Ask HN: Why would you disable JavaScript?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8003323

by cupofjoakim • 12 years ago

48 84 12 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Base info: I'm a front end dev born in the early 90's with three years experience.

A lot of older dev's that I've worked with have told me that best practice often includes making sure that the site is usable even if you've got javascript disabled.

To me, this is completely bonkers. Are we really supposed to cater to the sub 2% that chooses not to use javascript?

To me it would make more sense to use that time to make the sites usable for visitors with disabilities by including screen reader support and stuff like that.

andygmb• 12 years ago

Wouldn't it depend on the type of audience you're trying to appeal to?

I would imagine the amount of people disabling JS would be a lot more coming from a site like HN, compared to say, pintrest. It would be worth making sure your site functions without JS if you know a lot of your audience will be disabling JS.

Kliment2• 12 years ago

I always disable JS by default. It prevents a lot of the cross-site tracking bullshit from working. And catering to users with disabilities tends to be easier when your page content is represented as page content and not dynamically loaded by JS.

cupofjoakim4• 12 years ago

Dynamically loading content has problems beyond screen readers, for stuff like SEO, so I get your point. Another guy did post this link though, showing that most screen reader users have js enabled: http://a11yproject.com/posts/myth-screen-readers-dont-use-ja...

Kliment2• 12 years ago

Of course they do, or they would not be very useful given the number of horribly-built websites today, but even the JS-enabled screen readers can get confused by dynamically loaded content, sometimes getting it in the wrong order or not being able to access content that's triggered by things like infinite scrolling. Still, requiring JS for core non-interactive functionality is a net negative for any website. Why spend more effort on making your site more annoying?

Natsu• 12 years ago

I have it selectively whitelisted via NoScript, rather than just disabled. I only enable it for a domain when there's a compelling reason (i.e. it's not just for ads/trackers) and even then, the permissions will be temporary unless it's a site I frequent.

Most of the time browser security flaws rely on JavaScript in some way, so this makes me more secure by default at the expense of usability. It has a happy side-effect of disabling other random annoying things as well.

dimitar• 12 years ago

It seems there are less reasons the more time passes. I thought that screen-readers don't support javascript (imagining something like lynx), but it turns out that its a myth by now: http://a11yproject.com/posts/myth-screen-readers-dont-use-ja...

SilkRoadie• 12 years ago

I can confirm this. Recently got a complaint from a blind user about an inaccessible form element that was buried deep deep within our JavaScript web app. We learned a couple of things that day.

hollerith• 12 years ago

The fact that screen-readers try to make sense out of JS-heavy pages does not mean that blind users wouldn't benefit if there were no JS between them and the text they want to hear.

wololo_• 12 years ago

It would make sense back then when browser security was potatoes. Today, even firefox made it hard to disable Javascript. In fact, our startup website doesn't even load unless you have Javascript enabled.

Also, it's not sub 2% today, it's more like sub 0.01%.

dsirijus• 12 years ago

Depends on what you're building, I guess.

For particulary security sensitive areas, like banking web software, I'd very much appreciate it working with JS disabled, since I take particular care on security when visiting those (updated, secured, sandboxed OS within VM, not used for anything else).

cupofjoakim4• 12 years ago

Good point, it sure makes sense for sites with higher security demands. I'm in the ad world though, and there's not that much security risks involved in campaign sites.

re• 12 years ago

It's called "progressive enhancement". There's a lot that's been written about it, and it's still a debate-provoking topic, but it's not just about catering to people that choose not to use javascript.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement

http://jakearchibald.com/2013/progressive-enhancement-still-...

elorant• 12 years ago

I wouldn’t. But I have Ghostery installed and in some cases it completely destroys sites. So my guess is that the 2% you're mentioning could get a bit higher. I don't know how popular utilities like Ghostery or NoScript are outside our community but I won't be surprised if their usage rises.

Already__Taken• 12 years ago

People should be testing what happen to their site when random resources you're pulling in don't load.

Only time ghostery breaks sites for me is when some massive 'page failed to load' element site on top of the content. I can delete those with dev tools.

pwim• 12 years ago

For website content (landing pages, articles, etc), you want it to work without Javascript so that crawlers index it properly.

