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I block JS, too. And so does about 1-2% of all Web users. JavaScript should NOT be REQUIRED to view a website. It makes web browsing more insecure and less priv

by davisr 11mo ago

I block JS, too. And so does about 1-2% of all Web users. JavaScript should NOT be REQUIRED to view a website. It makes web browsing more insecure and less private, makes page load times slower, and wastes energy.

dpark 11mo ago
> And so does about 1-2% of all Web users. To put that in context, about 6 percent of US homes have no internet access at all. The “I turn off JS” crowd is at least 3x smaller than the crowd with no access at all. The JS ship sailed years ago. You can turn it off but a bunch of things simply will not work and no amount of insisting that it would not be required will change that.
- kstrauser 11mo ago
  Without saying whether I think that's a good or bad thing, as a practical matter, I 100% agree. Approximately no major websites spend any effort whatsoever supporting non-JS browsers today. They probably put that in the class of text only browsers, or people who override all CSS: "sure, visitors can do that, but if they've altered their browser's behavior then what happens afterward is on them." And frankly, from an economic POV, I can't blame them. Imagine a company who write a React-based website. (And again, I'm not weighing in on the goodness or badness of that.) Depending on how they implemented it, supporting a non-JS version may literally require a second, parallel version of the site. And for what, to cater to 1-2% of users? "Hey boss, can we triple our budget to serve two versions of the site, kept in lockstep and feature identical so that visitors don't scream at us, to pick up an extra 1% or 2% of users, who by definition are very finicky?" Yeah, that's not happening. I've launched dozens of websites over the years, all of them using SSR (or HTML templates as we called them back in the day). I've personally never written a JavaScript-native website. I'm not saying the above because I built a career on writing JS or something. And despite that, I completely understand why devs might refuse to support non-JS browsers. It's a lot of extra work, it means they can't use the "modern" (React launched in 2013) tools they're use to, and all without any compelling financial benefit.
- davisr 11mo ago
  I'm hearing you say, "don't waste your breath because change is not possible." And there you have your self-fulfilling prophecy. To quote someone who lived before me: don't accept the things you cannot change. Change the things you cannot accept. And the no-JS ship has not sailed. Government websites require accessibility, and at least in the UK, do not rely on JS.
  - dpark 11mo ago
    Then you misheard me. I’m not saying change is not possible. I’m saying the change you propose is misguided. I do not believe the entire world should abandon JS to accommodate your unusual preferences nor should everyone be obliged to build two versions of their site, one for the masses and one for those with JS turned off. Yes, JS is overused. But JS also brings significant real value to the web. JS is what has allowed websites to replace desktop apps in many cases.
    - davisr 11mo ago
      Did I say abandon? No. I said it should not be required. JavaScript should be supplementary to a page, but not necessary to view it. This was its original intent. > JS is what has allowed websites to replace desktop apps in many cases. Horribly at that, with poorer accessibility features, worse latency, abused visual style that doesn't match the host operating system, unusable during times of net outages, etc, etc.
      - dpark 11mo ago
        > JavaScript should be supplementary to a page, but not necessary to view it. I’m curious. Do Google Maps, YouTube, etc even work with JS off? > This was its original intent. Original intent is borderline irrelevant. What matters is how it is actually used and what value it brings. > Horribly at that I disagree. You say you turn JS off for security but JS has made billions of people more secure by creating a sandbox for these random apps to run in. I can load up a random web app and have high confidence that it can’t muck with my computer. I can’t do the same with random desktop apps.
