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Dear everyone who ever gave me shit on HN for browsing the web with JavaScript turned off by default: please see the above image. Without NoScript and ad blocki

by sedev 15y ago

Dear everyone who ever gave me shit on HN for browsing the web with JavaScript turned off by default: please see the above image. Without NoScript and ad blocking, the Internet is broken because site owners can fuck up basic UI/UX assumptions.

ericd 15y ago
You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and putting yourself into a tiny minority that most web devs will be starting to ignore in the coming years.
- nfriedly 15y ago
  I enable scripts for the parent domain and any subdomains in noscript. That seems to keep the baby and loose the bathwater about 80% of the time ;)
- HarbeyLong 15y ago
  No one cares if 'web developers' want to force Javascript on you. Just block their antics!
- mike-cardwell 15y ago
  Most websites work either fine or better with JavaScript disabled. On the sites that require it to function, it's easy to turn it on. I don't see how this is an inferior option to allowing all sites to execute local and cross-domain JavaScript.
- lhnz 15y ago
  Why would somebody writing articles for developers ignore his core market? We aren't soccer moms...
  - edanm 15y ago
    Even among developers, what percentage do you think run no-script?
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- sedev 15y ago
  That reply makes you sound like you don't know how NoScript, web standards, and good UIs work. I have access to the Good Stuff that JS enables - and there's lots of Good Stuff! But with NoScript on, I (a) get to see who's following web standards and who isn't, (b) get pages that load faster, (c) get a more secure browsing experience, and (d) by default am spared the UI/UX idiocy that some sites try to perpetrate (especially in the area of intrusive advertising). Using NoScript and ad-blocking is pretty much like using Instapaper or the new Reader feature of Safari - it is an assertion of the user's rights. It says "no no no, fuck all your irrelevant stuff: give me CONTENT." Not advertising, not fluff, not background images, not boilerplate: CONTENT. I like how Nathan Bowers put it: "If it looks better in Instapaper than in the browser, back to the drawing board."[1] If you purposefully make it harder for visitors to your web site to get the content they care about, you're a bad programmer and a bad person. Bad JS is one of the most frequent manifestations of making it harder to get to the content - and so in my browser, JS is a privilege, not a right. Speaking of privilege: I am privileged - I'm about 100% able-bodied. If you say 'fuck off' to and ignore users who are not - who are for example not sighted, can't use a mouse, or can't distinguish certain colors - then you're also a bad person, in a different way. [1]: http://uxhero.com/blog/i-redesigned-avc-com/ http://uxhero.com/blog/i-redesigned-avc-com/
  - ericd 15y ago
    I admit that I haven't disabled Javascript in a long time (and haven't used NoScript), so things might be better now. My impression was that it fails silently where JS is required, but this may not be true. Also, I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who writes web apps. I'm not talking about uses like the shitty window dressing the parent was talking about. But no, it's not bad web development practice to ignore the tiny percentage of people who don't have javascript enabled, at least when writing a web app - in fact, ignoring that segment of the population frees you to do wonderful things! Things that aren't possible with straight HTML. Trying to make things work well for those without JS enabled is like Microsoft's trying to make their new OS software compatible all the way back to DOS, and having to make all sorts of unfortunate design decisions as a result. I would much rather make my website awesome for 95% of potential users and leverage the full power of JS than make it mediocre and usable by 100%. It's a choice, and one that I happily make. I think more and more web developers will be making that choice in the coming years (not the ones with content sites, maybe, but who knows). That's what I meant when I said they'd start ignoring you.

by sedev 15y ago

ericd 15y ago

You're throwing out the baby with the bathwater, and putting yourself into a tiny minority that most web devs will be starting to ignore in the coming years.

nfriedly 15y ago
I enable scripts for the parent domain and any subdomains in noscript. That seems to keep the baby and loose the bathwater about 80% of the time ;)
HarbeyLong 15y ago
No one cares if 'web developers' want to force Javascript on you. Just block their antics!
mike-cardwell 15y ago
Most websites work either fine or better with JavaScript disabled. On the sites that require it to function, it's easy to turn it on. I don't see how this is an inferior option to allowing all sites to execute local and cross-domain JavaScript.
lhnz 15y ago
Why would somebody writing articles for developers ignore his core market? We aren't soccer moms...
- edanm 15y ago
  Even among developers, what percentage do you think run no-script?
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
sedev 15y ago
That reply makes you sound like you don't know how NoScript, web standards, and good UIs work. I have access to the Good Stuff that JS enables - and there's lots of Good Stuff! But with NoScript on, I (a) get to see who's following web standards and who isn't, (b) get pages that load faster, (c) get a more secure browsing experience, and (d) by default am spared the UI/UX idiocy that some sites try to perpetrate (especially in the area of intrusive advertising). Using NoScript and ad-blocking is pretty much like using Instapaper or the new Reader feature of Safari - it is an assertion of the user's rights. It says "no no no, fuck all your irrelevant stuff: give me CONTENT." Not advertising, not fluff, not background images, not boilerplate: CONTENT. I like how Nathan Bowers put it: "If it looks better in Instapaper than in the browser, back to the drawing board."[1] If you purposefully make it harder for visitors to your web site to get the content they care about, you're a bad programmer and a bad person. Bad JS is one of the most frequent manifestations of making it harder to get to the content - and so in my browser, JS is a privilege, not a right. Speaking of privilege: I am privileged - I'm about 100% able-bodied. If you say 'fuck off' to and ignore users who are not - who are for example not sighted, can't use a mouse, or can't distinguish certain colors - then you're also a bad person, in a different way. [1]: http://uxhero.com/blog/i-redesigned-avc-com/ http://uxhero.com/blog/i-redesigned-avc-com/
- ericd 15y ago
  I admit that I haven't disabled Javascript in a long time (and haven't used NoScript), so things might be better now. My impression was that it fails silently where JS is required, but this may not be true. Also, I'm coming at this from the perspective of someone who writes web apps. I'm not talking about uses like the shitty window dressing the parent was talking about. But no, it's not bad web development practice to ignore the tiny percentage of people who don't have javascript enabled, at least when writing a web app - in fact, ignoring that segment of the population frees you to do wonderful things! Things that aren't possible with straight HTML. Trying to make things work well for those without JS enabled is like Microsoft's trying to make their new OS software compatible all the way back to DOS, and having to make all sorts of unfortunate design decisions as a result. I would much rather make my website awesome for 95% of potential users and leverage the full power of JS than make it mediocre and usable by 100%. It's a choice, and one that I happily make. I think more and more web developers will be making that choice in the coming years (not the ones with content sites, maybe, but who knows). That's what I meant when I said they'd start ignoring you.