For web applications where you don't care about content being indexed, I wouldn't worry about it being a javascript only application (and this is the direction lots of apps are heading with frameworks like Ember.js, Angular.js, and Meteor).

cupofjoakim4• 12 years ago

Even in these cases there are workarounds that prerender the page and serve them to crawlers. They're not pleasant to work with, but we went with that solution on an old site we did in angular.

nness• 12 years ago

As an aside, if I recall, <noscript> was deprecated in HTML5.

Svip• 12 years ago

Nay. Its status is currently candidate recommendation,[0][1] so I assume they are trying to integrate it into the HTML5 standard as well.

Although, I am sure someone proposed to make it deprecated in HTML5.

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/no...

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/scripting-1.html#the-noscript-ele...

brianbarker• 12 years ago

I think you're spot on. I've noticed working with various people and ages that we get stuck in our beliefs. Their information is outdated and they haven't realized yet that screen readers and security are dated arguments.

The only hardcore crowd who disables Javascript entirely are people who are paranoid about ads and the uber nerd (as seen here on HN).

As a web developer myself, I would never waste what busy time I have catering to this audience. It's the same argument for why, at a certain point, you have to make a clearcut decision about how far back into legacy browsers you care to support. Large parts of Asia are stuck on IE6 because they have pirated Windows XP, but most of us don't care and probably don't need to.

binarymax• 12 years ago

Thats a great question, and the answer depends on what your product is. If you are making SaaS or a web based app, then it is perfectly reasonable to require JavaScript. If you are making public websites, that display content or represent a brand, then you probably want to cater to those who don't have it enabled. Also remember it is not just the 2% that have javascript disabled that you need to consider. You should also take into account anyone who would require 508 compliance on your site. Thinking about 508 often leads to a more conscious decision on how to structure script based functionality on your page.

AlyssaRowan• 12 years ago

Because it reduces the attack surface of the browser?

Because not all search engines could cope with it (this reason now obsolete).

Because of a variety of screen readers and browsers which don't (reason also obsolete).

It's good practice to not go with batshit insane navigation, however (infinite scroll interactions with the back button, anyone?), or require JS for trivial inanities, or not have relatively meaningful URIs.

cupofjoakim4• 12 years ago

Great answer. I wouldn't couple js with insane navigation though, that's a different problem entirely (which we as a community need to shun until it disappears).

stewbrew• 12 years ago

Besides security reasons, I turn it off on my mobile. 10kb of text load much faster than 500kb of javascript and some text.

StephenGL• 12 years ago

A site doesn't have to work completely without JavaScript, but its a good idea to support primary flows without it and make sure your site loads and basically functions. If you are talking about a product who's features and UI require JavaScirpt then let the user know why the product can't be used and move on.

JonnieCache• 12 years ago

Back in the day it was also about supporting the various lo-fi web browsing devices that were around at the time. WAP on mobile phones, and TV set top boxes (Was it called WebTV? Those were the days.)

Now I agree it's only to support web fundamentalists who disable it completely, and those people surely must be used to having sites not work properly.

At the same time, if you require JS for things that don't need it, like basic navigation or dropdown menus, then that's lame for a different set of reasons.

In general, the principle of progressive enhancement is still a useful and important one. It's good to know how to make a great website in pure html and css, and then to layer the JS on top, simply because it's an effective technique that results in good code and usable websites.

d01• 12 years ago

It is obviously not feasible to make all full-blown web apps work without JS, but many basic websites are also packed with annoying amounts of JS that do not do the user any good (for details see the other comments).

jonobird1• 12 years ago

It really depends on your audience. As a general rule, you should try to make your site allowable for javascript-disabled-noobs to still be able to go through the primary functions of your site.

With that said, out of our 1m visitors a week, we have less than 0.1% with it disabled. So it's a tradeoff - how long will it take you to code the extra to allow those 0.1%, and does this require extra code and junk up.

We don't support any browsers once it gets to below 1% - aka IE7 so I don't generally go out of my way to make sure everything works for non-javascript users.

