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

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#291

Post by ars » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:01 PM UTC

jasonlotito wrote: post #263

andor wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disabling Javascript isn't equivalent to installing an ad blocker. Ads not showing are just a side effect if it. If sites can't integrate ads on the server side it's not my problem. Same with analytics: you can still use regular web server logs. Everything beyond that is too invasive for my tastes.

Not quite. As lockers are common enough that they need to be considered. However, far less than 1% of users disable JavaScript (on the sites I work with). I'd be supporting IE6 again with those numbers, because the real cost is having to build and maintain the different versions of the site. And all for what? Someone who isn't going to make us anything near the time it will take to develop. I'm not saying what you wa…

> because the real cost is having to build and maintain the different versions of the site.

Personally I don't block javascript that comes from the same domain as the page. Just 3rd party stuff.

This cuts out the majority of the garbage while still letting most sites work. (I've whitelisted a bunch on CDNs.)

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#292

Post by sp332 » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:09 PM UTC

kondro wrote: post #103

dman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed. Try loading theverge.com or cnn.com with / without javascript.

The content on both those sites load plenty fast with JS turned on… and I'm based in Australia with our shitty connection to the rest of the world.

I just counted, and The Verge takes 20 seconds to show any content on my computer with a cold cache. With a warm cache, over 10 seconds. If I disable JS, it's less than 5 seconds either way. And I'm sitting in the headquarters of an ISP (I broke http://speedof.me/ but I'm getting over 150Mb/s).

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#293

Post by _mvuc » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:10 PM UTC

jclos wrote: post #252

Aardwolf wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Removing options is NOT the way to go. If anything, there should be more options, until computers understand natural language. To be most intuitive to use, computers should converse like a human. Humans have LOTS of options, and everyone understands that. E.g. if I ask a human to make a sandwich, I can specify all the ingredients I want, how and when I want it, and so on. The ideal computer, too, would adjust its sof…

I think your sandwich analogy is spot on in the sense that I can also just ask a human "please make me a sandwich" without specifying anything, and (most) humans could proceed to do so without more details. There should be more options, and a good "default" mode for people who don't want to fiddle with them. To my knowledge this is why most wizards have basic configuration options and a "advanced" button to click for…

can also just ask a human "please make me a sandwich" without specifying anything, and (most) humans could proceed to do so without more details

Depends who you ask. My mate and a few close friends would know to make me a sandwich without bread, but hardly anyone else would get that right.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#294

Post by Kequc » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:11 PM UTC

millstone wrote: post #227

vlasta2 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was true 10 years ago. These days, every additional setting the application has is a liability. There is a growing group of people, who are scared to have conversation with their browser and make any informed decisions. They ignore such messages. Other people will change any setting they can find and then forget about it. Then they will be surprised and angry at the application that it is not working. My experie…

"Do you want to disable JavaScript?" is a stupid question, as you say. "Do you want your browser to tell Google, Facebook, Twitter, Omniture, DoubleClick, and six other companies you have never heard of, that you visited this site?" is not a dumb question. Given that option, 98% of users would say "hell no." You are absolutely right that configurability is a sign of laziness, the opposite of hard work. But removing c…

Sending browsing statistics to something like Google is already happening regardless of if you have Javascript enabled. When you are on Google search and you click on a link it's tracked that you went to that link.

But besides that and besides that your usage statistics are being logged on the server itself regardless of what you do. Expecting Mozilla or any company to figure out how to block a javascript put request sent to Facebook, but not other put requests which are there by design of the site will only result in Facebook finding a workaround.

It's unfortunate that some people use Javascript in ways that slow down their site. For example with horrendous 'sharing' widgets. You can use plugins to disable those items from loading but it wouldn't be Mozilla's place to decide that on everyone's behalf.

These days Javascript is as much a part of websites as the HTML itself.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#295

Post by dman » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:20 PM UTC

kondro wrote: post #103

dman wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speed. Try loading theverge.com or cnn.com with / without javascript.

The content on both those sites load plenty fast with JS turned on… and I'm based in Australia with our shitty connection to the rest of the world.

