
Don't tell me how to enable JavaScript - Wilya
http://riversoflambdas.tumblr.com/post/21020201405/dont-tell-me-how-to-enable-javascript
======
debacle
If you've got JavaScript disabled, no one is interested in catering to you.
You are the pathological customer in the ad-driven content consumption world
of the Internet. It's impossible to make money off of you.

Sure, you enable JavaScript but you don't disable AdBlock and so now you're
just consuming resources and contributing negatively to the site you're
visiting's bottom line.

I understand the myriad justifications for disabling JavaScript, but I don't
really care. There aren't enough people with JavaScript disabled to warrant
giving it any attention.

It's the same with Flash. If you don't have Flash, I will show you how to get
it, but I'm not going to spend the time telling you _why_ you ought to get it,
because I don't care to argue the point. There aren't enough people _without_
Flash for it to be a concern.

~~~
chris_wot
With respect, I feel you are wrong. I browse the web with my iPad more than I
browse it with my laptop. There is no way that I can run Flash on this device.
There are now a significant numbers of folks who are doing the same as me.

If you have to use Flash, then that's fine. But the author of the article is
right IMO. You need to provide a compelling reason for me to hop off my iPad
and boot up my workstation/laptop to look at your website.

I have long considered that Unobtrusive Javascript to be one of the best
paradigms for websites. It shouldn't be that hard to do. In fact, even in web
applications there should be a clear seperation of content and behaviour, just
as there is to seperate content and style. I was looking at a VMware product
the other day that does ITSM, and it was the most god-awful mix of bad
Javascript and HTML that I was most surprised. Not only did it not use
Javascript in a sensible way (ala jquery, YUI, etc.), but it used stupid
tricks like document.all - and in fact the webpages that it loaded entirely
relied on Javascript working.

Therefore, I submit to you that by not designing your websites with
Unobtrusive Javascript, that you are a. causing accessibility issues (and NOT
just for disabled users), and b. you probably haven't developed your website
very well anyway.

Please, I urge you to convince your users WHY they need to turn on Javascript
to use your site. If you can't provide a compelling case, then I'd suggest
that you probably don't have a good reason to require it!

~~~
debacle
Yes, the Flash analogy was probably a poor one considering the ubiquity of iOS
- you can no longer make the argument about not having to cater to people
without Flash, because at this point there are so many of them.

~~~
chris_wot
I think the same can be applied to requiring Javascript however. Personally,
I've never seen a website that delivers content that absolutely needed it.
Certainly the ones that do use it well do it to _enhance_ the site you are
browsing, but if you turn off the Javascript then you only have a slightly
less full featured experience.

If you can't access a website because Javascript is turned off, then I think
you are overcomplicating things anyway. There are obviously cases where it is
required, but as the author states, it should be pretty easy to explain why
you need to enable scripting!

~~~
mirkules
"If you can't access a website because Javascript is turned off, then I think
you are overcomplicating things anyway."

Take Lifehacker as an example: <http://lifehacker.com/>

What about their content requires JavaScript? Absolutely nothing. You have to
enable scripts from three different places to see the content. The irony is
that this website is called LifeHacker, for people who like to hack things
(but turning off Javascript is just pure sorcery)

~~~
pbiggar
Lifehacker is a great example:

\- click search, it drops down a search bar without reloading the page. Fast,
nice.

\- actually do the search - updates in place.

\- on the sidebar, no reload for switching between "most popular" and "latest"

\- ok lets read an article. Ah, selecting one loads the article into the pane,
so I dont lose my place in the search on the side - lovely.

\- Commenting: done in line, has inline font selection, I can include a
picture or URL. Very nice experience.

\- Oh, and 2 of my friends read lifehacker according to their Facebook plugin.
Interesting - I didnt know they read that, I must mention it to them.

~~~
mirkules
-click search, it drops down a search bar without reloading the page. Fast, nice.

I posit that the search bar should be static, that is, always visible. It
actually took me a while to find out that I was supposed to click the little
magnifying glass.

\- actually do the search - updates in place. Again, confusing. It wasn't
immediately apparent that the search results actually displayed below the
search bar.

\- on the sidebar, no reload for switching between "most popular" and "latest"
This is a good use case for Javascript. However, if Javascript is not present
why would it not default to just opening separate pages for each of the tabs?

\- Commenting: again, why does it _need_ Javascript? Slashdot commenting
system works just fine without Javascript, as an example.

