Honestly, it’s bonkers that the standard, default approach for all mainstream browsers is to let every random website in the world run any arbitrary code it wants on your computer.
Yeah, they usually attempt to sandbox it, but still. Sometimes sandboxes can be escaped. And sometimes the code can do significant harm while still inside its sandbox.
Most websites would break, or not even display, without javascript. Sure, it’s bonkers for you, but an alternative browser that can’t immediately show a website that works perfectly well in Chrome wouldn’t get much of a user base.
There are valid use cases for JS and AJAX, but they are few. HTML/CSS is great, and has gotten many new features that can replace JavaScript in the long run: Popovers, commandfor etc.
One thing I am missing is opening arbitrary popovers on a long hover. For that, you still need mousemove event listeners.
Most websites would break, or not even display, without javascript.
I use NoScript – I’m well aware.
But a lot of those websites could function without javascript. A lot of websites use it unnecessarily, for reasons such as:
They want their ads and trackers and other malicious code (such as soft paywalls) to work as intended.
They want to add fancy cosmetic elements to the content and are too lazy to think about failing gracefully and still displaying the content if javascript isn’t working.
They built the website in a framework that depends on javascript, and are again too lazy to bother worrying about graceful failure if javascript isn’t working, even if their content could, in theory, be displayed just fine without it. (Or maybe the framework developers deserve a bit of the blame for that laziness, since they could have made graceful failure a feature of the framework, but chose not to.)
In a hypothetical world where most browsers didn’t allow every website to run arbitrary code, then every website would be forced to take that into account and only depend on javascript when it’s absolutely necessary for the website’s core functions.
Most websites from when I was a kid did not need JavaScript. Heck, they didn’t even have any JavaScript on many of them! No CSS either, just HTML and images (which were very slow to load on dialup).
Honestly, it’s bonkers that the standard, default approach for all mainstream browsers is to let every random website in the world run any arbitrary code it wants on your computer.
Yeah, they usually attempt to sandbox it, but still. Sometimes sandboxes can be escaped. And sometimes the code can do significant harm while still inside its sandbox.
Most websites would break, or not even display, without javascript. Sure, it’s bonkers for you, but an alternative browser that can’t immediately show a website that works perfectly well in Chrome wouldn’t get much of a user base.
I hate javascript
There are protocols like gemini that only have text and files, no executing code. I wish there was more of the web moving towards that.
*Edited for wrong language autocorrect.
There are valid use cases for JS and AJAX, but they are few. HTML/CSS is great, and has gotten many new features that can replace JavaScript in the long run: Popovers,
commandforetc. One thing I am missing is opening arbitrary popovers on a long hover. For that, you still needmousemoveevent listeners.Because we fucking designed it that stupid that way, that’s exactly grandparent’s point
I use NoScript – I’m well aware.
But a lot of those websites could function without javascript. A lot of websites use it unnecessarily, for reasons such as:
They want their ads and trackers and other malicious code (such as soft paywalls) to work as intended.
They want to add fancy cosmetic elements to the content and are too lazy to think about failing gracefully and still displaying the content if javascript isn’t working.
They built the website in a framework that depends on javascript, and are again too lazy to bother worrying about graceful failure if javascript isn’t working, even if their content could, in theory, be displayed just fine without it. (Or maybe the framework developers deserve a bit of the blame for that laziness, since they could have made graceful failure a feature of the framework, but chose not to.)
In a hypothetical world where most browsers didn’t allow every website to run arbitrary code, then every website would be forced to take that into account and only depend on javascript when it’s absolutely necessary for the website’s core functions.
Most websites from when I was a kid did not need JavaScript. Heck, they didn’t even have any JavaScript on many of them! No CSS either, just HTML and images (which were very slow to load on dialup).