3 ms·

i will say that though i am predisposed to appreciate and agree with an article like this, any sort of value proposition around "some users don't want javascrip

i will say that though i am predisposed to appreciate and agree with an article like this, any sort of value proposition around "some users don't want javascript" just doesn't... hit for me. and, mind you: i am a card-carrying arch user and have spent more time messing with browser scripting and web crawling, and am more of a True Believer than most. it's just such a niche user preference that i think it should largely be simply ignored. yes, i would love the world to be better for the "noscript" universe, no, i don't think that any individual "grassroots" effort should stake itself on "no javascript" being any part of its utility. i think there are a million other reasons why CSS should win out that are more compelling than an appeal to what feels, extremely ironically, like a callback to the "but 10% of your users use IE6" days... all in all, yes: this is somewhat of a minor point wrt. to the article (which btw i think is great), but i am just calling the "trend", such as it is / has been, for what (i think) it is.

jauntywundrkind 1y ago
I agree; I don't find the noscript-ians to be useful or worth targeting. At the same time, I want to emphasize more strongly the flip side that I think you don't at but don't go much I to: I do find that writing less code & using the platform is enormously valuable! Doing less & letting the browser do the thing is a very nice win.
- lukan 1y ago
  "Doing less & letting the browser do the thing is a very nice win." If only they would do it nice and consistently, I would agree. Sadly they don't. On one plattform you get sliders in this color who pop in when the mouse moves there, on another you have fixed size sliders of a different color and style. Impossible to make a coherent style like this.
rebane2001 1y ago
fwiw, i've been using the internet with noscript and i find it perfectly usable for any sites that do need js, i simply enable it for them from the extension, so it never gets in the way with sites i use regularly it's pretty nice for performance/battery and security have you ever tried living with noscript for over a week? i feel like your perspective could be a bit mislead, because i felt the exact same way as you before i started using noscript disclaimer: i'm the author of the blogpost
- Mars008 1y ago
  Same here, I have noscript almost always on. The problem is some things don't work without JS. Google and Bing search, youtube, even duckduckgo in plane FireFox. The later works in Tor browser, that's what I'm usually using. I usually skip on most other things that require JS to drive blinking ads.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - typpilol 1y ago
    Isn't the tor browser insanely slow though?
    - Mars008 1y ago
      Not anymore. It's very usable when JS is not needed. I've seen more than 5MB/s Tor downloads. The good, or bad, thing is you don't control the exit point. You can only change it by resetting the circuit. Some websites are sensitive to user's location.
  - 1718627440 1y ago
    If duckduckgo bothers you, there is html.duckduckgo.com.
- ajross 1y ago
  > fwiw, i've been using the internet with noscript and i find it perfectly usable Genuine question though: you just run a ton of apps instead, right? Windows apps, iOS apps, whatever. Right? Because you still want to use (and not just "look at") Facebook or WhatsApp or BSky or Drive or CoD:BO6 or... everything. And all that stuff runs in an environment with the same privacy-compromising power (generally much more dangerous, frankly). I just don't see a situation where "use noscript" doesn't really just mean "use your phone so you don't have to use your browser". I mean, why bother? You're not winning anything. (Quite frankly most of the people I see in this argument eventually admit this straight up: "no javascript" really means "no Google" to them, and their goal isn't privacy at all except as a proxy thing; it's the destruction of the World Wide Web as a platform in favor of Apple's offerings.)
bee_rider 1y ago
They mention the users who don’t want JavaScript as an aside, but most of the post is devoted to just showing the CSS functionality off. The other motivation mentioned is performance. But they don’t belabor the whole motivation thing anyway. IMO that’s a good, focusing on showing off the tech seems more productive anyway.
- hilbert42 1y ago
  Well, I'm one who defaults to browsing with JavaScript off and turning it on only when strictly necessary. For me, the advantages of no JS are so compelling that I can't see me changing unless some major paradigm shift in browsing were to take place to upend the advantage. It's not JavaScript that I'm against but the many abuses that websites inflict on users—privacy violations, pages of many tens of megabytes long but which only contain some 10k or so of text, the incredibility slow page load times, etc., etc. As far as I'm concerned CSS is capable of just about anything I require of a webpage. It seems a shame that not more users are aware of browsing sans JS with a button to turn it on and off. After experiencing the advantages it's quickly habit-forming. The increase in speed of page loads alone justifies killing JS.
exabrial 1y ago
> some users dont want javascript correct, nearly all dont
- dmd 1y ago
  More than 99.9% of web users have never heard of javascript.
  - pessimizer 1y ago
    A lot of people haven't heard of pancreatic cancer either. Explain it to them and see if they approve. edit: IE javascript was probably responsible for at least half a dozen times their system has been ruined, and they know what tracking is.
    - rafram 1y ago
      > javascript was probably responsible for at least half a dozen times their system has been ruined What does this mean?
  - __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
    I'd believe 90. 99.9 seems aggressive.
    - ChrisRR 1y ago
      I think you massively overestimate how much the average user knows about computers
      - TheCoelacanth 1y ago
        The statement was 99.9%, so that's not talking about average users; it's talking about the top 1% or less of users. If 99.9% percent of users don't know what JS is, that means even a majority of professional software developers don't know what it is.
  - 1y ago
inopinatus 1y ago
The drawcard for me is that I can do in a few bytes of declarative CSS things that take many lines of imperative JS to get right, with fewer weird misbehaviours, fewer framework compatibility issues, and a lower time-to-interactive. Working under noscript conditions is just a cherry on the cake. Deep down inside, however, I miss DSSSL.
- b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
  The cost is increased complexity in both the CSS spec and browser implementations.
- xenotux 1y ago
  It's moving in the right direction, but I'd still say that CSS has more quirks and misbehaviors than the common subset of JS...
- cbrozefsky 1y ago
  Old school flexing on us with the scheme. They don’t know about the sosofo!