I'm not questioning WHY they are using Javascript - obviously, you are getting
plenty of use from that method. I am questioning why it is necessary to have
those features to view content?

~~~
pbiggar
Bullshit.

For a start, I dont think we should be second guessing their design. No doubt
they have the customer development, usage figures, A/B tests, design tests,
etc, to know that this is right for them.

But if you think a static version would be better (for most people), you're
dreaming. At this point I suspect there's no point continuing the conversation
- we have dramatically different world views if you think there's a
comparison.

So the remaining question is, should they also have a no-javascript version
for the 2% of people who turn off JS? Since it costs them double the effort, I
can see why they chose not to.

~~~
mirkules
"For a start, I dont think we should be second guessing their design"

Really? I guess you are right that this conversation is over. I'm sorry, but
Lifehacker is not the end-all-be-all design mecca of the 21st century, quite
the contrary, in fact. I only picked on the Javascript issue -- there are
_plenty_ more issues to discuss if you want to discuss design.

It's not about 2% of the population who don't use Javascript. It's about the
fact that they're doing something fundamentally wrong if they require
Javascript for displaying a simple web page with some content.

~~~
pbiggar
I just reread my previous comment and I apologize for how aggressively I came
across. I guess it's hard to say "I disagree incredibly strongly" in a non-
aggressive way, but that wasn't what I intended.

I'm not saying it's the be-all-and-end-all at all, there are lots of design
problems. But arguing UX design with someone who believes sites shouldn't be
using JS? It's just not a credible position.

Simple web pages are not simple. What makes them simple is that the complexity
is hidden. JS is a major part of hiding that complexity, whether it's for
preloading data, "don't make me click", or just hiding away things you don't
need yet.

The search is a great example: I suspect almost nobody uses search, and I also
suspect that those who use search use it a great deal. I suspect that
Lifehacker has those "where do people click" charts that show them that
information, and that as a result they made it powerful, but decided against
giving it a whole bar.

Likewise comments. They hid away most of the commenting chrome because 99% of
people dont comment, and they want to engage them with the existing comments.

There is no such thing as "a simple web page with some content". It is naive
to think that it is, and I believe (please correct me if I'm wrong) that it
shows that you have not spent significant time working on web UX issues in a
cross-browser environment.

~~~
chris_wot
It's not that folks are upset about the use of Javascript - it's that you are
required to have it to view content. I personally love well designed
Javascript - it makes the user experience better and my life easier. But if
someone turns off Javascript, they should have a _degraded_ experience, not NO
experience!

~~~
pbiggar
I disagree with saying "should" here. It's to do with business priorities. How
many resources should go into making "they should have a degraded experience,
not no experience" true. Well, how many customers will they gain, and how much
more money will they make.

Don't forget that LifeHacker is part of Gawker. There's about a dozen sites in
that network, probably all using the same codebase. What proportion of Jezebel
readers do you think use NoScript?

~~~
chris_wot
The answer to that's "none" because they can't view the site with no script
turned on :-) what a business _should_ do and what they _actually_ do are,
unfortunately two different things. I wouldn't call life hacker a paragon on
good design, but then I don't frequent that site very often. And, for the
record, I don't use no script, or browse with JavaScript turned off! :-)

~~~
pbiggar
I doubt there is a good value proposition for Lifehacker to implement
something that works with NoScript. Saying that they should do it, without
that, makes no sense.

------
Pewpewarrows
Here is how I handle this for projects that I work on, and I haven't received
a single complaint thus far:

1\. Decide if the core of the site is undoable without JavaScript. Something
like Google Docs or games relying heavily on Canvas/WebGL are prime examples.
It is very rare for this to be the case, but if it is then disregard the rest
of the steps.

2\. Build the entire site without even considering JavaScript as an option.
The advantage of this is I can finish all functionality without opening my
browser window once. I build out the core with unit tests, and assert the base
user workflow using integration tests that can simulate things like form
submissions to route end-points. My test suite is now a constant confirmation
that my site works with JavaScript disabled.

3\. Open up the site in a browser, and begin the design & UX portion of
development. Because the site is essentially feature-complete and tested
already, I can have a lot of fun experimenting in this stage, tweaking things
to my heart's content.

4\. I slap this on the page after I'm satisfied with the enhanced UX that
design and client-side scripting provides:

    
    
        <div class="jsnotice">
            We notice that you currently have Javascript disabled. While this site is fully accessible
            without it, you're still missing out on some pretty neat features. We work tirelessly
            to ensure that our scripts are small, unobtrusive, and do not harm your user experience.
            Please add us to your whitelist, or <a href="//enable-javascript.com/">enable Javascript in your browser</a>!
        </div>
    

Using Modernizr, that class only shows if JavaScript is disabled. The message
itself is unobtrusive, and I always provide a way for the user to dismiss it
permanently. If I want, I go into a little bit of detail on what "features"
they're not experiencing fully.

