I can't remember the last time I wrote an application that didn't rely on Javascript for even parts of its basic functionality.
I simply don't understand why you would want to browse the web without JS enabled and the average user definitely would never turn it off except in error, causing them to think the browser is broken.
Every single common-use browser on the Internet supports Javascript, there is no reason to assume it is not there as a developer.
> I simply don't understand why you would want to browse the web without JS enabled
It's faster. Much faster. Every time I disable noscript to use some website (90% of the time it's video that doesn't work) I'm always astonished how much GARBAGE most website have. Totally useless stuff.
Popup boxes, annoying underlining with mouse overs, certificate verifiers, bookmarks, social network promoters, chat boxes, and helpers galore.
I suppose that stuff pays the bills? Maybe. But pages are so much faster without it.
Disabling Javascript isn't equivalent to installing an ad blocker. Ads not showing are just a side effect if it. If sites can't integrate ads on the server side it's not my problem. Same with analytics: you can still use regular web server logs. Everything beyond that is too invasive for my tastes.
Not quite. As lockers are common enough that they need to be considered. However, far less than 1% of users disable JavaScript (on the sites I work with). I'd be supporting IE6 again with those numbers, because the real cost is having to build and maintain the different versions of the site.
And all for what? Someone who isn't going to make us anything near the time it will take to develop.
I'm not saying what you want is wrong. Rather, what you are asking for is to have a game written in c to be rewritten in python because you don't want to use c applications.
I don't look at advertising - certainly not advertising that pops up if I mouse over a word. (Are website a game now, where you have to carefully move your mouse to avoid the underlined words?)
I allow analytics.
And I am not interested in social interaction, because the comments are so intensely stupid you become dumber just by your computer loading them.
> But that stuff is all important for the website owner.
Correct. However, this is not true for the the browser owner who owns the computer that the javascript executes on. What rights to my hardware, my electricity, and my bandwidth should the website owner actually have?
For the minority that do click on advertising, or do not get a instant distaste for any company displayed on advertising that are forcible pushed into ones face, I suggest using a opt-in system. Same goes for tracking, or the constant push for integrating different companies websites with ones personal social network profile.
Last, the golden days of pay-with-your-eyeballs or pay-with-your-personal-data supported services might be counting down. Sooner or later, tax officers will start consider those as transaction as any other, and thus enforce taxes on them.
It's not a question of browser support, it's a question of user choice. Do I want to allow any and all websites to run random scripts on my computer?
For some people and some sites, the answer is an obvious yes. Especially when the script is an integral part of the app or site you're visiting, such as a game or a highly interactive tool.
Sometimes though, the content should be enough. There are plenty of sites out there, like blogs, that shouldn't need js to provide their primary function. For example, I don't feel that I should need to enable client side scripting to view a 140 character tweet on the twitter site.
For some people, tracking via js is the primary concern, and in their case it makes sense to disable js whenever possible, and use offline tools for everything that needs to be interactive.
In any case, this move has a solid precedent, and as others have noted there are plenty of plugins that allow granular control over js execution.
Except that Javascript cannot access that, unless some glaring design flaws have been made.
If you disagree with me, and believe it can, I would just love to see a webpage that dumps out valuable data inside my browser. I'll visit it without any browser plugins using the same session I have been using for over a month, promise!
Actually, at least one mainstream browser (Safari for iPhone) doesn't support Flash, and that's a part of why Flash has been declining (HTML5 capabilities being another important part).
I spend a lot of time browsing the web each day. I spend very little time using "web apps," and the few that I do use can easily be whitelisted, since I rarely try new ones. Everything else is basically a blog, article, some other completely static source of information, or an entirely HTML forms-based interface.
I don't block and selectively whitelist javascript, but I think I'd barely notice if I did. Maybe I'll give it a shot some time.
But even Hacker News would be provide a better user experience if it made more use of Javascript to publish comments, etc. instead of all the jumping around with the current UI. Something only possible with JS.
This is my preferred use of js, providing additional functionality and usability improvements on top of things that already work perfectly well with js disabled.
Users with js still get the "fuller" experience, but users who choose to disable js still have full access to the site.
But you have to implement this "extra functionality" already. Or, how are you dealing with situations where your JavaScript fails to reach your user's browser? How are you dealing with situations where the JavaScript arrives in the browser but doesn't execute?
This "extra functionality" is the same "extra functionality" as having a safety cage designed and implemented in a car. Sure, it's just extra functionality that most people will never ever use. Hopefully. Touch wood.
If it doesn't work without JS, is it going to work in a screen reader? Should developers have to implement extra functionality for the < 1% of people who are blind?
Nobody is forcing developers to give a damn about accessibility, but it's a bit sad that so many have thrown graceful degradation out the window.
The way I understand it (and I don't claim to be an expert): yes, it will work. Modern screen readers let the browser handle the JS and related parts, and it reads the displayed text.
But go back to HN for a moment, there's not really a good way to insert new threaded comments in realtime, you pretty much need a refresh. So the no-js method is about perfect.
There is a reason to assume that it is not there, particularly if you're developing a U.S. government website, and that's for accessibility reasons.
Google Section 508 and you'll see what I mean. Go ahead and build your site to use javascript, but don't continue under the false pretense that everyone needs/can use javascript.
I just counted, and The Verge takes 20 seconds to show any content on my computer with a cold cache. With a warm cache, over 10 seconds. If I disable JS, it's less than 5 seconds either way. And I'm sitting in the headquarters of an ISP (I broke http://speedof.me/ but I'm getting over 150Mb/s).
You cant measure speed on a bad connection. You are penalising websites that are not bloated because they seem just as bad to you as the two sites listed above.
I simply don't understand why you would want to browse the web without JS enabled and the average user definitely would never turn it off except in error, causing them to think the browser is broken.
Every single common-use browser on the Internet supports Javascript, there is no reason to assume it is not there as a developer.