't run Javascript by default.
throwaway76543 9y ago
"There's nothing wrong with JavaScript, since it can run inside a sandbox." This is not true, as Meltdown and Spectre have recently taught us. A site which can degrade gracefully in the absence of js features is a higher bar than a static, js free site. At the end of the day, disabling js entirely is a custom privilege level of zero.
rlpb 9y ago
> There's nothing wrong with JavaScript, since it can run inside a sandbox. Spectre and Meltdown have shown that there is no such thing as a true sandbox. You're always safer not running a sandbox as this way you're safe from the next sandbox breaking vulnerability that already exists but has yet to be discovered.
- amelius 9y ago
  > Spectre and Meltdown have shown that there is no such thing as a true sandbox. On the Intel platform, perhaps. But that's only because of performance optimizations, so that statement is not universally true.
  - pilsetnieks 9y ago
    Meltdown is Intel only; Spectre is the one that affects most platforms, and is exploitable from Javascript, although it's harder to exploit, and browser makers have deployed fixes.