It used to be more important back in the day with the old school mobile browsers etc with the good ol' WAP (as Jonnie says)

CmonDev• 12 years ago

Well, if it's a website then it should be optional. If it's a web application then it shouldn't be. HTML and web are about linked documents after all. The fact that industry decided to slap a scripting language on top and call it GUI doesn't change the initial concept.

VMG2• 12 years ago

Are we really supposed to cater to the sub 2% that chooses not to use javascript?

In my opinion: No.

JavaScript should be treated as default feature of the browser now. It's about as worth the effort as catering to people who want to use Lynx as their browser.

The screen reader argument is bogus too, modern screen reader software is not hampered by JS.

I also wonder if those who disable JS because of the increased attack surface also disable CSS as well.

yuvadam• 12 years ago

Don't troll. CSS cannot run arbitrary code on your device.

domas• 12 years ago

Actually there are some CSS vulnerabilities that works without JavaScript like <div> overlay affecting phishing attacks: http://i8jesus.com/?p=10

Via: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/718611/css-injection-what...

VMG2• 12 years ago

Neither can JS, as it is sandboxed.

The interpretation and application of CSS directives is not Turing complete, but often enough to leak information from your browser.

ASneakyFox2• 12 years ago

What about those that disable js because you didn't test your js on their mobile browser and it renders the site unusable?

tux1968• 12 years ago

Turn the question around. What exactly are you providing with Javascript that is _essential_? If in the final analysis there is nothing essential, only spit-n-polish, then _why not_ cater to a broader audience by employing progressive enhancement.

In my opinion better designs would emerge from the influence of this design constraint, along with better tools and frameworks.

double051• 12 years ago

JavaScript allows you to use WebGL, which is essential for high-performance 3D interactive content in the browser.

Granted, not many websites need WebGL, but the ones that do need JavaScript.

KaiserPro• 12 years ago

I'd suggest that you've not really answered the question.

yes webGL is a nice feature, but is it required?

For example, a menu is required for navigation, however it doesn't need animations to work. Sadly there has been a trend for things that actively slowdown or hamper speedy navigation (the breaking of the back button, animated transitions etc.)

Thats not to say JS is inherently bad. but when a website sucks 90% cpu to essentially display text, there is something drastically wrong.

marssaxman• 12 years ago

Why would you want "high-performance 3D interactive content" in a browser?

What I want is to read things and communicate with people.

awjr• 12 years ago

It really depends on your product. If you have an e-commerce site, you may find that 5% of your browser base could be IE8. You still want them to spend money.

It's very much a financial decision. Who is your target market and is it reasonable to assume they will have a modern browser OR you can dictate that they have a modern browser.

You then have the issue of accessibility.

Al-Khwarizmi• 12 years ago

If your PC is old and you don't have much CPU or RAM to spare, disabling JavaScript gives a big performance boost.

tomstuart• 12 years ago

From the UK government:

Surprisingly, the proportion of people that have explicitly disabled JavaScript or use a browser that doesn’t support JavaScript, only makes up a small slice of people that don’t run JavaScript.

https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/10/21/how-many-people-are-missi...

ad93611• 12 years ago

I'd disable javascript sometimes because it takes up CPU cycles and memory on my laptop and starves my other applications. GMail specifically has gotten so bad that I've started using the HTML version of Gmail just to avoid all the unnecessary javascript cruft.

jackbauer• 12 years ago

I have a JS blocker browser plugin/extension as standard, so I always end up browsing sites with JS off.

cmkrnl• 12 years ago

There are some who would consider that the default behaviour of JavaScript in web browsers is unsafe. They went off and made things like https://developers.google.com/caja/ and http://www.adsafe.org/.

In my day to day web browsing I don't really see good use cases for JavaScript. In addition, IMO rendering feels faster with JS disabled, specially on mobile devices (iPhone 5s).

