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Please disable JavaScript to view this site

heydonworks.com

251–260 of 281 posts

Re: Please disable JavaScript to view this site

#251

I must say, I don't understand the disable JS movement. I browse with JS on, and uBlock Origin to block ads. It's rare that I have any javascript-related problems in my web browsing. On the other hand, I definitely use a number of sites that rely on javascript for useful purposes. If you're worried about tracking, you can block ads and tracking scripts without disabling javascript. If you're worried about viruses, we…

On a great many web sites I have to spend the first 60 seconds on the site clicking on "X" boxes in popups to make them go away. In many cases there are actually several layers of popups obscuring the content, and some are delayed so they only pop up after you start reading the content. No I do not want to subscribe to your mailing list. No I don't want to take your survey. No I do not want to "chat" with your bot-pr…

That may have been true whenever you last evaluated your choice, but I find that today, on-load modals are mostly burned into the HTML. With Javascript disabled, rather than not being there, they're instead always there, impossible to get rid of.

Re: Please disable JavaScript to view this site

#252

I must say, I don't understand the disable JS movement. I browse with JS on, and uBlock Origin to block ads. It's rare that I have any javascript-related problems in my web browsing. On the other hand, I definitely use a number of sites that rely on javascript for useful purposes. If you're worried about tracking, you can block ads and tracking scripts without disabling javascript. If you're worried about viruses, we…

That's not the point of this. This is not about disabling JS as a user of websites. Heydon is a developer, and an influencer of developers. He's saying: web development is now absolutely obsessed with JavaScript, and it in no way has to be. The basics, HTML, CSS. That's what's important.

That's a fair take. I was mostly reacting to the other top level comments I saw here.

Re: Please disable JavaScript to view this site

#253
post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Javascript is a privacy and security nightmare. AFAIK, JavaScript the language has neither privacy nor security issues of "nightmare" level. > It's almost equivalent to downloading and silently executing untrusted code on your machine. No it's not. The code is run in a VM, which is run in a browser. So, the code is limited in doing things to the browser, which itself is limited in what it can do to your computer (f…

My understanding is that JavaScript is the primary mechanism used in browser fingerprinting and cross-site user tracking/"analytics". Isn't that a rather large privacy and (personal, if not specifically "cyber") security risk?

Actually, the main and most used mechanism of cross-site user tracking and "fingerprinting" are cookies, which do not require any JS to work.

Re: Please disable JavaScript to view this site

#255
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what you mean by "dynamic". Some "do something when the user clicks"-style things can be done with CSS. The best example I know of that is https://git-send-email.io/

Abusing HTML form inputs as a way to store application state in DOM is hostile to usability and accessibility - please don't do this for any sites humans need to use. HTML does have progressive disclosure elements built in with ` ` and ` ` which work without JS (I was hoping the demo was showing that or something like it)

Those HTML elements are radio buttons being used to choose between options of OS, mail server, etc. Each radio button is associated with a label that contains the correct text. Selecting a radio button unambiguously makes a `display:none` element no longer be that.

What part of it do you think is bad for usability or accessibility?

Re: Please disable JavaScript to view this site

#256
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Check out next.js. You can write vanilla React basically but fetch the props from an API prior to rendering on the server.

How is that not JS?

It runs on the server. The browser can have JS disabled.

Re: Please disable JavaScript to view this site

#257

I wanted to read the source, but it was all on 1 line, so I fed it to https://validator.w3.org/nu/?doc=https%3A%2F%2Fheydonworks.c...

Right click -> View source -> Ctrl+A (select all) -> Ctrl+C (Copy to clipboard) -> Open your preferred text editor (mine is Notepad++) -> Ctrl+V (Paste from clipboard) -> Replace ">" with ">\r" -> enjoy the source reading. Takes max 10 seconds, on any site. Can you do it in less than 10 seconds using that validator?

That would give you new lines, but not indentation..

But my point was that the markup is invalid.

Re: Please disable JavaScript to view this site

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also written in Rust for performance.

I don't understand this way of thinking. Rust isn't magically fast. You can use most languages to write both performant and lazy code. Also just so you know, Brave isn't "written" in Rust alone, it is a big software with a lot of parts, including but not limited to a rendering engine, a JS VM and a WASM engine. The Rust part at most (unconfirmed) would be the glue that connects them together, and I doubt that's where…

I meant Brave's adblocker was written in Rust, as the context was about how Brave's adblocker differs from others.

Re: Please disable JavaScript to view this site

#260
post #248
post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just hit reader mode on FF. I didn't know modern sites would even load without JS enabled.

But you do get the irony, right? It's like a browser is not for reading by default anymore, like stepping into a car and putting it in "car mode".

Oh yeah. Browsers are application runtimes. They have been for 20 years now.
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