5 ms·

Turn off javascript is like turn off the web browser.

by altart 6y ago

hilbert42 6y ago
Not for me it isn't! The default state for JavaScript in my browser is off (has been for decades). The prizes I get for turning it off are these: • Blindingly fast speeds. My web pages usually render about three times as quickly as they do with JS on (you get spoiled by this and cannot turn back - it's like a drug the difference in speed is so great). • Ads and other screen dross are yesterday's business—even without ad blockers. • With JavaScript off, privacy comes almost by default. Below, you'll see the test results I've just obtained from EFF's Panopticlick with JS off. Wonderful results aren't they. • This post was done without JavaScript. • The sites that I usually visit are either not heavy with or overloaded with JS scripts. Moreover, the kind of sites I'm interested in contain the types of material that no one cares about if you switch JS off. • If sites don't let me in or screw me around then I'm out of there as fast as I can hit the backspace key. (There's more fish in the internet sea than I can ever visit in multiple lifetimes—so there's no need for me to stick around.) • If you must need to use JavaScript, then this fact alone is already violating your privacy to some extent. I now know the types of sites you will most likely visit and also the kind of data that you're likely to consume or use. I can also make assumptions about you without even going any further. I won't bother pushing the point further, as the cognoscenti who don't use JS already know they're ahead of the game. They also know that trying to get JS fanboys to kick the JS habit makes converting Apple users away from Apple look like child's play. (Who cares? Just let them wallow around in their JS-ridden environment. They're not going to be useful allies in the war on privacy anyway, or they'd already be in a JS-free environment.) EFF's Panopticlick: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ Browser Characteristic value User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040413 Debian/1.6-5 HTTP_ACCEPT Headers application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain; q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5 gzip, deflate, br en-US,en;q=0.5 Browser Plugin Details no javascript Time Zone Offset no javascript Time Zone no javascript Screen Size and Color Depth no javascript System Fonts no javascript Are Cookies Enabled? Yes Limited supercookie test no javascript Hash of canvas fingerprint no javascript Hash of WebGL fingerprint no javascript WebGL Vendor & Renderer no javascript DNT Header Enabled? False Language no javascript Platform no javascript Touch Support no javascript Ad Blocker Used no javascript AudioContext fingerprint no javascript CPU Class no javascript Hardware Concurrency no javascript Device Memory (GB no javascript Note: even the User Agent is wrong! The machine I'm using is actually an old Windows 7 laptop. Damn good privacy for just nuking JS I reckon.
- oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
  So is the i686 part incorrect also? I was about to say, who is even still on that in 2020
  - hilbert42 6y ago
    No. It's old but it's a decent Win 7 machine, that's why I still use it. My Linux boxes are even more up to date.
- barry27 6y ago
  This is borderline hysterical.
- XCSme 6y ago
  > Blindingly fast speeds The thing is, with JavaScript you can make websites a lot faster than without, but most of JS is not used for "good". For example, it's a lot faster when you click an upvote button to just update the button state/score immediately than to refresh the page.
  - hilbert42 6y ago
    I totally agree, and there's nothing wrong with JavaScript per se. The original purpose of JS made sense. The trouble is that's it's been grossly abused by web sites on two fronts. The first is bloat and the second is privacy. Web pages with multiple megabytes of data per page are just not on in my view but they're commonplace and seemingly getting worse. The second is using JS as spyware. If you look at the table in my post it's clear what I mean, this info should be off limits to remote servers. I've long advocated that we need modified JS engines in browsers that would hand control back to users. For instance, the parameters above could be singlely or collectively turned off or on in setings. Alternatively, the user could set one or more of these parameters to provide the server with spoofed info. If that became popular then web sites would discontinue the process as the data would be useless.
    - zzo38computer 6y ago

Turn off javascript is like turn off the web browser.

by altart 6y ago

Turn off javascript is like turn off the web browser.

Not for me it isn't! The default state for JavaScript in my browser is off (has been for decades). The prizes I get for turning it off are these: • Blindingly fast speeds. My web pages usually render about three times as quickly as they do with JS on (you get spoiled by this and cannot turn back - it's like a drug the difference in speed is so great). • Ads and other screen dross are yesterday's business—even without ad blockers. • With JavaScript off, privacy comes almost by default. Below, you'll see the test results I've just obtained from EFF's Panopticlick with JS off. Wonderful results aren't they. • This post was done without JavaScript. • The sites that I usually visit are either not heavy with or overloaded with JS scripts. Moreover, the kind of sites I'm interested in contain the types of material that no one cares about if you switch JS off. • If sites don't let me in or screw me around then I'm out of there as fast as I can hit the backspace key. (There's more fish in the internet sea than I can ever visit in multiple lifetimes—so there's no need for me to stick around.) • If you must need to use JavaScript, then this fact alone is already violating your privacy to some extent. I now know the types of sites you will most likely visit and also the kind of data that you're likely to consume or use. I can also make assumptions about you without even going any further. I won't bother pushing the point further, as the cognoscenti who don't use JS already know they're ahead of the game. They also know that trying to get JS fanboys to kick the JS habit makes converting Apple users away from Apple look like child's play. (Who cares? Just let them wallow around in their JS-ridden environment. They're not going to be useful allies in the war on privacy anyway, or they'd already be in a JS-free environment.) EFF's Panopticlick: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/ Browser Characteristic value User Agent Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.6) Gecko/20040413 Debian/1.6-5 HTTP_ACCEPT Headers application/xml,application/xhtml+xml,text/html;q=0.9,text/plain; q=0.8,image/png,*/*;q=0.5 gzip, deflate, br en-US,en;q=0.5 Browser Plugin Details no javascript Time Zone Offset no javascript Time Zone no javascript Screen Size and Color Depth no javascript System Fonts no javascript Are Cookies Enabled? Yes Limited supercookie test no javascript Hash of canvas fingerprint no javascript Hash of WebGL fingerprint no javascript WebGL Vendor & Renderer no javascript DNT Header Enabled? False Language no javascript Platform no javascript Touch Support no javascript Ad Blocker Used no javascript AudioContext fingerprint no javascript CPU Class no javascript Hardware Concurrency no javascript Device Memory (GB no javascript Note: even the User Agent is wrong! The machine I'm using is actually an old Windows 7 laptop. Damn good privacy for just nuking JS I reckon.

oehtXRwMkIs 6y ago
So is the i686 part incorrect also? I was about to say, who is even still on that in 2020
- hilbert42 6y ago
  No. It's old but it's a decent Win 7 machine, that's why I still use it. My Linux boxes are even more up to date.
barry27 6y ago
This is borderline hysterical.
XCSme 6y ago
> Blindingly fast speeds The thing is, with JavaScript you can make websites a lot faster than without, but most of JS is not used for "good". For example, it's a lot faster when you click an upvote button to just update the button state/score immediately than to refresh the page.
- hilbert42 6y ago
  I totally agree, and there's nothing wrong with JavaScript per se. The original purpose of JS made sense. The trouble is that's it's been grossly abused by web sites on two fronts. The first is bloat and the second is privacy. Web pages with multiple megabytes of data per page are just not on in my view but they're commonplace and seemingly getting worse. The second is using JS as spyware. If you look at the table in my post it's clear what I mean, this info should be off limits to remote servers. I've long advocated that we need modified JS engines in browsers that would hand control back to users. For instance, the parameters above could be singlely or collectively turned off or on in setings. Alternatively, the user could set one or more of these parameters to provide the server with spoofed info. If that became popular then web sites would discontinue the process as the data would be useless.
  - zzo38computer 6y ago