A part of your "sub 2%" includes some security researchers. Think about that for a moment.

mosselman• 12 years ago

It depends on what you are making I think. If you are making a website, a site like Youtube lets say, where the goal is to have as many people use it as possible it would make sense for you to have it work with a variety of limitations that users might have. If you are creating a very specific SAAS then you are probably able to convince many users to run javascript if they get something good back for it. In the end, if you are willing to pay $50/month for something, you might also be willing to enable JS, while if you are visiting a random website that doesn't work without JS you might think 'never mind, I don't need this'.

aaronbrethorst• 12 years ago

    Are we really supposed to cater to the
    sub 2% that chooses not to use javascript?

To put this into proper perspective, IE 6 still has 4.2% of the browser market, and I doubt the vast majority of us still support that (https://www.modern.ie/en-us/ie6countdown)

So, to put it simply, no.

raving-richard3• 12 years ago

I don't support MSIE 6, or 7, or 8, or indeed any version of MSIE at all. But, and here's where it's different to not supporting users without JavaScript enabled, sites I make are still perfectly viewable in MSIE. And Lynx. And other esoteric browsers.

Progressive enhancement/graceful degradation allows me to build sites that work everywhere.

Not support users with JS turned off is exactly the opposite.

pmontra• 12 years ago

I don't disable JS in the browser preferences. I use FF with No Script to enable it selectively for only the sites and the functionality I need.

Example 1: HN needs JS only for voting so I don't enable it here unless I want to vote a post or a comment. However HN's JS is trivial and can be easily inspected so I might want to enable it permanently as well.

Example 2: YouTube requires JS from 6 domains but I can keep four of them disabled and still be able to view videos. I really don't need googlesyndication.com, plus.googleapis.com and googletagservices.com (among the other things I'm missing comments but who cares). Some of them are probably just spyware. I also don't need google.com but Google Maps don't work without it so I probably already enabled it before going to YouTube.

Example 3: TechCrunch is a nightmare of nested JS requires. However I can read it without enabling any JS and it's also much faster to load.

If your site is (example) an Angular single page application I'll probably enable enough JS to make it move and check it out. If there are so many JS dependencies that I can't find the right combination and I see JS coming from well known spyware domains I might decide to skip that site completely. There are sites like that. If I'm really interested I fire up Chrome and give them a try in there. Actually, I might install the new Opera only for using it as a honeypot for that kind of sites.

alexcroox• 12 years ago

Browsing the web must be a pretty painful experience for you

Piskvorrr• 12 years ago

From my experience with NoScript, quite the opposite: no annoying video popups (yes, yes, technically it's a full-page DIV nowadays), no animated nonsense.

And in cases where JS is required for the page to work, I enable it with two clicks.

josephlord• 12 years ago

I have a similar set up with NoScript. On most sites if I don't see anything I enable it for the main domain and a CDN one if I can see it. If it still doesn't load and especially if it requests JS from more than four or five domains I often leave the site at that point.

The number of sites pulling Javascript from 10+ domains (and therefore letting all those track me, inject code into the site etc.) is pretty high and at least with NoScript I know who is doing stuff to me.

seba_dos1• 12 years ago

Since I've installed NoScript and started using it in similar way as parent described, my web browsing experience improved a lot.

Now I only need something similar and easy to use for mobile browsers.

hackerboos• 12 years ago

This is more "how" than "why"...

J_Darnley• 12 years ago

You don't need javascript to vote here.

You click the up arrow and you get a blank page. Then you click back to continue reading from where you left off (isn't it nice to be able to do that without javscript fucking it up for you). If you want to see whether your voting was logged you can refresh the page and the little up arrow will disappear. If it is a story, you will see it added to your saved stories.

sanketsaurav• 12 years ago

IMO, it depends on the nature of application that you are building. If it's going to be used by an audience that includes people stuck with ancient browsers, then ignoring that 2% could be a loss. But in most general cases, it's obviously better to cater to those ~17% people with reading disabilities (I read this figure somewhere).

enesunal2• 12 years ago

Wow. I see from comments, such an enormous many people disabling javascript!

yen223• 12 years ago

Huge sampling bias here. Most people who keep Javascript enabled aren't going to comment here.

enesunal2• 12 years ago

do I see correct? you are saying, paradox's just happened!

vfclists• 12 years ago

If the purpose is to present static information, such as what you get with a newspaper Javascript shouldn't be necessary. It is just plain lazy design.