You cant measure speed on a bad connection. You are penalising websites that are not bloated because they seem just as bad to you as the two sites listed above.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#296

Post by karussell » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:25 PM UTC

gnosis wrote: post #63

camus wrote: 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…

Javascript, Flash, HTML 5, and virtually all the rest of the HTML "enhancements" are a cancer on the web. Honestly, the only website that I can think of where using Javascript actually does something useful that I'd have a hard time doing better on a standalone app on my own machine is Google Maps, where it's nice to be able to scroll around by dragging the map with the mouse. But even there, I'd gladly sacrifice tha…

You are funny. IF you enter the destination in Google Maps, then of course Google knows your destination. JavaScript on or off... if you really want privacy you'll have to host it on your own or use offline navigation tools

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#297

Post by nollidge » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:30 PM UTC

millstone wrote: post #227

vlasta2 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This was true 10 years ago. These days, every additional setting the application has is a liability. There is a growing group of people, who are scared to have conversation with their browser and make any informed decisions. They ignore such messages. Other people will change any setting they can find and then forget about it. Then they will be surprised and angry at the application that it is not working. My experie…

"Do you want to disable JavaScript?" is a stupid question, as you say. "Do you want your browser to tell Google, Facebook, Twitter, Omniture, DoubleClick, and six other companies you have never heard of, that you visited this site?" is not a dumb question. Given that option, 98% of users would say "hell no." You are absolutely right that configurability is a sign of laziness, the opposite of hard work. But removing c…

Disabling Javascript for privacy reasons is like blowing off your leg to prevent tennis elbow: it's overkill, and it's rather ineffective at best.

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#298

Post by karussell » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:39 PM UTC

gnosis wrote: post #63

camus wrote: 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…

Javascript, Flash, HTML 5, and virtually all the rest of the HTML "enhancements" are a cancer on the web. Honestly, the only website that I can think of where using Javascript actually does something useful that I'd have a hard time doing better on a standalone app on my own machine is Google Maps, where it's nice to be able to scroll around by dragging the map with the mouse. But even there, I'd gladly sacrifice tha…

BTW: Did you already see this here ;)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5968237

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#299

Post by dthunt » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:44 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #266

millstone wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Do you want to disable JavaScript?" is a stupid question, as you say. "Do you want your browser to tell Google, Facebook, Twitter, Omniture, DoubleClick, and six other companies you have never heard of, that you visited this site?" is not a dumb question. Given that option, 98% of users would say "hell no." You are absolutely right that configurability is a sign of laziness, the opposite of hard work. But removing c…

"Do you want to disable JavaScript?" is a stupid question, as you say. "Do you want your browser to tell Google, Facebook, Twitter, Omniture, DoubleClick, and six other companies you have never heard of, that you visited this site?" is not a dumb question. Given that option, 98% of users would say "hell no." Assuming you're correct (which I'm not convinced you are), when you then continue, "I have a checkbox that wil…

> "Do you want to disable JavaScript?" is a stupid question, as you say. "Do you want your browser to tell Google, Facebook, Twitter, Omniture, DoubleClick, and six other companies you have never heard of, that you visited this site?" is not a dumb question. Given that option, 98% of users would say "hell no." -> This overstates the case, because you'd still presumably load the 1x1 tracking png with ?resid=&uid=.

> "I have a checkbox that will make it so they don't track you, but it will also break those sites. Is that ok?" They will also respond "hello no".

This overstates the case most of the time because doing this generally breaks relatively little for those domains listed, and to the extent it doesn't, making that decision on a domain-by-domain basis seems to work pretty well (ask any Noscript user)

Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23

#300

Post by gabemart » Mon, Jul 01, 2013, 1:47 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #214

tomphoolery wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Ghostery has recently been found to be selling user data. ISTR there was a similar incident with AdBlock? I don't want to have to trust some random extension author to have got these things right.

I hadn't heard about Ghostery selling data. I read about the story at Mashable [1].

[1] http://mashable.com/2013/06/17/ad-blocker-helps-ad-industry/