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> But, because it may save bandwidth or help pages load more quickly, a tiny minority of our users (0.1%) choose to keep it off. This might make sense if you ar

> But, because it may save bandwidth or help pages load more quickly, a tiny minority of our users (0.1%) choose to keep it off. This might make sense if you are reading static content, but we recommend that you keep Javascript on while signing into your Google Account so we can better protect you. They don’t seem to explain why though? Did I miss it? Are they fingerprinting the JavaScript environment of my browser? Why? The 0.1% are the people who would like to know why they need it, but this message is written ironically for those who don’t know what JavaScript is.

smadge 8y ago
Additionally they imply the only motivation for disabling JavaScript is to increase performance and decrease bandwidth. They conveniently don’t mention the other, arguably more prevalent motivations: to increase privacy and security.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  ...and speed, and decreasing the amount of arbitrary code execution on your machine. Most people don't disable JS entirely, but use something like uMatrix or noscript. It takes more work, but you can turn off a significant number of things that just don't need to be executed and get around a lot of annoying modals and paywalls (or see a lot of blank pages; that happens a lot too).
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  Yeah, it struck me as extremely disingenuous; while I like the other benefits, I disable JS mostly because I hate being tracked and noticed that many (most?) browser exploits require JS to run.
yayana 8y ago
They are trying to detect state actor hacking and track individual devices and whether they are new or impersonations of devices. Some states have mitm certs on all their domestic machines but (hopefully) not much competence except on whatever schedule they buy updates. I would be implenting a u2f soft client in js if I were Google. IMO you need a private key a state would need to retrieve by tampering with js and that isn't being sent over the wire with every connection. (Just to give them their first level of headache, when it comes to transitioning from observing to impersonation.)
jjawssd 8y ago
> Are they fingerprinting the JavaScript environment of my browser? No, they are fingerprinting YOU and YOUR BEHAVIOR so it can be tracked across the entire internet. Intelligence agencies will use this information to track you across the web as well.
thinkingemote 8y ago
0.1% of Google accounts is a huge number of people. Millions?

smadge 8y ago

Additionally they imply the only motivation for disabling JavaScript is to increase performance and decrease bandwidth. They conveniently don’t mention the other, arguably more prevalent motivations: to increase privacy and security.

djsumdog 8y ago
...and speed, and decreasing the amount of arbitrary code execution on your machine. Most people don't disable JS entirely, but use something like uMatrix or noscript. It takes more work, but you can turn off a significant number of things that just don't need to be executed and get around a lot of annoying modals and paywalls (or see a lot of blank pages; that happens a lot too).
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
Yeah, it struck me as extremely disingenuous; while I like the other benefits, I disable JS mostly because I hate being tracked and noticed that many (most?) browser exploits require JS to run.

yayana 8y ago

They are trying to detect state actor hacking and track individual devices and whether they are new or impersonations of devices. Some states have mitm certs on all their domestic machines but (hopefully) not much competence except on whatever schedule they buy updates. I would be implenting a u2f soft client in js if I were Google. IMO you need a private key a state would need to retrieve by tampering with js and that isn't being sent over the wire with every connection. (Just to give them their first level of headache, when it comes to transitioning from observing to impersonation.)

jjawssd 8y ago

> Are they fingerprinting the JavaScript environment of my browser? No, they are fingerprinting YOU and YOUR BEHAVIOR so it can be tracked across the entire internet. Intelligence agencies will use this information to track you across the web as well.

thinkingemote 8y ago

0.1% of Google accounts is a huge number of people. Millions?