~~~
goodside
What percentage of your users actually have JavaScript disabled? How small
would the user base have to be before you decided they weren't worth this much
effort?

~~~
babarock
Imho you cannot approach the issue just from a pure numbers point of view. For
instance, one big portion of the people browsing without Js are disabled
people working with screen readers and such.

True Story: I worked for a while on a website where users would upload and
share tutorials on various topics. As the company behind it grew, it had the
genius idea of selling print copies of their best tutorials. At some point, we
were looking for a Python tutorial to publish. We select our favorite one, get
in touch with the author and were genuinely delighted to find out that he was
blind, accessing our app via screen reader.

He went on to publish a book (last I heard selling at over 10 000 units in
less than a year topping Amazon's sales in its category). It was our app (the
general focus on accessibility, independance from Js was a big part of it)
that allowed this cool blind kid to publish a best sellers book. The odds of
something like this happening, clearly, aren't very high, but when they do
it's instant gratification for the developer who worked on making it
accessible.

If you're too hung up on numbers and ROI, think of all the benefits the
company got from the positive exposure it gathered from the press around the
incident. In any case, unless the core of your app is in JS, it's always a
good idea to provide alternatives.

~~~
nailer
> For instance, one big portion of the people browsing without Js are disabled
> people working with screen readers and such.

Shouldn't we fix the screen readers, rather than fixing every website?

Any solution to any problems that begins with 'first change the world' is not
a valid solution as the project will never get past that stage.

The world would be a much better place if the effort and money spent on making
ramps was spent on wheelchair provisioning and development.

~~~
sophacles
Actually, we should be doing both. The screen reader usage paradigm, even with
good screen readers, requires a site to have considered that case. For
instance, translating icons popups, and other graphic information is a very
hard problem to do without hints from the site developer. Some types of layout
are very nice from a visual view, but terrible from a textual/reading point of
view. It is problem that needs to be approached from all angles.

To work it into an analogy: What is the point of having good, easily available
wheelchairs, if there are no ramps (or equivalently wheelchair accessibility
means) for people to use?

~~~
nailer
> To work it into an analogy: What is the point of having good, easily
> available wheelchairs, if there are no ramps (or equivalently wheelchair
> accessibility means) for people to use?

Because the millions of dollars spent adding rubberized material to some-but-
not-all street corners sounds-based UIs for some-but-not-all intersection
lamps could easily buy those who need it a vehicle to climb stairs?

~~~
sophacles
Yeah, I'm sure you could engineer a wheelchair that fits into existing spaces
reasonably AND climbs ALL stairs. </snark>

Also: perhaps you are forgetting a few very important benefits of those street
corner ramps that have nothing to do with wheelchairs:

* People pushing strollers and carts now have an easier and safer way of getting out of the street.

* Old folks who can walk but not climb stairs very well can get across the street easier.

* Everyone has a non-0 probability of tripping as they cross the varied height curbs in cities - ramps reduces that significantly, saving society a lot of lawsuit and medical costs, this is a continuing benefit.

Not a benefit, but a solid argument:

* Since almost all of the money spent on putting these in is part of normal road/curb/sidewalk maintenance anyway, its probably not as expensive as you suggest, and since the tooling exists, why not do it right this time, rather than the old way?

* Since the government is building sidewalks, do you really want your government to actively exclude people from participating in basic "for everyone" stuff because of reasons like wheelchair bounding? I can understand if it is a result of choices they make (e.g. keep sex offenders out of parks), but telling someone "sorry life sucked for you, no more participation" is not a function of a democracy.

~~~
nailer
I was going to write most in my original post, but I figured most reasonable
humans know that climbing stairs does not mean climbing all stairs in the
world ever.