jauntywundrkind 1y ago

I agree; I don't find the noscript-ians to be useful or worth targeting. At the same time, I want to emphasize more strongly the flip side that I think you don't at but don't go much I to: I do find that writing less code & using the platform is enormously valuable! Doing less & letting the browser do the thing is a very nice win.

lukan 1y ago
"Doing less & letting the browser do the thing is a very nice win." If only they would do it nice and consistently, I would agree. Sadly they don't. On one plattform you get sliders in this color who pop in when the mouse moves there, on another you have fixed size sliders of a different color and style. Impossible to make a coherent style like this.

rebane2001 1y ago

fwiw, i've been using the internet with noscript and i find it perfectly usable for any sites that do need js, i simply enable it for them from the extension, so it never gets in the way with sites i use regularly it's pretty nice for performance/battery and security have you ever tried living with noscript for over a week? i feel like your perspective could be a bit mislead, because i felt the exact same way as you before i started using noscript disclaimer: i'm the author of the blogpost

Mars008 1y ago
Same here, I have noscript almost always on. The problem is some things don't work without JS. Google and Bing search, youtube, even duckduckgo in plane FireFox. The later works in Tor browser, that's what I'm usually using. I usually skip on most other things that require JS to drive blinking ads.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- typpilol 1y ago
  Isn't the tor browser insanely slow though?
  - Mars008 1y ago
    Not anymore. It's very usable when JS is not needed. I've seen more than 5MB/s Tor downloads. The good, or bad, thing is you don't control the exit point. You can only change it by resetting the circuit. Some websites are sensitive to user's location.
- 1718627440 1y ago
  If duckduckgo bothers you, there is html.duckduckgo.com.
ajross 1y ago
> fwiw, i've been using the internet with noscript and i find it perfectly usable Genuine question though: you just run a ton of apps instead, right? Windows apps, iOS apps, whatever. Right? Because you still want to use (and not just "look at") Facebook or WhatsApp or BSky or Drive or CoD:BO6 or... everything. And all that stuff runs in an environment with the same privacy-compromising power (generally much more dangerous, frankly). I just don't see a situation where "use noscript" doesn't really just mean "use your phone so you don't have to use your browser". I mean, why bother? You're not winning anything. (Quite frankly most of the people I see in this argument eventually admit this straight up: "no javascript" really means "no Google" to them, and their goal isn't privacy at all except as a proxy thing; it's the destruction of the World Wide Web as a platform in favor of Apple's offerings.)

bee_rider 1y ago

They mention the users who don’t want JavaScript as an aside, but most of the post is devoted to just showing the CSS functionality off. The other motivation mentioned is performance. But they don’t belabor the whole motivation thing anyway. IMO that’s a good, focusing on showing off the tech seems more productive anyway.

hilbert42 1y ago
Well, I'm one who defaults to browsing with JavaScript off and turning it on only when strictly necessary. For me, the advantages of no JS are so compelling that I can't see me changing unless some major paradigm shift in browsing were to take place to upend the advantage. It's not JavaScript that I'm against but the many abuses that websites inflict on users—privacy violations, pages of many tens of megabytes long but which only contain some 10k or so of text, the incredibility slow page load times, etc., etc. As far as I'm concerned CSS is capable of just about anything I require of a webpage. It seems a shame that not more users are aware of browsing sans JS with a button to turn it on and off. After experiencing the advantages it's quickly habit-forming. The increase in speed of page loads alone justifies killing JS.

exabrial 1y ago

> some users dont want javascript correct, nearly all dont

dmd 1y ago
More than 99.9% of web users have never heard of javascript.
- pessimizer 1y ago
  A lot of people haven't heard of pancreatic cancer either. Explain it to them and see if they approve. edit: IE javascript was probably responsible for at least half a dozen times their system has been ruined, and they know what tracking is.
  - rafram 1y ago
    > javascript was probably responsible for at least half a dozen times their system has been ruined What does this mean?
- __MatrixMan__ 1y ago
  I'd believe 90. 99.9 seems aggressive.
  - ChrisRR 1y ago
    I think you massively overestimate how much the average user knows about computers
    - TheCoelacanth 1y ago
      The statement was 99.9%, so that's not talking about average users; it's talking about the top 1% or less of users. If 99.9% percent of users don't know what JS is, that means even a majority of professional software developers don't know what it is.
- 1y ago

inopinatus 1y ago

The drawcard for me is that I can do in a few bytes of declarative CSS things that take many lines of imperative JS to get right, with fewer weird misbehaviours, fewer framework compatibility issues, and a lower time-to-interactive. Working under noscript conditions is just a cherry on the cake. Deep down inside, however, I miss DSSSL.

b_e_n_t_o_n 1y ago
The cost is increased complexity in both the CSS spec and browser implementations.
xenotux 1y ago
It's moving in the right direction, but I'd still say that CSS has more quirks and misbehaviors than the common subset of JS...
cbrozefsky 1y ago
Old school flexing on us with the scheme. They don’t know about the sosofo!