It should only be necessary with interactive pages, or web apps.

The 2% who choose not to use Javascript are mostly the tech savvy ones who know the kind of malware vector Javascript is. Some of them may be your employers, so be careful when you use bonkers to describe their preferences.

nathan_f77• 12 years ago

If your website is security or cryptography related, then you'll need to cater to your demographic. These are the overly cautious types who use NoScript and disable javascript everywhere.

Otherwise, I wouldn't worry about it.

raving-richard3• 12 years ago

Yes you are supposed to cater to the 2%. Wolfram Alpha says 2% of the US population is 6.39 million people. That's how many potential people from just one country you are treating badly. And as for screen reading users, that's just another 2% isn't it (or another "tiny" number). Why do you care about them? Well, it is the law, but, it's also just sensible.

Also, people browse with poor Internet connections, and even if they have JS enabled, the JS might time-out before it downloads, and so they'll just have to see your content without it.

I browse without JS on most sites (and I need a good reason to enable it) for at least the following reasons:

1. It's safer for me.

2. I've lived and will live in places with really shit Internet connections.

3. It also conveniently gets rid of a bunch of crap (flashing stuff, ads, flashing ads, etc.) without me having to do anything specifically.

4. It blocks some tracking across the Internet (I also use RequestPolicy to really drive that message home).

Other reasons as well. Edit: including it's too often used for unnecessary fan-inducing overly-CPU using shit.

So you don't want me as a potential visitor? A tech-savey person? I'm not your target audience? That's OK, there's loads of other sites on the web, and I'm sure that yours is crap anyway. After all, if it wasn't crap, you'd have made it work without JS.

Edit: And if you are stupid enough to not be able to make your site work without JS, then at least put a noscript message explaining why your site is special enough to require JS, and why I shouldn't just close the tab and go to the next site. If you explain that it is necessary to make the froggles boggle, I'll think about it more than if you just say "you need to enable JavaScript or upgrade your browser". No, fuck you, I don't need to enable JS, you need to make your site work without it. Displaying text and images in no way requires JS, unless you're a real thicko who shouldn't be allowed to have any commit privileges.

marcus_holmes2• 12 years ago

wow, that's really hostile. Why are you so angry about this?

raving-richard3• 12 years ago

Because people go and make sites that don't work with JS. Even though often it's /more/ work to make the site not-work with JS. And then they justify it by saying "well it's only 1 or 2 percent". It's not hard. And then "professionals" (like the OP) think that everyone has the latest fancy computer with super fast Internet (there are developed countries with rubbish Internet connections, let alone the less-developed countries that often share a single megabit per second for the whole country).

It's like people saying "well blind people, they don't even count, like who cares about accessibility anyway?". Fuck those people.

It's like the people who think it's just fine and dandy to have Google Analytics and Facebook trackers, and all the rest. Even when they should know better! You're contributing to a worse society by giving these companies so much power!

Next these young white men will wonder why anyone cares if someone jokes about "raping some bitch". I mean it's just a joke right? It's not serious. Why are you getting so up tight. Geeze, women. PC is just going too far.

And I guess this is just for your. Because this has dropped of the front-page. I think I need to go back to /., which while awful in it's own way, doesn't have men too young to shave asking stupid questions.

4lun• 12 years ago

The best reason I've heard, is around redundancy/robustness.

HTML recovers from invalid syntax and missing resources, it'll still function as a page displaying content with functioning links to other pages and such.

Same can't be said of JS, one missing resource or syntax issue and it can break, which depending on how much you rely on it can leave the page unusable and a user stuck.

ejr• 12 years ago

It kills a lot of autoplay videos, popups -- the "in page" variety -- and other dark patterns I see on a lot of sites. The only regret I have is that ads get disabled too so if it's a place I really enjoy a lot and they have a means to donate, I give them something.

Besides this, it also gets rid of a lot of ad tracking without having to install any plugins specifically to block it. I'm a big fan of using existing features, both in software and hardware, to their fullest before extending them.

