"Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23 • Hacker News Board

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#171

Post by legulere » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 6:46 AM UTC

Gormo wrote: post #91

gkoberger wrote: post #22

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…

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…

Implementation isn't the only cost of features. You need to test them so they don't break. Features can be a burden for the codebase and removal can lead to many edge cases becoming unnecessary. A magnitude of features can overwhelm users, especially occasional users. They steal attention from other features that you may find more important.

And the most important point here: This feature really is broken as of today. Nobody can persuade me that they use it on their main browsers. I don't believe them.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#172

Post by dave1010uk » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 6:49 AM UTC

Ankaios wrote: post #75

If Firefox's developers are worried about people not understanding why a page doesn't work, another potential solution would be to provide users with some feedback. For instance, if Javascript is disabled but present in a page, perhaps show a (simplified?) small debugger box showing the next lines of Javascript which would have been executed and some sort of an obvious Run / Play button to start the script. I'd prefe…

This is a great idea, but should probably be simpler for the average user. Eg "You have JS off, which will break some websites. Click here to turn it on. The simple option you used in the past to toggle this has gone. Click here to find out how to toggle it now"

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#173

Post by hysan » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 6:52 AM UTC

tracker1 wrote: post #155

nightski wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So well thought out interface design is ignoring subsets of users and unifying everyone to one common set of behavior. Imagine if Excel employed this philosophy. It wouldn't be useful to anyone.

I wasn't aware I could set a field to SUM(..) etc from the gui... Most of the features in Excel are a bit under the covers.. and far more so than about:config... maybe the "advanced settings" tab should be a button that just takes you to about:config with a warning?

Err... I just opened up Excel (2002 since that is all I have at work), selected a cell, clicked on the SUM button (sure it uses the mathematical symbol for sum but if you hover over it, it says SUM), and then was able to click and drag (or CRTL + click for nonconsecutive cells) to select cells for the sum. This is all via the GUI. I'm not sure how this is hidden. Heck, I did this in a Japanese version of Office which I can't read.

Is this different in Office 2010 or any of the newer versions of Office? I mostly use LibreOffice and even there it has the same "all GUI" functionality.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#174

Post by PavlovsCat » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:01 AM UTC

ubernostrum wrote: post #136

PavlovsCat wrote: post #59

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, there's a browser for power users. It's called being enough of a power user to install extensions that do what you want.

Actually, it's called coding them myself, but even then I'd rather do that in C than with several layers of abstraction (coding in javascript for a XUL interface or whatever that is -- let me know how startup and runtime performance works out for you when you have 50 of them and 50 tabs open).

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#175

Post by ID_10T » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:01 AM UTC

This will obviously receive a lot of hate from the tech community.

Fortunately they are the 1%. For everyone else in the world, this is a welcomed change. Most people don't even know what JavaScript is.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#176

Post by gcb0 » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:01 AM UTC

Didn't gnome3 taught us a valuable lesson on dumbing things down on the expectation that users are dumb/can't read?

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#177

Post by ID_10T » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:05 AM UTC

As a Firefox user, I feel like most of the people complaining are Chrome users just looking to pick a fight.

Hey, Chrome folks, Firefox has this great thing called NoScript. I realize Chrome doesn't have that, so you have to manually disable/enable JavaScript. We just use NoScript, as we have for years, which does a lot more. Firefox users don't rely on the "Disable JavaScript" option, nor ever did.

This is a nonissue, but continue to make it more than it is.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#178

Post by lesslaw » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:07 AM UTC

tomphoolery wrote: post #145

Gormo wrote: 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…

Is there any empirical evidence that the use of AdBlock + Ghostery or WOT or whatever privacy addons you're already using are any less secure than disabling JavaScript outright? Disabling JavaScript has a few MAJOR disadvantages to proper web usage: 1. As the blog post has said, many web sites will fail in mysterious and unexpected ways. Some web apps may be rendered completely useless. In fact, you might as well jus…

I run with Javascript off, via no-script. Most of the stuff that requires Javascript is tracking based and/or from third party domains.

tbh a global Javascript toggle is a bit useless. You really need the fine grain per-domain settings of No-script to navigate the modern web.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#179

Post by fpgeek » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:09 AM UTC

kunil wrote: post #129

tomschlick wrote: post #107

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 am pretty sure putting "disable js" option into advanced tab would be enough. There are plenty options that can bug your browser or leave you unable to surf, why remove this particular one?

From what I understand, the ultimate goal is to remove them all (i.e. exile them to about:config, add-ons and the like).

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#180

Post by tracker1 » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 7:09 AM UTC

alister wrote: post #58

Wow, how times change. The smart advice was to never use Javascript. (Years ago pg even wrote, " I would not even use Javascript, if I were you. Most of the Javascript I see on the Web isn't necessary, and much of it breaks." ) Javascript has gone from horribly flaky -> occasionally useful -> necessary -> mandatory.

That's because more people are actually taking the time to understand the browser, dom, markup and language itself, instead of copy/pasting some poorly written image-swapping script. (God I've seen too many of those)... JS has been capable of doing some fairly impressive app-like functionality since the late 90's. I'd say NN4/IE4 was the beginning of that ability, despite dramatically different approaches.

Today, browsers have far more in common (regarding js/dom) with each other (IE8+ too) than at any point pre-2005. And it is about damned time. I still think the likes of jQuery round out a ton of those rough edges, and it still disappoints me to see so many who hate JS because they want it to be (insert preferred language here).

JS is, and has been my favorite language for a very long time.