It seems like it's been a while since you read the HN guidelines. It might be
good to read them again.

~~~
sophacles
I'm not sure that it was at all obvious. You suggested that all ramp building
and such accessibility activity should be replaced by a stair climbing chair.
I, via a bit of snark, pointed out that such a suggestion is impractical.

You and I will have to disagree on whether or not my 1 line of snark
(respectfully labeled as such) in an otherwise civil and respectful reply
about the practicalities of ramps constitutes incivility. I personally would
say that in a conversation face to face, and very few people find me offensive
(and many of those who choose to be insulted by my views not my conversational
style).

------
tomkin
I have a completely different viewpoint on this topic that probably won't be
very popular – but, if we're talking about writing experiences for those with
JS turned off, isn't that the same as having to write code for an IE6
experience? I imagine the percentage of people having JS turned off is roughly
in the ballpark of how many IE6 users we have left to deal with. Why has this
been turned into a _purist_ argument when it really should be about
practicality and quality of one's work?

Though, I do get the gripe about not even seeing what the site is about before
enabling JS. Even the weakest IE6 experiences seem to have some semblance of
the subject matter.

~~~
ef4
The difference I see is that this author isn't asking for anything more than a
little bit of useful static text. No meaningful code changes, just a tiny
snippet of plain old HTML will do the trick.

That's dramatically easier than trying to make a complex app work in IE6.

~~~
tomkin
I agree. The article itself is correct, but if you read through the comments
here, you'll find it often gets to be about _purity_ and how entire
applications should be written to degrade gracefully. When you start talking
about that kind of work – I have to ask what the difference is between coding
an entire app for no JS and IE6. You can chalk it up to _good for humanity_ ,
but really it comes down to is _time_. Am I going to count of JS being on? Am
I going to count on the user not using IE6? For a full-featured web
application: Yes.

------
drewmclellan
Thinking about users with JavaScript disabled is unhelpful. Sure, some of
those exist, but they've largely opted into that.

It's more helpful to think about designing a site to work robustly for the
situations in which JavaScript doesn't successfully run. There could be
reasons from aggressive firewalls blocking scripts, to slow or broken network
connections, where the user might not get your JavaScript along with the page.

Many browsers halt all JavaScript execution on a script error. All it takes is
a badly coded third-party ad on your page, or a typo in your own code to stop
all JavaScript on the page from running.

Is it right that your page or app should completely stop functioning at that
point? The web is a brittle platform. Things break _all_ the time, but our
technology stack of HTML, CSS and JavaScript can be exceptionally robust when
used in the right way.

Build your site with HTML. Make it look much better with CSS. Make it work
much better with JavaScript. Be prepared that CSS or JavaScript may not load
at any point, with the reassurance that plain old HTML has got your back.

Sure, it takes a bit longer. Doing a good job always does.

~~~
attackio
sure, let's all code for lynx. it's the future!

~~~
t1mmyb
Point spectacularly missed. Well done.

------
mortenjorck
This just boils down to a question of understanding your audience and
communicating with them appropriately. The simple takeaway is that disabling
JavaScript tends to correlate with tech savvy, and so addressing these users
as non-technical comes off as condescending and results in blog posts like
these.

If I'm building something JS-only, I try to speak the NoScript user's language
when writing the error copy, even attempting to build a bit of rapport, like
here: <http://presteign.com>

[EDIT] Something has apparently gone wrong in the last couple of days with the
dynamic content loading on the site linked above, so I've put a maintenance
page in its place. The <noscript> message was: _This site needs JavaScript
enabled to work. At least it's not Flash, right?_

~~~
tobiasu
There is no info what I'm missing. Anyway I tried to take a look at it:

Enabled the site in NoScript and all I get is a very buggy menu. OK, lets give
you cookies, real referrer, etc. Still not working??

Just for you, I've made a brand-new Firefox 11 profile with no extensions and
all default settings. The site refreshes every second, spewing warnings in the
JS console. It looks broken and I still don't know what it is about.

Whether a site this simple really needs JS is another discussion...

~~~
mortenjorck
Yup, something has gone wrong on the server. I just put up a maintenance page
and updated the comment.

------
aGHz
The OP missed the point: it's a passive aggressive way to get you off the site
and hope you never come back. We're already focusing all our energy on
convincing normal people why our app is awesome, convincing you why you should
also enable JS to enjoy it is very low on the priority list. Not to mention
that I already have to test my site in 4 browsers, you want me to now test it
for a very small edge case too? How entitled is that?

~~~
EvilTerran
Entitled?

