

Ask HN: Why is there an option to deactivate Javascript in browsers? - pedrokost

What are the reasons someone would have their Javascript permanently disabled in a browser?
There is also an option to disable Images, why not CSS?
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acqq
You must look at the history of it. Disabling images was _very_ important when
accessing web over a 9600 bps modem. Disabling Javascript overall was also
convenient as practically no useful content was brought by Javascript but a
lot of annoyance, and some exploits always existed.

I still browse with JS disabled by default, however I turn on JS for the
selected sites, only if I'd believe that they are worth it. Opera allows me to
be selective, it has Javascript block configurable per site.

Why not CSS? Well, Opera can set a user css per site too. It's very convenient
for some of the sites that are unreadable for me by default (i.e. small white
letters on the black background or even picture background). It still can't
explicitly disable HTML5 videos per site, AFAIK.

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_neil
For security reasons? I feel like that too obvious an answer. Maybe I'm
missing something.

Javascript can be potentially harmful because it's code running on your
system, albeit sandboxed to some degree. You can also embed code in images,
but I don't think that's why people disable images. It's probably either
because third-party sites can track your web usage through images or simply
because they want a simpler browsing experience.

~~~
mhd
Having an option to disable running code on your machine seems a good choice,
especially considering that this came up in a time where most Javascript
wasn't exactly essential.

Also, there's the annoyance factor, just like with images. Back in the days,
having ads, animated torches and sparkling mouse pointers disabled was a
pretty good choice. Also: Popups and silly messages (alert("Welcome to my
Site!") ridiculously common)

Let me adjust the onion on my belt and tell you the story of a magical place
called Geocities…

