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I find it really interesting that NoScript users seem so vocal and adamant about their plugin on this site, at least. Many sites that don't work with NoScript h

by bwy 12y ago

I find it really interesting that NoScript users seem so vocal and adamant about their plugin on this site, at least. Many sites that don't work with NoScript have condescending comments from NoScript users, and they don't hesitate to proudly let their makers know. They often make comments like this, too. What is it about this plugin that seems to be correlated with these comments? Is browsing the Internet with such a big chunk of functionality missing really so much better? (Real questions, here.) I've heard HN doesn't even work with NoScript, which makes this all the more interesting to me.

trynumber9 12y ago
In general, Javascript is fine. But some heavy sites kill my notebook's battery. CSS-heavy sites add another hit by warming up the GPU. Some even spin up the fan. Browsing without JS can be a better experience, when the alternatives are warm & loud or totally drained. Oddly, the native applications rarely seem to have much impact unless it's doing a hard task, like video encoding.
titanomachy 12y ago
Not sure about NoScript but I just disabled JS using Chrome Developer Tools and HN seems to work fine. To answer your question, I think that NoScript users tend to appreciate (and even expect) minimalism... consequently some get irritated when even a simple blog can't load without JS. I get the appeal of the minimalist, standards-adhering, machine-parseable website, but it's not a big source of emotion for me :P
- bwy 12y ago
  Thank you, very good answer! It makes a bit more sense to me. Also tested in Chrome w/o Javascript, and it does indeed work. Upvoting's just a little more inconvenient.
A_COMPUTER 12y ago
less ads, less tracking, less lightbox modals, less hover context menus, less elements that move when you're trying to click something and make you click something else, less stupid "intelligent" tooltip helpers, less weird fonts, less frontend gimmick of the week, acceptable page load time. Basically I hate everything on every webpage except the text and maybe sometimes a picture. Most content should degrade gracefully to text, because most sites aren't doing anything truly special enough to be an exception. When a site doesn't do this it makes me mad. Am I entitled? Yeah probably, but it's my explanation. I also suspect that a lot of people, like myself, still consider the WWW a linked document system rather than a fat client application terminal, we just want documents with links to other documents, and sometimes simple forms.
papaf 12y ago
Is browsing the Internet with such a big chunk of functionality missing really so much better? I've been a no-script user for 3 days. I'd say the experience is better until I hit a useful site that requires javascript - when this happens it takes one or two attempts to enable javascript properly. I would not recommend it for people for people who do not like messing around with their browsers. However, I intend to stay with no-script because page loads are faster and incredibly little functionality is missing.
seba_dos1 12y ago
"Is browsing the Internet with such a big chunk of functionality missing really so much better" Using NoScript does not mean "functionality missing". It's just disabled by default - and personally, most of the time I find the "missing functionality" unnecessary, and in most of places where it's not I already have a whitelist entry in place. HN works perfectly. Lots of pages even work better with NoScript, as it basically cuts a lot of bloat. If some don't, enabling JS is one click away. Anyway, there are lots of pages which are kind of expected to not work correctly without JavaScript - and that's fine. But if for instance Hacker News wouldn't work in its current form without JS, that would be a valid thing to complain about, because there's absolutely no reason for that. There are even some pages that implement loading animation in JS in a way that when JS is disabled, the whole page is obstructed by loader that never disappears - and that's just reckless coding that should be fixed.

by bwy 12y ago

trynumber9 12y ago

In general, Javascript is fine. But some heavy sites kill my notebook's battery. CSS-heavy sites add another hit by warming up the GPU. Some even spin up the fan. Browsing without JS can be a better experience, when the alternatives are warm & loud or totally drained. Oddly, the native applications rarely seem to have much impact unless it's doing a hard task, like video encoding.

titanomachy 12y ago

Not sure about NoScript but I just disabled JS using Chrome Developer Tools and HN seems to work fine. To answer your question, I think that NoScript users tend to appreciate (and even expect) minimalism... consequently some get irritated when even a simple blog can't load without JS. I get the appeal of the minimalist, standards-adhering, machine-parseable website, but it's not a big source of emotion for me :P

bwy 12y ago
Thank you, very good answer! It makes a bit more sense to me. Also tested in Chrome w/o Javascript, and it does indeed work. Upvoting's just a little more inconvenient.

A_COMPUTER 12y ago

less ads, less tracking, less lightbox modals, less hover context menus, less elements that move when you're trying to click something and make you click something else, less stupid "intelligent" tooltip helpers, less weird fonts, less frontend gimmick of the week, acceptable page load time. Basically I hate everything on every webpage except the text and maybe sometimes a picture. Most content should degrade gracefully to text, because most sites aren't doing anything truly special enough to be an exception. When a site doesn't do this it makes me mad. Am I entitled? Yeah probably, but it's my explanation. I also suspect that a lot of people, like myself, still consider the WWW a linked document system rather than a fat client application terminal, we just want documents with links to other documents, and sometimes simple forms.

papaf 12y ago

Is browsing the Internet with such a big chunk of functionality missing really so much better? I've been a no-script user for 3 days. I'd say the experience is better until I hit a useful site that requires javascript - when this happens it takes one or two attempts to enable javascript properly. I would not recommend it for people for people who do not like messing around with their browsers. However, I intend to stay with no-script because page loads are faster and incredibly little functionality is missing.

seba_dos1 12y ago

"Is browsing the Internet with such a big chunk of functionality missing really so much better" Using NoScript does not mean "functionality missing". It's just disabled by default - and personally, most of the time I find the "missing functionality" unnecessary, and in most of places where it's not I already have a whitelist entry in place. HN works perfectly. Lots of pages even work better with NoScript, as it basically cuts a lot of bloat. If some don't, enabling JS is one click away. Anyway, there are lots of pages which are kind of expected to not work correctly without JavaScript - and that's fine. But if for instance Hacker News wouldn't work in its current form without JS, that would be a valid thing to complain about, because there's absolutely no reason for that. There are even some pages that implement loading animation in JS in a way that when JS is disabled, the whole page is obstructed by loader that never disappears - and that's just reckless coding that should be fixed.