You're the one who stands to profit from the interaction. You do the legwork.

~~~
Sumaso
And by the leg work you mean omit instructions on how to enable java-script?

Seems a little silly to me, if you know java-script is disabled then you
should just ignore the link.

~~~
EvilTerran
I mean "a least give the no-JS crowd a reason to let your scripts run". As the
submission suggested.

~~~
msbarnett
"So that the site will work" is no less insulting to their intelligence, at
the end of the day. They know exactly why it isn't working, and if they want
to see it work they're welcome to fix it.

But asking for a custom-crafted marketing pitch job aimed at converting a
small and pathologically hostile market of noscripters is completely outside
the realm of feasibility, here.

------
dazzawazza
I started reading this thinking what a complete dick but on reflection they
are right. It's as hard to show a feature list and ask to be white listed as
it is to redirect to <http://www.enable-javascript.com/>.

Well said. Thank you.

~~~
drostie
There is perhaps a lesson here. Hopkins said it this way[1]:

    
    
        Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
        Deals out that being indoors each one dwells
    

...and he then calls for humanity to rise above this standard case. It is
functional, if sub-optimal[2], for how we can organize society: every single
person complains about what bugs them, and we connect the social graph
dynamically to make people happier -- the people who want a NoScript user's
business will design with them in mind, the people who don't care enough,
won't.

I would add that this applies not just to JavaScript but also to cookies. We
use NoScript and Cookie Monster because they're condoms for the Internet --
they protect us from tracking cookies and some XSS attacks.

The web site for Priv.ly unfortunately breaks when you use NoScript. The
reason for the break is to make four links appear when you mouse over an image
which is hiding them, and then those links load videos into that element.
Basically, the element is an iframe for videos, except they didn't use an
iframe. It would have been faster to develop if they had just used an iframe
to load their videos, and then their videos could probably be covered by a
NoScript exception for Vimeo.

If the site didn't break, it would say, "You do not have scripts enabled,
which means you are either running old technology, or are our kind of person.
If you are the latter, we hope you will consider helping out." This is almost
very nice and polite -- but please, skip the crap about "running old
technology" when you follow-up on this example, and instead just condense the
content which you were going to show me into a short summary with a nice
little end point, "to see my app, please enable JavaScript." If your app _is
its own summary_ , like a blog article, then you absolutely should not require
JS to display it.

[1]: <http://www.bartleby.com/122/34.html> "As Kingfishers Catch Fire" [2]:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/david_logan_on_tribal_leade...](http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/david_logan_on_tribal_leadership.html)
"Different Stages of Tribes"

------
NelsonMinar
There's one very important user who doesn't run Javascript: Googlebot. If your
site displays no content without scripting you are invisible to search
engines. So this blog post's advice to display some static fallback is useful;
not for the NoScript weirdos but for SEO.

Hopefully the search engines will fix their spiders. In the meantime we have
ugly workarounds like the #!/escaped_fragment nonsense.

~~~
lucian1900
Although this is a fair point, even the googlebot has started running JS.

~~~
NelsonMinar
Yeah, it does execute some JS, but not a lot. Here's a Dec 2011 analysis; a
more current writeup would be welcome.
[http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/google-stop-playing-the-
ji...](http://www.distilled.net/blog/seo/google-stop-playing-the-jig-is-still-
up-guest-post/)

------
earnubs
Suggestion for your CSS:

body { font-size: 14px; line-height:1.4 }

~~~
MattBearman
Please do this! I had to zoom in quite far on my 13" mpb just to make the site
comfortable to read

------
thaumaturgy
Ideally, sure, sites should try to fall back more gracefully than that if JS
is disabled.

But I'll bet that there are more IE 6 users than Noscript users.

~~~
glanch
I used to be a Noscript user, but I just got sick and tired of clicking 2-3x
as much as usual, just to get every page to load correctly. Normal process:

-Page loads, great

-Click on something but it doesn't respond

-Shit, probably JS

-Click NoScript, see a list of sites

=This is where is really gets good=

-Stare at the list of sites noscript is blocking on the page, arbitrarily unblock one that 'seems' like it would be hosting the code that runs the thing I'm trying to fix, based only on domain name

-Refresh the page, try clicking that thing again, if it doesn't work, repeat the process

I wasted many hours of my life on that process, and what did I gain from it?
Security? Not really, since I would randomly enable sites to run JS. So I
uninstalled it. Worst case scenario, I get a virus and have to reformat, and
lose an hour or two. I don't have any important data on my hard drive.

