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How many users have JavaScript disabled?

developer.yahoo.com

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Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#61

Post by bmelton »

mirkules wrote: post #45
bmelton wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're overlooking a lot of powerful applications that need SOMEthing to work client-side. Markup.io, recently featured here, is not the sort of application that can post-through to another page to fix. One could argue that it might also work with Flash, or ActiveX, but I'm only even mentioning them to head off somebody else from doing so, as that's hardly a solution. I suppose it could be implemented as an Applet, b…

Ok, good point. My problem is sites where it is reasonable to expect them to work without JS, but end up not working at all. I would never expect a specialized site like Markup.io or asteroids-on-a-page (forgot the name) to work without JS. News sites, portals, blogs, shopping sites, etc, are all fair game for no JS (like you said). By the way, not sure if you're the author of Markup.io, but it's pretty cool.

Oh, no I'm not even remotely connected to it, it was just the first example that came to mind.

It is pretty cool though.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#62

Post by bphogan »

andrewf wrote: post #52
bphogan wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am aggravated by the developers because developers are the ones who confuse interactions (clicks) with invitations to interact (hovers). When I move my mouse, my viewport moves. That's by design, as the mouse pointer can be placed near words so I can see it. Keeping the mouse pointer visible is important when you can't see it well. Now imagine I'm surfing as a blind user, and I follow a link from HN, and my screen…

The iPad doesn't have the concept of a hover, so websites pretty much have to work without it. It'd be nice if Apple could turn around and kill the hover in Safari when somebody's using the zoom feature. It'd be even nicer if you could toggle this on and off right now (right Apple button, maybe?) because mouse hovering in the zoom application is obviously _not_ necessarily the same user action as mouse hovering witho…

eh, from my experience the iPad does have "tap-to-hover" support which is pretty nice actually. Many hover-only events do work, even ones that haven't been written to support iOS-specific events. So they're doing something.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#63

Post by lukifer »

prodigal_erik wrote: post #47
bmelton wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're overlooking a lot of powerful applications that need SOMEthing to work client-side. Markup.io, recently featured here, is not the sort of application that can post-through to another page to fix. One could argue that it might also work with Flash, or ActiveX, but I'm only even mentioning them to head off somebody else from doing so, as that's hardly a solution. I suppose it could be implemented as an Applet, b…

Markup.io isn't actually a part of the world-wide web of linked semantic documents. Its content is inaccessible (even for viewing) unless you blindly trust its code. It rightfully deserves to be a browser plugin, it's just cleverly smuggling itself into everyone else's content because there are no good portable extension mechanisms for browsers.

> because there are no good portable extension mechanisms for browsers.

...which is why JS is filling that gap. :)

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#64

Post by Natsu »

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."

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

Unless your C program takes in input from advertisers and posts from people on the internet, I don't think that's a valid comparison.

Also, you say "very unlikely" but these attacks happen all the time. Most of them don't make the news, but they're pretty much an every day affair.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#65

Post by mike-cardwell »

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."

You've made the mistake of thinking that turning on javascript gives you a better user experience. On most websites, it degrades the experience. On those where I see no worthwhile improvement, I don't enable it. It's a judgement call.

Very few websites give you a substantial improvement in user experience by enabling javascript.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#66

Post by mike-cardwell »

kls wrote: post #55
mike-cardwell wrote: post #28

If your website relies on JavaScript to work, then you're excluding people who can't use JavaScript. Disabled people with screen readers. If you don't cater for those people, put some money aside for lawyers.

This is a straw man argument that is not grounded in fact: http://www.dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/dijit-a11y-statem... I have built many sites with the specific criteria that it work with JAWS. I do not use Server Side web frameworks and my UI logic is implemented entirely in JavaScript. I am an authority in the usability and accessibility field and am hired as such by many of the big boys. JavaScript has nothing…

You'll forgive me if I listen to a combination of common sense, and the guy who said "I say this as a visually impaired developer with several blind friends and family" instead of the guy with a vested interest.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#67

Post by kls »

mike-cardwell wrote: post #66
kls wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a straw man argument that is not grounded in fact: http://www.dojotoolkit.org/reference-guide/dijit-a11y-statem... I have built many sites with the specific criteria that it work with JAWS. I do not use Server Side web frameworks and my UI logic is implemented entirely in JavaScript. I am an authority in the usability and accessibility field and am hired as such by many of the big boys. JavaScript has nothing…

You'll forgive me if I listen to a combination of common sense, and the guy who said "I say this as a visually impaired developer with several blind friends and family" instead of the guy with a vested interest.

Sure I will forgive you, but I will also note that again this is a case of blaming Javascript for bad UX design. The evidence is in his post. I just highlighted it.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#68

Post by carussell »

DjDarkman wrote: post #16
eiji wrote: post #2

The follow-up question is "Why users disable JS?". How many do it unintentional because they think JS is Java(applets ...), or the browser does not support it. I'm also wondering how many people change the advanced JS settings in the browser (do browser other than Firefox even support them?). I'm one of those 2% for different reasons(open for discussion): - it blocks 90% of ads, because most banners are JS driven - I…

FFS, use Adblock You are so fuckin wrong, JS is not a security vulnerability it's a programing language. Wikipedia: JavaScript is an implementation of the ECMAScript language standard and is typically used to enable programmatic access to computational objects within a host environment. If you want real privacy, then why not just disable cookies? ohhh your login won't work... well then just disable your internet conn…

Your post was poorly reasoned, and quoting Wikipedia was frivolous. Furthermore, it was written in a way that's grating for many people, regardless of your (poorly reasoned) points, because it

a) reinforces the notion that you didn't care enough about your message to spend 15 seconds longer on it to write it properly, a feeling which already existed in readers' minds because of the presence of your (poorly reasoned) points, and

b) requires readers to spend longer parsing your comment before being able to comprehend the (poorly reasoned) points you were attempting to make.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#69

Post by BCM43 »

acqq wrote: post #37
olalonde wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

Really? It does not work with noscript. I get a blank page when I attempt to vote.

Re: How many users have JavaScript disabled?

#70

Post by acqq »

BCM43 wrote: post #69
acqq wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

Really? It does not work with noscript. I get a blank page when I attempt to vote.

You're right. The vote is counted, so I consider that as "works." The result is certainly ugly, but I'd name that a "minor display issue" as I can hit "back."

Of course it would be nice if that "back" step wouldn't be needed.

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