- selfhoster11 11mo ago
  I don't see how this makes the "JS availability should be the baseline" assumption any more legitimate. We make it possible to function in a society for those 6% of people. Low percentage still works out to a whole lot of people who shouldn't be left out.
  - dpark 11mo ago
    I disagree. The world is under no obligation to cater to a tiny minority who self-select into reduced-functionality experiences. It’s fine for you to turn off JS. It’s also fine for developers to require JS. Software has had minimum system requirements forever. I can’t run Android apps on my Palm Pilot from 2002 either and no one is obligated to make them work for me.
stronglikedan 11mo ago
The point of the poster you're responding to is that sites are built JS-first for 98-99% of users, and it takes extra work to make them compatible with "JavaScript should NOT be REQUIRED to view a website", and no one is going to bother doing that work for 1-2% of users.
- davisr 11mo ago
  Yeah... or...... maybe they should just build websites the proper way the first time around, returning plain HTML, perhaps with some JS extras. Any user-entered input needs to be validated again on the backend anyway, so client-side JS is often a waste.
  - imtringued 11mo ago
    This falls apart the moment you need to add rows to a table or show and hide things in response to values selected in a dropdown. Even the lightest JS app centered around a big form is going to become a huge pain in the ass for literally no benefit. In a company of 100 people, that <0.5% of people who disable JS could literally be one guy, or no one at all.
    - davisr 11mo ago
      You can use CSS for interactive-esque things like that. Use JS for all I care, just don't make it mandatory. You /could/ refresh the page with new values. You /could/ paginate your flow. You won't, because you'd rather spend 50 hours getting your JS to work right, than 5 hours writing some PHP. Pity.
      - cweagans 11mo ago
        I _could_ also just write API endpoints and handle client-side interaction however I want. If your preferences are incompatible with mine, that's a tradeoff I'm choosing to make. I am doing the work, you see, and I can choose how I want to do it. You ostensibly run some flavor of Linux. Do you also complain that macOS apps don't run on your machine? It seems to me like a similar argument: somebody has developed an application in some particular way, but your choices have resulted in that application not running on your machine. Your choices are not necessarily _wrong_, but they are of very little consequence to somebody who has developed an application with a particular environment/runtime in mind. Why should they have to make significant architectural changes to their application to support your non-standard choices?
zzo38computer 11mo ago
In addition to those things, JavaScripts can also cause some things to not work properly even though they would work without JavaScripts.
samdoesnothing 11mo ago
I make Javascript mandatory to use my sites regardless of if it's necessary.
imtringued 11mo ago
Blocking first party Javascript is a form of lunacy that is so illogical I can only shake my head. Let's say the site runs XSLT in Javascript. Now what? There's nothing that can be done and yet you would ask for further accommodation. Here is why this is abusive: You can always restrict the subset of the web platform you demand to a subset that is arbitrarily difficult or even impossible to support. No matter how much accommodation is granted, it will be all for naught, because some guy out there goes even further with blocking things and starts blocking CSS. Next thing you know there's a guy who blocks HTML and you're expected to render out your website as a SVG with clickable links.

