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"Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

bugzilla.mozilla.org

161–170 of 373 posts

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#161
post #53

I exclusively surf with javascript disabled by default. I only turn javascript on on websites that i trust or the site has to give a good reason to do so. i wont turn on javascript to display your crappy jquery menu or slideshow. So many pages are totally broken without javascript. You dont need javascript to have a good layout, a complexe menu or display images. Yet some "professional" sites dont even work without j…

I also surf without the Javascript enabled. It's much safer and faster that way. I suggest everybody to try that for a longer period of time before opining.

Most of the pages I visit function without Javascript. The most of sites where it doesn't that I know of are *.blogspot sites managed by Google.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#163
Firefox is the most customizable browser available. It's about time they cleaned-up their Preferences panel and leave that stuff for extensions to tackle.

I personally never disabled Javascript from the Preferences panel because I never find anything in that panel. To disable Javascript, I use the Web Developer toolbar, which is much more convenient, although not convenient enough - since one might want to enable/disable Javascript automatically on a domain basis, which is why this should be best handled by extensions that are free to innovate the UI.

And while we are at it, I wish Firefox would add a search box in that Preferences panel. Its usefulness has been demonstrated in Chrome's Settings and Windows' Control Panel.

Also, Firefox rocks and I'm so happy to see it improve.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#164
post #53

I exclusively surf with javascript disabled by default. I only turn javascript on on websites that i trust or the site has to give a good reason to do so. i wont turn on javascript to display your crappy jquery menu or slideshow. So many pages are totally broken without javascript. You dont need javascript to have a good layout, a complexe menu or display images. Yet some "professional" sites dont even work without j…

I fully agree with you, but that's why I use an addon that lets me allow JavaScript per-domain instead of having to allow every shitty social button to use the main functionality of the site, and it can even remember my preference.

Why would you use the global JavaScript disabler when there are much better options?

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#165
post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there any empirical evidence that suggests that people accidentally disabling JavaScript and then being confused as to why websites don't look right is a significant problem? The author of that article says: "Is it really worth having a preference panel that benefits fewer than 2% of users overall? — obvious spoiler alert: The answer is no." The answer is yes . If 2% of users have a purpose for it, perhaps it woul…

"Advanced settings" dialogs tend to indicate poorly-thought-out interface design. Rather than demonstrating careful attention to what features are useful and important enough to ship, they become dumping grounds for "something someone asked for once".

There's very few applications I'd consider useful to me if stripped of the options that "most users" would never want to touch.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#166

Okay, since Opera seems to have gone the way of the dodo: Is there a browser for power users? I mean, good luck to Firefox and Chrome, but considering I rarely use flashy websites, I really would rather use something that only works with half the sites, but has the experimentation and hunger for ideas for the sake of ideas more than for the sake of market share these so sorely lack.

Sure: surf[1], uzbl[2] and luakit[3], among others. Or my favorite: Firefox + NoScript + Vimperator.

[1]: http://surf.suckless.org/

[2]: http://uzbl.org/

[3]: http://mason-larobina.github.io/luakit/

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#167
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You give people way too much credit. Keep in mind most people still blatantly deny changing anything when something goes wrong for whatever reason. "I didn't even do anything, it just broke."

I remember a user flat out lying about what an error box said over the phone. I asked her to read it out, she gave be what was in her head, not on the screen. I asked her to read it word-by-word, she did the same. I asked her to read it out letter-by-letter ("I've never seen that error there before, I want to get it exactly right so I can ask the programmers...") and then she actually looked at what it said.

Oh the dread that phone support brings back to me... The number of "tricks" we had to use to get users to tell us what they actually saw, and do what we actually told them, rather then what they thought they were looking at or thought they should do...

Anyone interested in psychology should do phone support for a few weeks...

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Javascript is not required to read articles on the web. Agreed. However, the web consists of far more than just "articles", and quite a bit of content legitimately uses JavaScript for required functionality. Disabling it needs to have the kinds of huge "this will break things" warnings associated with installing an extension like NoScript; it shouldn't have a checkbox in Firefox's preferences.

I surf a lot of the web with javascript off. Most of the time, the major content of a page doesn't require it. When it does, it is usually either poor design, or good design where the design is intended to display a bunch of crap I don't want and download a hoard of tracking data. To put it another way, when I'm surfing, Google Analytics isn't doing anything in my interest.

Which is why NoScript is great: you can load the main site functionality without having to enable Analytics. The global enable/disable JS switch is just terrible for this kind of browsing, in my opinion.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#169

Here's a very relevant blog post by Alex Limi of Mozilla: http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/ Most sites these days that aren’t just displaying content will fail in interesting & mysterious ways if you don’t have JavaScript enabled. For the general population, Firefox will appear broken. And yes, I know that some people have reasons (privacy, web development) to turn off JavaScript. There are many add-ons that can…

I have to say that this article is actually quite terrible, as is the opinion that any option that might ever be confusing to a user is an option that shouldn't ship with the product. The thesis of the article is:

"Well, we have met the enemy, and he is us.* In the currently shipping version, Firefox ships with many options that will render the browser unusable to most people, right in the main settings ui."

The solutions offered? Kill it all with fire. I'm paraphrasing, of course.

Problem: People today change some feature then have a "broken" browser (basically, they forgot to turn it back to the default, or they didn't realize they changed it in the first place).

Solution: reset button, also notification to the user that "this page might not work correctly", some sort of an extension of how Chrome shows you that a popup and/or a cookie was blocked, based on your settings. Don't treat your users like idiots, just provide information that clears up certain odd states by explicitly informing them of something like:

"The webpage you are viewing may not work correctly because the following options differ from their default values:

1. Enable automatic loading of images. 2. Enable JavaScript.

These features of Firefox are essential for most webpages to run properly. If the webpage you are trying to access is behaving strangely or appears to be working incorrectly, to load the page with the default browser configuration."

Done, and done. No removing useful features from the browser, no treating users like morons, but now I have a new, useful, awesome, self-debugging feature which is user friendly, and doesn't require a pesky IT guru's assistance navigating the sea of 10 trillion options.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#170
post #26

Here's the bug where the option was removed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=851702 Limi's blog post "Checkboxes that kill your product" is cited in the bug as a good explanation of the motivation behind this: http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/ The option has been added to the DevTools for developers who find it useful: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=864249 And of course addons like NoSc…

Sure, blame the 'checkboxes' and not your own failure to handle disabled js gracefully. I'd be mad about this, except I haven't used firefox in years. One less reason to go back I guess.

How would you have Firefox "handle" this, exactly?
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