So, Noscripters, are you guys just really concerned about security or is it a
psychological thing - as in, it feels good to be able to be the boss of your
browser and tell sites whether or not they can run JS?

~~~
icebraining
I run Pentadactyl with a Noscript integration addon, so enabling domains is
extremely fast. Considering the slowness that JS often adds to a page -
particularly on my slowish laptop - I'd say I still save time.

Then I get the benefits of security and not being tracked everywhere I go.

~~~
EvilTerran
I know this is off-topic, but I've never heard of Pentadactyl before, and it
looks awesome! Cheers.

\- a vimmer

~~~
icebraining
Yeah, it's awesome, particularly if you like VIM and have a small screen
(since it lets you hide the top bars without losing functionality).

Try using CTRL+I on a textarea: it lets you edit it in (G)Vim itself ;)

------
ebbv
> someone who wants JS to be off or blocked. Someone who is thus actually
> pretty tech-savvy

I disagree. Anyone who has JS disabled in 2012 is not tech savvy. They are a
paranoid weirdo. They're the guy who refuses to buy a TV even though the Wire,
Breaking Bad and Justified are on.

Nobody should have to waste their time trying to convince you to be sane.

~~~
Lockyy
"Refuses to buy a TV even though -snipped- is on."

Forgetting about Netflix on your pc are you? In fact, watching shows on a
specific channel as opposed to via an on demand service such as Netflix is
actually a worse experience. Because I watch things when the TV channel
decides, as opposed to when I want to watch things.

I have a TV. I haven't switched the channel off of my ps3 once. Everything I
could ever want to watch is on there.

~~~
Tooluka
Netflix, really? The one with "Sorry, we are not available in our country"
label on the homepage? Sure, all those good (and bad) series are also
unavailable on TV in my country :) ...

PS: just about every legal streaming site is unavailable outside USA. Or
outside 10-15 premium countries in best case.

~~~
Lockyy
I completely forgot about the level of availability of Netflix to people in
other countries. I've heard it's going badly down the drain in the US but it
just rolled out a couple months ago in the UK and it's been improving in
quality ever since.

But that doesn't change the whole DVD solution.

------
Jach
What a wordy way to get across the point. Here's a tl;dr:

If your webpage doesn't display anything without javascript, or if it doesn't
display anything except "please enable javascript" or "here's a link to tell
you how to enable javascript", then please take the extra minute to add
something like the following to your webpage:

    
    
        <noscript><span style="color:red">This site about X requires scripting because Y.</span></noscript>
    

That's it, shortening/assuming context/lengthening as desired. Warning that
your site will/will not be using your browser to mine bitcoins for the owner
is optional. Recoding your site so it works with lynx is also optional and
fine, if you really want to, but it's not what's being asked.

------
lucb1e
To comment on the story: Yes, I have browsed without remembering that I had it
disabled. Briefly, I guess a minute or five. Then I started missing things.

Javascript is to enhance the web, the crux of all webapps. Going around to
disable it, then enable it for half the websites you encounter, kinda seems
overkill to me.

I definitely see the advantages though. It's much faster, and you don't get
disturbed by anything. Ideally I'd automatically get every article I go to
from HN trough readability first. But doing that is slower than just letting
my computer load the thousands of lines of JS, and not everything from HN is
text. I can live with the nonsense on the page as long as adblock plus is
turned on. Actually every news website should go trough readability, or at
least get the "share it with your friends on Facebook, G+, Twitter, email,
print, delicious, stumbleupon, digg, or by direct link" blocked by adblock
plus. But disabling Javascript just for this?

My website also has a message for people who don't have Javascript enabled. It
does aim for an average user who doesn't know he has it enabled since one of
the priorities is to get the broadest possible compatibility, but that's just
one sentence linking you to where you can read more if you want to.

One of the things I promise in the more info is that my Javascript won't ever
be intrusive in any way. For example I use it to load Disqus comments, or to
toggle visibility of fields when you click something. JS is not required to
navigate or get all content though.