But the biggest reason is my computer is a bit slow too and I don't want to spend hundreds more just to consume text; something that hasn't changed since the dawn of the web and something I've been doing for years. It's wasteful to pollute my closet and a landfill in the future with e-waste because single-page apps and fancy transitions don't work properly.

PinguTS• 12 years ago

There are many different reasons why Javascript should only be enhancement.

First of all, it always additional stuff to load, which takes time. Think, you are on your mobile with shitty cell reception. It happened for me just a few weeks ago in Nepal and Bhutan. If your site rely on Javascript, you cant even do a simple reload.

Javascript also adds an additional layer. It takes time to execute. You could argue, that device are fast enough, but for me that is only the argument for the lazy people who don't want think. Like, what about I can't afford a faster device or I don't want. Like, my mom still has a PPC Mac Mini and she don't want a newer computer, because she is very fine with it. My dads PC is even older running an version of Windows XP using some version of Opera.

In general your thinking should be not about how many people I am excluding, but instead how many people I am including.

Like e.g. I am using DataTables myself to make it nice and pretty. I could include the data via JSON instead of including an HTML table beforehand. But why? If I include the HTML table, then I can assure the 100% of the HTML browser, whatever type, can display it.

It is always about inclusion, inclusion of every people who has some sort of disabilities or dislikes. This should be very first priority. Then the second priority should be about making it nice, pretty and shiny.

MisterNegative• 12 years ago

Maybe some people care about their privacy? A lot of ignorant webmasters load Facebook, Google analytics, twitter buttons and other privacy violating JavaScript. The only way to guarantee some level protection is by disabling JavaScript, plugins and cookies.

mahdavi• 12 years ago

Because it's prone to bad coding and makes my browser crash. Even sites made by giants like google and facebook crash because of bad JS code.

Because web experience has become shitty ever since excessive usage of JS. I'm sick of pages that download megabytes of JS libraries just to animate a button hover. Thanks to CSS3, Now we can do all the needed UX/UI stuff without JS. Make the web better by not using JS.

ASneakyFox2• 12 years ago

It can be very useful and be used to add useful features.. but 90 percent of javascript is for delivering unwanted annoyances like ads... or when not malicious it can be used to annoy. making what looks like ordinary links to unexpected things and now the browser back button doesnt go back because I was actually clicking js links and operating a js app rather than clicking real links..

There's a small subset of great uses of javascript. The rest is just hovering toolboxes so I can easily "+1" the page despite not having a google+ account.

I prefer the web without the annoying stuff. Once js gets past the "look at what I can do" phase id welcome it more openly.

untrothy• 12 years ago

My primary browser has JS, cookies and plugins completely disabled, and when I open a link and get nothing but a white page it is pretty frustrating. I understand that with these settings i'm not going to see any fancy animations, menus, ads, games, ecc but I at least expect to see some text.

I don't expect nothing else, if I can get some text I'm happy.

joelbondurant• 12 years ago

lynx rules, for HTML, the 90's internet technology.

nhebb• 12 years ago

I normally browse using Firefox with the NoScript add-on. The other day I was using Chrome, and following an HN link, the article had an ad with colored balloons cascading down the screen. On another site, I got a pop-under ad. On yahoo News, the javascript took so long to load the browser locked up for ~10 seconds - I couldn't even scroll. Using Chrome felt similar to browsing in the mid-2000's.

Honestly, I think the overuse of javascript on media sites has become so f'ing obnoxious that I don't know how people put up with it.

PaulRobinson• 12 years ago

We're building an app in AngularJS right now and have had to think about this.

What we concluded was for our use case, if they weren't happy running JavaScript, they probably weren't going to be happy with our content which is live video streams.

We also took a long hard look at browser compatibility and decided we didn't care about anything below IE9. That's a ballsy move to some people, but we are a modern tech firm developing modern tech.

We're happy to build the best experience we can using the best technology, and letting the market come to us. If they can't access it because of technology reasons, well, somebody else can pick them up as an audience. If they can't get a modern browser running on their Windows 95 box, they're probably going to be happier installing Linux and something a bit more modern anyway.

The one area where there is some pushback is accessibility. I'm not just talking about screen readers here, but colour blindness and navigational coherence.

