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"Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
341–350 of 373 posts
Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
#342Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I still don't understand why people do this. They get so frustrated (or defensive or something else) that they refuse to tell you what is on the screen and/or make something up. My guess is that they dismiss error boxes too quickly, or work ahead of you and are afraid that you'll figure it out if they tell you what their error box actually says, and they'll get an F on the test and will have to go to summer school.
That's a defence mechanism against support people that aren't there to help, but just to make them give up before they are allowed to talk with someone that can actualy help.
The problem is that once trained, people start doing it instinctively, even with the people that can actualy help.
Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
#343The following rant is somewhat tangential but, as a front-end developer that takes pride in progressively enhancing websites I work on, I think this is a shame for a different reason. So many times when speaking to employers/product owners about progressive enhancement of JavaScript components, the answer I get back is along the lines of "we don't care about that" or "we don't have the time". Sometimes in conversatio…
> So many times when speaking to employers/product owners about progressive enhancement of JavaScript components, the answer I get back is along the lines of "we don't care about that" or "we don't have the time"
Stop talking. Start doing instead. Employers and product owners are hiring you for your skills, so use them. Don't ask permission to follow best practice, just do. You are more than a code monkey.
Do your employers really not care if a third party outside of their control decide to do something to affect the availability of their site?
Do your employers control, audit and manage every single byte that gets delivered as part of their website? For those they don't completely and accurately manage and control, how do they absolutely ensure that every byte that needs to be delivered arrives correctly and is interpreted correctly in their users browser? How do they remove the risk of all those server hops between their web server and the customer's browser? How do they control that?
The Web cannot be controlled or managed in this way. There are simply too many factors outside of a website owners control that affect how their site is perceived by customers. Without pragmatic approaches it's either an all-or-completely-broken situation, or when a site is built properly with progressive enhancement, a slight degradation of usability that customers don't really notice - because the core experience just works.
https://www.gov.uk/service-manual/making-software/progressiv...
Want a good data point? How about a couple that decided rather vocally that progressive enhancement is dead. $100,000 spent on a bootstrapped application, and then this astonishing comment: http://unicornfree.com/2013/why-we-shut-down-charm-on-the-ev... -- read the third paragraph of that comment.
Sometimes, it's an expensive lesson to learn.
Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
#344Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why do you think Opera has gone the way of the dodo? It's an excellent browser, by far the best browser in my opinion. Furthermore, they're changing their renderer to webkit which will ensure no more Opera incompatibility. If anything, Opera just keeps getting better.
The newest version of Opera strips away most of the tools power users like. It's one step away from Chrome's UI. They'll probably add most of it back, but it'll take a long time.
I thought Opera Next is just a beta for testing the renderer. I don't think they consider it the new version of Opera yet, as it doesn't come up as a new version. I'm sure they wouldn't be so stupid to remove all the nice new features they've recently added and that their loyal following rely on.
Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
#345Earlier 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…
> There is a growing group of people, who are scared to have conversation with their browser and make any informed decisions. Why would scared people even open the settings dialog?
Because some help desk told them to. The other day chase manhattan was down with a full on 500 server fucked up. Their twitter account responded to me telling me to clear my cache and delete my cookies. Classic.
A naive user would then open settings in an emotional and annoyed state and would turn off anything that caused an emotional response of fear. JavaScript, Ive heard of that and I don't like it so kill it stupid thing computers are so frustrating they never work. Click
And now your browser is broken.
Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
#346I 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…
Honestly stop whinning so much. Javascript is just as important a part of the web as CSS. Would you complain if sites broke because you switched of CSS? Likely not.
And you stop abusing Javascript when it is not necessary because you want to show off.
When CSS is switched off content is still readable.
And dont worry , people will turn off javascript more and more like they turned off flash because of all the stupid stunts developpers pull.
Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
#347Here'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 solu…
> Don't treat your users like idiots
That is exactly what Mozilla is doing , pushing down Javascript on everybody's throat. And marketing teams and advertisers are loving it. So much for their "dont track" stunt.
Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
#348Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some people have valuable data inside their browsers. Javascript code can access this data. Also, browsers aren't bug-free, and enabling Javascript significantly increases the attack surface.
Like what kind of data?
Re: "Disable Javascript" option removed in Firefox 23
#349Earlier 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.
On the flip side, I remember playing "Windows XP: The Roleplaying Game" with AT&T support, when they wouldn't give some very simple network config information without me checking a bunch of things on Windows with IE first.