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How many users have JavaScript disabled?

developer.yahoo.com

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Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#31

Post by Xurinos »

lukifer wrote: post #11
jessor wrote: post #6

NoScript has 74,459,688 downloads so far ( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722/ ). You'd have to do some calculations with this to get closer to a real user number, though ;) I'd wager that the average NoScript user has at least two machines, so the total number of NoScript users is probably less than 2.7 million. ( http://blog.brandonbloom.name/2010/06/noscript-add-on-instal... )

I'm also guessing the majority of NoScript users have exceptions whitelisted for many trusted sites, given how many sites are completely useless without JS.

Yes, and I happen to have Yahoo! sites on my whitelist, which tells me that their stat is not reliable. The actual percent of users who block JavaScript may be higher, given selective blocking, as provided by Opera and Firefox's NoScript.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#32

Post by mike-cardwell »

kalid wrote: post #29
mirkules wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain that to a potential investor. "We snubbed 2% of our potential user base because we were too lazy to make sure that our site degrades gracefully." From the article, that's _6 million_ of Yahoo!'s 300M+ user base. I really don't understand what's the big deal about making sure your site works without JS, it's just some extra work that you're going to have to do anyway later down the line (and it will be more co…

Tell that to facebook ( http://i.imgur.com/9FdJa.png ) :-). The problem with bending over backwards for non-js is that you double your dev cycles (no AJAX, need regular forms for everything), lose dynamic menus (want to duplicate those?), lose a ton of instrumentation you may be doing, etc. I think it's perfectly fine to say "non-js means you have a read-only experience". Even facebook doesn't go that far -- you can'…

Facebook caters for non js people by directing them to the cut down mobile version of the site. Which is not a perfect solution, but it is much much better than simply telling them to go away.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#33

Post by olalonde »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #30

I use NoScript mainly due to the prevalence of XSS attacks. If a website doesn't require me to enable javascript, even a trusted website, I wont. All it does is open you up to XSS attacks. Lets not forget that google, facebook, twitter, paypal, hotmail, yahoo and countless other big name websites have all fallen prey to these flaws, and will continue to fall prey to them.

I'm willing to open up to a very unlikely XSS attack in exchange of a better user experience.

Do you know many people who say: "I won't run C applications because they are vulnerable to buffer overflows."

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#34

Post by jamesbritt »

michaelchisari wrote: post #8

Could the argument be made that the minority who surf with Javascript disabled don't necessarily have to be catered to, since they will enable Javascript if they trust the site or find it useful?

"Could the argument be made that the minority who surf with Javascript disabled don't necessarily have to be catered to, since they will enable Javascript if they trust the site or find it useful?"

That's certainly true for me. I don't care that a site requires scripting, but I do care when there's nothing to indicate that I'd be better off if I allowed javascript.

This is especially true for sites that let a user begin some set of actions (write a lengthy comment, or fill out a multi-step form), and then simply fail at the end because scripting is disabled.

It is trivial to add a "This site requires JavaScript" message. Leaving it out says you either don't give a shit or don't know what you're doing.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#35

Post by jbail »

mirkules wrote: post #10
marknutter wrote: post #3

That's 2% I could do without, no problem.

Explain that to a potential investor. "We snubbed 2% of our potential user base because we were too lazy to make sure that our site degrades gracefully." From the article, that's _6 million_ of Yahoo!'s 300M+ user base. I really don't understand what's the big deal about making sure your site works without JS, it's just some extra work that you're going to have to do anyway later down the line (and it will be more co…

It might not be laziness that you don't support that 2%. It costs real time and money to add and support fallback content and functionality. There could be better uses of that time and money that create more value for the business...which is something your investors should understand.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#36

Post by gxti »

estel wrote: post #20
shaggy wrote: post #19

I'm a NoScript user and generally only whitelist JS on sites I use all the time and trust. I'm not overly paranoid about security, but the experience on the web with NoScript is far superior than without it in my opinion. What drives me absolutely insane is when a website is 100% useless unless JS is whitelisted. That instantly gets put on my list of sites to never ever go to again.

Doesn't that depend on what the website is trying to achieve? Clearly there are plenty of sites out there whose functionality is necessarily dependant on JS. As long as they make clear that this is the case and what the website is supposed to do, is it all that bad if a website becomes otherwise useless without JS?

It's the sites that shouldn't depend on JS that irritate me. Sites that load completely static content, dynamically. Newspapers where you get a blank layout instead of an article. They're more common than you think. I don't mind temporarily whitelisting a site to play with some cool thing but if it's something that shouldn't require javascript at all, let alone need to degrade gracefully, I often just go somewhere else.

And then there's sites like this: http://partiallystapled.com/~gxti/trash/2010/10/09-javascrip...

