The author talks about "noscript" and makes it clear that it's not a reference to the html tag but to the idea of surfing the web without javascript. I was wai

The author talks about "noscript" and makes it clear that it's not a reference to the html tag but to the idea of surfing the web without javascript. I was waiting for a discussion of NoScript, the popular add-on for Firefox that blocks javascript by default and allows for turning it back on on a site-by-site basis. I surf the web, as I have for many years, with NoScript turned on and as few permanent domains white-listed as I can get away with for security reasons. I don't have any numbers to back this up, but my guess is that the population of people who use the NoScript add-on dwarfs the population of users that actually disable their javascript in their browser. I'm not sure how someone like me shows up in their numbers, but I suspect that I would be on the "blocks javascript" list and then on the "uses javascript" list if I am intrigued enough about the site to enable some of the domains it requests javascript from. I don't know if web developers take that into account or not, but I suspect they don't because the number of domains I have to experimentally temporarily enable just to see some parts of some sites is getting even more ridiculous these days. Maybe someone should design a new protocol that is built for interactivity from the start instead of one designed around static content with back-flips needed to make it usably interactive.