You don't get to choose what technology and capabilities your audience have, but you do get to choose if you care about them.

In our case, we have decided the cost of supporting the 2%-5% we're actively excluding would actively harm the rest of the audience in a noticeable way - so we have chosen not to do it.

exelib• 12 years ago

I would disable javascript to stop loading social-crap-buttons and overbloated sensless js. it's save my accu on mobile phone.

Grue3• 12 years ago

To me it would make more sense to use that time to make the sites usable for visitors with disabilities by including screen reader support and stuff like that.

If your site works without Javascript, you pretty much get this as a bonus. Two birds with one stone.

Also, people use things other than the browser to access your content. Think wget, curl, stuff like that. Do you have a reason to make it harder for them?

eleitl• 12 years ago

Because I want to read text, not run some unknown code on my machine.

If you're not showing plain text with JS off then you're bonkers, and I don't really need your site.

Isofarro• 12 years ago

A user disabling JavaScript is only one piece of the no-JavaScript puzzle.

Here are some more: http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/DisablingJavaScriptAski...

"To me it would make more sense to use that time to make the sites usable for visitors with disabilities by including screen reader support and stuff like that."

That assumes the choice is mutually exclusive, and also that we live in a world of perfect delivery and execution of JavaScript.

Progressive enhancement not only ensures core functionality is available regardless of JavaScript, but also when a hiccup of some sort happens on the Web, the user in the process of buying from you isn't then stonewalled.

TheLoneWolfling• 12 years ago

Why would I disable JavaScript?

Several reasons, for me. (NoScript):

It renders many attacks moot. JS is complex - a lot of browser attacks rely on it, either directly or as a trigger.

It really helps with privacy - for example, PanOptiClick currently says that I leak ~12.3 bits of information. With JS enabled, I'm unique from fonts alone!

It helps with battery life - the number of times where I've wondered why I'm losing battery life so rapidly, only to find some webpage is idiotically running JS continuously...

It helps with data usage - not (generally) the JS itself, but the resources pulled in by JS. Varies from website to website, but in general definitely helps.

Webpages tend to load faster - I have iffy latency on this connection, and cutting 2+ round-trips off of website loading times really helps.

Now, as to your comment "it would make more sense to use that time to make the sites usable for visitors with disabilities": the simplest way to make sites usable for visitors with disabilities is to make sure they are usable without JS.

WorldWideWayne• 12 years ago

Your main question seems to be the least relevant. You're speaking to the "2%" because many of them hang out here and all you have now is reasons that they turn off JS. I think what you really want to know is 1) What kinds of sites can get away with failing completely when js is disabled? 2) Are there any good estimates on the number of people who regularly browse with JS disabled? (Because I'm not sure if your 2% estimate is correct.)

As for the primary question, personally I think that application-sites like GMail, Google Docs, etc can get away with posting a polite message that "this site requires Javascript". However, any site where text content is the main attraction should show the content without Javascript being required (so, News, Blogs, etc).

However, if you're working for people who were doing web development in the 90's, who insist that every single feature of every single page should work without Javascript...you should run. Those people are dinosaurs and they're living in the past.

extra88• 12 years ago

Others have covered why one might disabled JavaScript. Adding to the reasons why one shouldn't develop depending on JavaScript is clients using browsers that may depend upon a proxy server, e.g. Amazon Silk and Opera Mini. Pages loaded in these browsers may have only limited support for JavaScript.

hysan• 12 years ago

I disable it on my very very old netbook because the difference in page load speed is huge in most cases. It has the added bonus of not firing up the CPU as much so the laptop fan doesn't kick in as often. If a website needs javascript, I either don't go to it anymore or selectively enable scripts to get the site working.

powerranger• 12 years ago

the reason I do it is because I dislike being tracked by marketing companies and other entities. and it's pretty effective.

lightblade• 12 years ago

Yes, I do that all the time when I'm watching porn. Both JavaScript and cookies. It sure makes me feel a lot safer.

But, unless you're building a porn site, I wouldn't worry much about it.

Ask HN: Why would you disable JavaScript?

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