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#37

Post by acqq »

olalonde wrote: post #33
mike-cardwell wrote: post #30

I use NoScript mainly due to the prevalence of XSS attacks. If a website doesn't require me to enable javascript, even a trusted website, I wont. All it does is open you up to XSS attacks. Lets not forget that google, facebook, twitter, paypal, hotmail, yahoo and countless other big name websites have all fallen prey to these flaws, and will continue to fall prey to them.

I'm willing to open up to a very unlikely XSS attack in exchange of a better user experience. Do you know many people who say: "I won't run C applications because they are vulnerable to buffer overflows."

I'm one of those who browse without JavaScript and Flash and for me that IS a better experience. Try it once and see how much better signal to noise ratio is. I also like the additional benefit of having much less chance to be attacked through the browser.

And I also use Opera, exactly because I can enable using the built in browser settings both JS and Flash only for a few sites where I need it (like youtube).

I have just checked again: I don't have JS turned on for HN. It just works.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#38

Post by acqq »

estel wrote: post #20
shaggy wrote: post #19

I'm a NoScript user and generally only whitelist JS on sites I use all the time and trust. I'm not overly paranoid about security, but the experience on the web with NoScript is far superior than without it in my opinion. What drives me absolutely insane is when a website is 100% useless unless JS is whitelisted. That instantly gets put on my list of sites to never ever go to again.

Doesn't that depend on what the website is trying to achieve? Clearly there are plenty of sites out there whose functionality is necessarily dependant on JS. As long as they make clear that this is the case and what the website is supposed to do, is it all that bad if a website becomes otherwise useless without JS?

There are very few sites with a relevant content that are really "necessarily dependant on JS." The worse the content is, or the more amateurish it is, the more probable is that the creator thinks that the "cool menus" are a good substitute for content. It was always so. MARQUEE and BLINK of 1996.

You can almost recognize who's mostly in charge for some site:

-- needs JavaScript only to bring me to another page: some bad "programmer" whose best achievement was that he learned JS.

-- needs Flash only to bring me to another page: some "decision maker" who wants "dynamic" or a "programmer" whose best achievement was that he learned Flash.

- needs a magnifying glass to read the text set in 5 pt font: some "designer" who doesn't care for the text anyway. But look how good colors he selected. And everybody has the same screen resolution as it's on his computer, got it?

-- needs a magnifying glass to read the text, the menus are half JS behind images, half Flash: you tell me, but there's higher chance it's made by a West European guy.

etc.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#39

Post by jamesaguilar »

metageek wrote: post #13
mirkules wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explain that to a potential investor. "We snubbed 2% of our potential user base because we were too lazy to make sure that our site degrades gracefully." From the article, that's _6 million_ of Yahoo!'s 300M+ user base. I really don't understand what's the big deal about making sure your site works without JS, it's just some extra work that you're going to have to do anyway later down the line (and it will be more co…

It's potentially a lot of extra work. If your site's UI is heavy on the AJAX, a non-JS option basically means writing a completely separate UI. Explain to an investor, "We don't have features X, Y, and Z, which our competitors have, because we were spending time maintaining the non-JS version for 2% of our user base.".

Also, non-Javascript Luddism may correlate with other forms of Luddism. For example, non-eCommerce Luddism or non-ads-clicking Luddism. So it might be that you're doing all that work for people who are not going to benefit your bottom line as much as the typical user.

It's something each business probably has to measure for itself, but the people saying, "I don't see what the big deal is," just aren't looking hard enough.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#40

Post by reid »

steveklabnik wrote: post #24
reid wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if your users have JavaScript enabled, they still need to download and run it before using your complex application. Consider GMail. How awesome would it be if you didn't have to wait for its "Loading..." progress bar? It takes 2-4 seconds for that to go away on my computer. If you design for progressive enhancement, you can interact immediately and when JS is ready, it simply enhances what's already there. If d…

> Consider GMail. How awesome would it be if you didn't have to wait for its "Loading..." progress bar? Well, taking a look at "Basic HTML view"... considerably less awesome.

My point was that Google solves this problem the wrong way.

Instead of making two interfaces, they should make one interface. If JavaScript hasn't loaded yet (or if it's disabled), the majority of the interface can still be available immediately.

JavaScript should always add to the experience. It doesn't make sense to show GMail's Chat widget until JS is loaded-- but it really doesn't make sense to show nothing at all until the Chat JS downloads and runs!

You should be able to show the message list right away. You can start scanning your messages immediately. You can click normal links and submit forms.

Bonus for JS enabled users: a few seconds later the links, buttons, etc. all get hooked up to JavaScript. The Chat widget appears. By the time you click, things may even happen all AJAXy-- and it appeared to load instantly by loading JS in the background.

Now that's awesome.

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