by davisr 11mo ago

dpark 11mo ago

> And so does about 1-2% of all Web users. To put that in context, about 6 percent of US homes have no internet access at all. The “I turn off JS” crowd is at least 3x smaller than the crowd with no access at all. The JS ship sailed years ago. You can turn it off but a bunch of things simply will not work and no amount of insisting that it would not be required will change that.

kstrauser 11mo ago
Without saying whether I think that's a good or bad thing, as a practical matter, I 100% agree. Approximately no major websites spend any effort whatsoever supporting non-JS browsers today. They probably put that in the class of text only browsers, or people who override all CSS: "sure, visitors can do that, but if they've altered their browser's behavior then what happens afterward is on them." And frankly, from an economic POV, I can't blame them. Imagine a company who write a React-based website. (And again, I'm not weighing in on the goodness or badness of that.) Depending on how they implemented it, supporting a non-JS version may literally require a second, parallel version of the site. And for what, to cater to 1-2% of users? "Hey boss, can we triple our budget to serve two versions of the site, kept in lockstep and feature identical so that visitors don't scream at us, to pick up an extra 1% or 2% of users, who by definition are very finicky?" Yeah, that's not happening. I've launched dozens of websites over the years, all of them using SSR (or HTML templates as we called them back in the day). I've personally never written a JavaScript-native website. I'm not saying the above because I built a career on writing JS or something. And despite that, I completely understand why devs might refuse to support non-JS browsers. It's a lot of extra work, it means they can't use the "modern" (React launched in 2013) tools they're use to, and all without any compelling financial benefit.
davisr 11mo ago
I'm hearing you say, "don't waste your breath because change is not possible." And there you have your self-fulfilling prophecy. To quote someone who lived before me: don't accept the things you cannot change. Change the things you cannot accept. And the no-JS ship has not sailed. Government websites require accessibility, and at least in the UK, do not rely on JS.
- dpark 11mo ago
  Then you misheard me. I’m not saying change is not possible. I’m saying the change you propose is misguided. I do not believe the entire world should abandon JS to accommodate your unusual preferences nor should everyone be obliged to build two versions of their site, one for the masses and one for those with JS turned off. Yes, JS is overused. But JS also brings significant real value to the web. JS is what has allowed websites to replace desktop apps in many cases.
  - davisr 11mo ago
    Did I say abandon? No. I said it should not be required. JavaScript should be supplementary to a page, but not necessary to view it. This was its original intent. > JS is what has allowed websites to replace desktop apps in many cases. Horribly at that, with poorer accessibility features, worse latency, abused visual style that doesn't match the host operating system, unusable during times of net outages, etc, etc.
    - dpark 11mo ago
      > JavaScript should be supplementary to a page, but not necessary to view it. I’m curious. Do Google Maps, YouTube, etc even work with JS off? > This was its original intent. Original intent is borderline irrelevant. What matters is how it is actually used and what value it brings. > Horribly at that I disagree. You say you turn JS off for security but JS has made billions of people more secure by creating a sandbox for these random apps to run in. I can load up a random web app and have high confidence that it can’t muck with my computer. I can’t do the same with random desktop apps.
selfhoster11 11mo ago
I don't see how this makes the "JS availability should be the baseline" assumption any more legitimate. We make it possible to function in a society for those 6% of people. Low percentage still works out to a whole lot of people who shouldn't be left out.
- dpark 11mo ago
  I disagree. The world is under no obligation to cater to a tiny minority who self-select into reduced-functionality experiences. It’s fine for you to turn off JS. It’s also fine for developers to require JS. Software has had minimum system requirements forever. I can’t run Android apps on my Palm Pilot from 2002 either and no one is obligated to make them work for me.

stronglikedan 11mo ago

The point of the poster you're responding to is that sites are built JS-first for 98-99% of users, and it takes extra work to make them compatible with "JavaScript should NOT be REQUIRED to view a website", and no one is going to bother doing that work for 1-2% of users.

davisr 11mo ago
Yeah... or...... maybe they should just build websites the proper way the first time around, returning plain HTML, perhaps with some JS extras. Any user-entered input needs to be validated again on the backend anyway, so client-side JS is often a waste.
- imtringued 11mo ago
  This falls apart the moment you need to add rows to a table or show and hide things in response to values selected in a dropdown. Even the lightest JS app centered around a big form is going to become a huge pain in the ass for literally no benefit. In a company of 100 people, that <0.5% of people who disable JS could literally be one guy, or no one at all.
  - davisr 11mo ago
    You can use CSS for interactive-esque things like that. Use JS for all I care, just don't make it mandatory. You /could/ refresh the page with new values. You /could/ paginate your flow. You won't, because you'd rather spend 50 hours getting your JS to work right, than 5 hours writing some PHP. Pity.
    - cweagans 11mo ago
      I _could_ also just write API endpoints and handle client-side interaction however I want. If your preferences are incompatible with mine, that's a tradeoff I'm choosing to make. I am doing the work, you see, and I can choose how I want to do it. You ostensibly run some flavor of Linux. Do you also complain that macOS apps don't run on your machine? It seems to me like a similar argument: somebody has developed an application in some particular way, but your choices have resulted in that application not running on your machine. Your choices are not necessarily _wrong_, but they are of very little consequence to somebody who has developed an application with a particular environment/runtime in mind. Why should they have to make significant architectural changes to their application to support your non-standard choices?

zzo38computer 11mo ago

In addition to those things, JavaScripts can also cause some things to not work properly even though they would work without JavaScripts.

samdoesnothing 11mo ago

I make Javascript mandatory to use my sites regardless of if it's necessary.

imtringued 11mo ago

Blocking first party Javascript is a form of lunacy that is so illogical I can only shake my head. Let's say the site runs XSLT in Javascript. Now what? There's nothing that can be done and yet you would ask for further accommodation. Here is why this is abusive: You can always restrict the subset of the web platform you demand to a subset that is arbitrarily difficult or even impossible to support. No matter how much accommodation is granted, it will be all for naught, because some guy out there goes even further with blocking things and starts blocking CSS. Next thing you know there's a guy who blocks HTML and you're expected to render out your website as a SVG with clickable links.