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Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

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Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#171

Post by reaperducer »

sireat wrote: post #156
reaperducer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I built a website for a mid-sized health care company, and the primary goal was to communicate with as many people using as many devices as possible, not to be flashy. With that mandate, the site (about 300 pages) ended up almost completely js-free. I think there was only one page that had js, and that was for a calculating widget. js is great for certain things, but certainly not necessary for all the things it's us…

Admirable, what type of stack did you use for the back-end? I remember there was a movement to be completely JS free in late 90s/early 2000s.

Nothing fancy. Just a plain LAMP stack. IDE was Coda2. I can't tell you about server stuff, though; that's handled by a different department.

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#172

Post by perl4ever »

krapp wrote: post #166
perl4ever wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, I'm not sure if it was meant to be helpful, but I would like a "list", or better yet, a search engine, that excludes all sites with javascript. If there is no such widely used search engine, then sites without scripting can't thrive. I've never been an ideological seeker of "organic, all natural" type foods, because the criteria tend to seem arbitrary and unscientific, but I've come to see the label as useful b…

>If there is no such widely used search engine, then sites without scripting can't thrive. Such a search engine would never be widely used, because there's no widespread desire to limit search results only to sites which don't use javascript.

It's a chicken and egg question. People don't know they want it, but they can't find out they want it either. I don't mind javascript or ads per se, but the bandwidth and processing requirements of modern ad-heavy web pages are becoming unmanageable for me. My breaking point is where, even using WiFi at home all the time, I am still going over 1GB a month for my cell usage away from home. And equally as important, pages are infuriatingly slow on both laptop and phone, even though I have a relatively recent and high powered phone.

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#173

Post by noisem4ker »

jakecopp wrote: post #14
pkhagah wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. In addition, if I think I will visit certain website only once, I open it in private mode and disable umatrix for all domains in the site for a quick view.

I use Firefox containers along with cookie autodelete so each tab gets a clean slate unless I've auto-mapped it to a container (where I've white-listed cookies - eg. a Facebook container where I only visit facebook.com) Much safer to disable umatrix in the normal tabs then.

I think you can obtain the same result with just uMatrix. Block cookies by default, and whitelist them in individual scopes so that they don't follow you anywhere else. Do containers provide any further benefit over this?

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#174

Post by krapp »

perl4ever wrote: post #172
krapp wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>If there is no such widely used search engine, then sites without scripting can't thrive. Such a search engine would never be widely used, because there's no widespread desire to limit search results only to sites which don't use javascript.

It's a chicken and egg question. People don't know they want it, but they can't find out they want it either. I don't mind javascript or ads per se , but the bandwidth and processing requirements of modern ad-heavy web pages are becoming unmanageable for me. My breaking point is where, even using WiFi at home all the time, I am still going over 1GB a month for my cell usage away from home. And equally as important, p…

But unless people are specifically searching for sites that don't use javascript, a search engine that excludes javascript is just going to return poor results for most queries.

A more useful search engine might be one that shows whether or not a site uses javascript, and if so, which common libraries, etc. Maybe even whether or not a site will render without javascript.

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#175

Post by Rapzid »

perl4ever wrote: post #165
andrewmcwatters wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What a tremendously rude comment. I can't believe you need so many hundreds of karma points to downvote what is clearly a non-contribution.

Well, I'm not sure if it was meant to be helpful, but I would like a "list", or better yet, a search engine, that excludes all sites with javascript. If there is no such widely used search engine, then sites without scripting can't thrive. I've never been an ideological seeker of "organic, all natural" type foods, because the criteria tend to seem arbitrary and unscientific, but I've come to see the label as useful b…

I appreciate you engaging on this in such an honest fashion. I meant that to be a bit tongue-in-cheek and was evoking Bill Burr perhaps a bit too much. TBH though, I was very tired and too hostile with my post.

In my defense though, this whole conversation feels like a time loop on HN every time it comes up. It's not hard to predict/categorize the arguments and arguers at this point, as a generalization.

You have a vocal group of progressive enhancement cargo-culters who are a decade out of time; the very real motivators for the formation of the dogma missing for years. For them, progressive enhancement is "the way it should be". Then you have a group that know the ship has sailed shouting down anyone who won't join the new world order, regardless of whether they have significant value/cost reasons. Both sides talk at each other.

On the fringes there are the hypermilers and the data analysts. There is a small contingent of the equiv to hypermilers; they know it's rather inconsequential, with no notions confusable with ideology, but it's more of a game or hobby to them. The data analysts actually talk about the numbers of people still blocking javascript and whether it's worth the effort in 2018 for the average site.

At this point it's more a social study than an insight into the cost/benefit.

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#176

Post by sjmulder »

icebraining wrote: post #88
sjmulder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to assemble a list: https://sjmulder.nl/en/textonly.html but so far there aren't many sites like this that I found useful.

There was an HN thread on such sites last year: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13337948

Awesome! I've added a whole bunch of them.

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#177

Post by sjmulder »

dublinben wrote: post #81
sjmulder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to assemble a list: https://sjmulder.nl/en/textonly.html but so far there aren't many sites like this that I found useful.

You might also like https://www.techdirt.com/?_format=lite for tech news.

That's really nice, thanks!

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#178

Post by sjmulder »

midasz wrote: post #31
sjmulder wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm trying to assemble a list: https://sjmulder.nl/en/textonly.html but so far there aren't many sites like this that I found useful.

Oooh cool, is noslite actually by the nos? I can only applaud this effort!

Don't think so but I love it. I use it all the time on my 2G featurephone and it flies.

I made a lite version of a job listing site I'm working on but its go live approval got lost in bureaucracy.

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#179

Post by 80386 »

ry_ry wrote: post #123
80386 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a guy who built a single-page web app for a blog. Really. It takes a few seconds to load the post titles, it'll make your computer grind to a halt if you have more than two tabs of it open, it took months to write, and it doesn't do anything you couldn't do with plain HTML and some AJAX request handlers... but Brawndo has electrolytes! I bet it looks pretty good on his resume.

I know a guy that made a model ship in his spare time. It doesn't carry any passengers or cargo, doesn't meet even the most basic safety standards, and frankly doesn't do anything you couldn't do with a canoe. I bet it looks pretty good on his mantelpiece. There comes a point where you have to ask yourself - does it matter that he built (what I assume is a personal) blog in framework du jour, simply he just wanted to…

Not a personal blog -- this was a paid job to replace an old platform that a community was using but could no longer maintain.

Re: Using the Web for a Day with JavaScript Turned Off

#180

Post by ry_ry »

80386 wrote: post #179
ry_ry wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know a guy that made a model ship in his spare time. It doesn't carry any passengers or cargo, doesn't meet even the most basic safety standards, and frankly doesn't do anything you couldn't do with a canoe. I bet it looks pretty good on his mantelpiece. There comes a point where you have to ask yourself - does it matter that he built (what I assume is a personal) blog in framework du jour, simply he just wanted to…

Not a personal blog -- this was a paid job to replace an old platform that a community was using but could no longer maintain.

Oh gawd, if he was paid market rate it's a pretty questionable decision... At least he didn't write his own css preprocessor or something, I guess!
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