6 ms·
Would that ruling mean that sites could no longer refuse to show content based on how they're accessed? For example, sites that won't load if the browser is in
by dx87 7y ago
Would that ruling mean that sites could no longer refuse to show content based on how they're accessed? For example, sites that won't load if the browser is in headless mode, or sites that depend on javascript as a way of blocking wget/curl.
- freehunter 7y agoI have a scraper for a site that used to offer an API for their publicly available site but removed the API with no warning. The info is still available to the general public, but only through their website. I created a scraper for the public page, but shortly after they switched to loading some public information through Javascript so my HTML scraper couldn't see it anymore. I ended up having to write an application around Selenium to load the Javascript and import this public information. I'm just waiting for them to start randomizing the CSS classes to make scraping even harder. The content is static, even as data changes on the server it does not refresh on the page unless you reload the page. There is no reason why your page should refuse to load plain text without Javascript enabled.
- Pfhreak 7y ago> There is no reason why your page should refuse to load plain text without Javascript enabled. Sure there is. You prefer writing javascript and you want to serve your site through a CDN. You might not think that's a good reason, but that's certainly a reason.
- Franciscouzo 7y agoWhat does a CDN has to do with it?
- Spivak 7y agoBecause if your application bundle is a fixed asset — like a JS SPA that fetches it’s data from an API then you can distribute your entire application via an inexpensive CDN. As soon as your application bundle is rendered on your servers dynamically then only part of your site can be delivered via CDN. Basically going all-JS gives you an app model where your sever side code doesn’t even know or care about HTML or the web or whatever. It just pushes JSON or whatever around and it largely client independent. Great model when you need to support iOS, Android, web, desktop.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- penagwin 7y agoUsing a CDN like their talking about likely means your html is static and only served from the CDN. For many SPA's the only actual html is a header, container div, and a call to the app's js. Ignoring the header there might only be say half a dozen lines total.
- geggam 7y agoUntil the ADA comes along and demands you create an accessible to the blind site. I've often wondered when the laws would start to be applied and I think its coming
- CalRobert 7y agoI have a website that's a full page map. I care about accessibility - is there any way I can make this meaningfully accessible to the blind?
- gnud 7y agoI suspect you're being glib, but you could look at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_for_the_blind https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/OSM_for_the_blind
- EpiphanyMachine 7y agoLook at WCAG 2 (web content accessiblity guidelines) they specify tags and elements common screen readers will understand to help make you site accessible. This is a really good resource: https://accessibility.18f.gov/ https://accessibility.18f.gov/ A lot of frameworks now have some accessiblity built in if you add the correct attributes.
- lucasmullens 7y agoI'm confused. Why would a blind person be any less likely to use JavaScript?
- geggam 7y agoTo test for a blind persons ability to render your website a good method is a CLI browser. Neither the blind persons device or a CLI browser will render javascript
- zaroth 7y agoI’m no expert in this space, but if free, common, and easily accessible tools render your site readable and usable, I’m not sure how refusing to use those tools would be a claim under ADA. There are plenty of real ways that sites are unusable by screen readers, using Javascript to download dynamic content shouldn’t be one of them.
- penagwin 7y ago> There is no reason why your page should refuse to load plain text without Javascript enabled. On a technical level sure. SPA's should pre-render data before sending it to the client. The problem is that's a ton of extra work when the client will have to fetch data anyway - so it's difficult to justify the time to management. EDIT: If their page fetches the data with JS you might actually have an easier time figuring what their API looks like instead of scraping the rendered page. You might find there's more data available than is rendered too.
- leesalminen 7y agoI once showed someone how to use dev tools to see an API request a web app makes and how to recreate it with your own code. He’s since done all sorts of “life hack” automations. Love teaching people this stuff!
- mirimir 7y agoChrome headless does that really well. > google-chrome --headless --run-all-compositor-stages-before-draw --virtual-time-budget=25000 --print-to-pdf='foo.pdf' URL Edit: Plus > pdftotext -raw foo.pdf
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- paulcole 7y ago> There is no reason why your page should refuse to load plain text without Javascript enabled. Of course there is! It’s my site and I can do what I want with it.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- otterley 7y agoWe don’t know yet. It would depend on the specific legal question that is decided in the case. Courts usually try hard to constrain the law to as few questions as they need to in order to resolve a dispute.
- slg 7y agoCaptchas would be another technology that might be fall under that "technical barriers" terminology. I don't do much scraping, but I think most of us would enjoy never having to "identify the traffic lights in these photos".
- TeMPOraL 7y agoI would very much hope so. These sites are a perversion of the idea of the Web, and only get away with it because fundamentals of the Web were created with friendly, cooperative users in mind - not with commercial users of today - so there's no enforcement of good behaviour.