------
marcusf
Honest question: How large is the noscript population? If I were to chose
where to invest my time, catering to the noscript crowd would probably come
pretty low on my list of priorities.

~~~
romaniv
This is not just a question of population size. It would be if the decision to
browse without JavaScript was an arbitrary choice, and if designing website
relying on JavaScript resulted in better overall design. Neither are the case.

Very often websites that don't work without JavaScript have serious
design/privacy issues, which better be fixed even if no one disabled scripts.
Very often the reason those websites require scripts is because the developers
working on them are incapable to conceptualize desired business logic using
some simple mental model, so they just throw random code and libraries at the
issue until it seems solved.

Saying that "it's an app" is a common, but very weak excuse. Most websites are
not doing anything that would warrant them an app status. They simply use
JavaScript to enhance browsing experience. That's perfectly fine, but the
inability to isolate those enhancements from code logic that's _required_ to
make the website work is indicative of the problem that I described above.

~~~
nkassis
"Very often websites that don't work without JavaScript have serious
design/privacy issues, which better be fixed even if no one disabled scripts."

I'm not sure I understand your logic here. Many sites use javascript for
advanced features not possible otherwise. I don't see how not working without
javascript equates to privacy issues.

~~~
gambler
_I don't see how not working without javascript equates to privacy issues._

Stuff like including Google's JavaScript by linking to Google's servers
equates to privacy issues. The fact that some websites don't work (at all,
don't even render) without external scripts is a design issue. These issues
often come hand-in-hand, but no one said that one equates to the other.

Also, if your notion of "advanced features" includes rendering of text and
images and working links, you might consider re-thinking it.

------
madhadron
A particularly egregious one: I went to download Google Chrome with links (the
text mode browser). Google's download page for Chrome requires JavaScript. I
know Google has been falling apart, but really?

------
cnbeuiwx
This got me thinking of Engadget and how they actually WARN the user if they
have 3rd party cookies disabled (!) when reading comments:

"Warning: A browser setting is preventing you from logging in. Fix this
setting to log in"

Sigh.

------
npsimons
To all those who are saying "forget the people with JS disabled", I'd like to
remind them that attention is scarce; information is not. Do the math. Sure,
we may not account for very many people. We may not be "important" in your
world. But I can tell you that when I encounter a website that doesn't work
without JS, or balks at my filtering/anonymizing/caching proxy (with custom
user-agent), I go elsewhere. I don't forward the URI of that site, or bookmark
it. I forget about it. It doesn't exist to me. There are likely a dozen other
similar sites willing to get my business or attention. I have no time or
patience to waste on people who want me to jump through hoops just to see
their sales pitch. To be sure, I turn on Javascript for some sites, but it's a
pretty high bar that has to be met. Requiring Javascript to read a blog does
not meet that bar. This article is right on the money.

------
packynix
it's 2012 and you should just enable javascript.

~~~
icebraining
That's up to each user to decide. We (NoScript users) have our reasons to keep
it disabled by default. You may not agree with them, but it's our choice.

If you have a site, it's your choice to either ignore us (like the Google
Blogs) or not, but if you don't want to, then the author has a point: tells us
why, not how.

~~~
TylerE
Let me let you in on a little secret. We don't want you. I'm dead serious. If
you're blocking our ads, and not even allowing us to count you as a visitor by
blocking our analytics code, we'd really just as soon NOT have you burning up
our server's CPU and using our bandwidth.

~~~
tobiasu
I have yet to see a share of your revenue for enabling Javascript. Oh, you
want it all to yourself?

~~~
talmand
I don't understand. Are you saying you want to consume the website's content
and then share in the revenue they manage to generate from you?

~~~
tobiasu
I supplied electricity, a computer, internet connection, and a virtual machine
to run code in (that's a business model by itself).

I may have profited from the content, but I surely have generated revenue for
the site operator. And I want a part of it, isn't that reasonable for my time
and cost? I'm just as much a capitalist as the site owner. I know my visit to
their site has value to them, regardless of the content.

We could argue whether they paid me enough in content. But the automatic
assumption that this is true isn't acceptable. In fact, the worst and most
successful offenders in this business model usually provide the lowest value
and often no value at all. See link farms and other blog spam/scams.

If it isn't obvious: this is a thought experiment. I'm not actually demanding
my 0.0037 cents/view.

~~~
TylerE
You got the content. That's your side of the deal.

------
ojr
Complaining about enabling javascript on tumblr, a site that has many
javascript functions built into their blog system by default is an oxymoron.

Generation Y and our "evil" javascript enabled browsers will take over
Generation X in years to come.

~~~
marginalboy
I think you missed the point. The author clearly stated he was willing to
whitelist a site he wants to use. There are good reasons for someone not to
browse arbitrary sites with JS enabled by default if they choose, from
security to memory management...

------
cientifico
You are not part of my target users. Sorry and goodbye.

As long as I normally focus on the 80% of the users, and more that 80% of my
users use javascript, I have to say, that you are not part of my target. I
don't have the money to make an app for the user with a normal browser
(including mobile), and the user with IE, ups, sorry, the users without
javascript.

Buy a better computer

~~~
LinXitoW
I get the sentiment(and i'm right there with ya), but the author isn't asking
for your whole website to work without JS, just to display some very basic,
static stuff without Javascript. Hell, even just ignoring that JS is missing
might be a better solution. That way, the user at least gets to look at the
HTML and CSS, which will probably still convey enough information about the
website.

I really don't understand why anyone'd even react to missing JS. Anyone
willfully turning it off will be aware of that.

------
16s
Many people don't understand the distinction between client-side and server-
side. Javascript typically runs on _your computer_. I know that it seems to be
out there on the Web, but it's not. It's running locally on _your computer_.
It's using _your CPU and your memory_. It's important that normal people
understand this.

Edit: We disable Javascript because we don't want other people running code on
our computers without our consent or knowledge while we browse the Web.

Edit2: Here is some Javascript to peg a client's CPU (this can be malicious or
accidental, but either way it's why I run Javascript blockers):

    
    
      <script type="text/javascript">
    
      function burn_cpu(y)
      {
          var x = 0;
    
          while ( x != y )
          {
              x = x+1;
          }
      }
    
      burn_cpu(99999999);
    
      </script>

~~~
gregory80
I'm not sure I follow your argument. JS is bad b/c it's client side? Doesnt
that paint all fat clients and every piece of software before the "web" in the
same light?

~~~
16s
No it doesn't. JS runs automatically _on my computer_ when I visit a website.
By default our browsers execute it automatically. This is wrong. They do not
ask for permission or check for signed code or offer any protection at all. JS
infections are so rampant that a name has been given to it (drive by
infections) as all you have to do is visit a website and its malicious JS
_runs on your computer_ and does the rest. Delivering malware via JS is now
the cybercriminal’s favored means of attack.

------
mixmastamyk
Agreed. I'll usually enable first-party js on a new site, provided it shows
something compelling on load and the js import list isn't too sleazy.

I don't use adblockers per se and welcome them if they are polite, respect
privacy, and something I'm interested in.

------
tlrobinson
I agree you should tell users why they should enable JavaScript, but sheesh,
don't take it personally.

 _"Someone who is thus actually pretty tech-savvy, and who actually took the
time to wade through his browser’s configuration to find the switch to turn
off javascript."_

Or someone who's nephew decided to install AdBlock and NoScript along with
antivirus software when they were cleaning up their computer.

------
jakejake
My feeling is that if you have JavaScript disabled, then you know what you're
doing and you're used to sites not loading or functioning properly. If you
can't enable it (ie screen reader) then unfortunately there's no point in
saying "please enable JavaScript" in the noscript.

------
ww520
I actually use YesScript rather than NoScript to selectively disable
Javascript for certain sites rather than disable for all sites. It works
pretty well.

------
derekprior
Okay, I won't tell you to enable JavaScript. Can I tell you to bump up your
blog's font size?

------
leephillips
Ten years ago, the web was HTML and CSS with javascript as a optional extra.
It seems to me that the web has evolved into a communications and app-delivery
medium where HTML, CSS, and javascript are all first-class citizens. I
understand why some still block js, but I think this will soon make as much
sense as blocking HTML.

------
nemo
Disabling JavaScript doesn't strike me as "tech-savvy", it strikes me as
"paranoid."

------
VMG
Don't tell me how to write my sites.

------
teliskr
Using the web without JS is pointless. Just turn it on.

------
batista
_> On the other hand, what is the profile of the typical guy browsing with JS
off or blocked ? I’m going to surprise you: someone who wants JS to be off or
blocked. Someone who is thus actually pretty tech-savvy, and who actually took
the time to wade through his browser’s configuration to find the switch to
turn off javascript. Or someone who uses NoScript, or equivalent browser
extension._

I'd go with "someone kooky, wearing a tin-foil hat, a tiny minority, and very
unlikely to be interested in what I'm selling anyway".

------
sohn
Arrogant.

------
kaichanvong
I now `know` that this guy has the name Lisp.

