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Comment by WorkLobster | Hacker News Reader

Having browsed nearly JS-free for the last two-ish years, aside from a bit of tweaking at the start, I have to say that it has made things a lot faster, more stable, and just much more of a pleasure to navigate. If anyone is interested, I have found that two tools make life a lot easier:

- NoScript, which blocks execution of scripts save for those you whitelist. This means sites that reasonably require JS (e.g. YouTube, Google Maps) can remain functional.

- A bookmarklet that redirects you to the Google text-only cache of the current page, which is great for text-based articles that inexplicably require JS to show content.

View on HN

uMatrix [0] "Point and click matrix to filter net requests according to source, destination and type" is also nice.

0: https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix

Would you mind sharing that bookmarklet?

Sure:

    javascript:(function()%7Bvar%20loc%3Dwindow.location%3Bif%20(window.location.protocol%20!%3D%20%22https%3A%22)%7Bloc%3Dwindow.location.toString().replace(%2F%5Ehttp%3A%5C%2F%5C%2F%2F%2C'http%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcache%3A')%3B%7Delse%7Bloc%3Dwindow.location.toString().replace(%2F%5Ehttps%3A%5C%2F%5C%2F%2F%2C'https%3A%2F%2Fwebcache.googleusercontent.com%2Fsearch%3Fq%3Dcache%3A')%3B%7Dwindow.location.replace(loc%20%2B%20'%26num%3D1%26strip%3D1%26vwsrc%3D0')%7D)()

Glancing at it, it just seems to drop the webcache URL in front of the current page location. Credit to http://www.localseoguide.com/easily-check-the-text-only-cach..., if I recall correctly.

My main issue with having no script on is for website checkouts. Especially when buying flight tickets. A lot of sites will introduce new scripts in the middle of a stepper that you didn't need to complete step 1. Now you can't submit step 2 or 3 and when you allow the new scripts the page reloads and you lose all your form data.

NoScript doesn't actually work half the time; even when you whitelist a site through it the site could well remain busted. Source: bitter experience.

Presumably this occurs when the site uses a CDN for their js libraries (or even their main js). After a few days you start to spot which domains need to be enabled and which can be safely ignored.

Can you whitelist a CDN but only for a specific site?

Best i recall, even if you whitelist a CDN it only comes into action if you whitelist the root domain of the site you are visiting.

Beyond that i guess there is GRE, where you can build "firewall" rules.

For example i have Facebook blocked via it unless i visit Facebook.com directly, thus they don't see me browsing all manner of sites via their like buttons and comment boxes.

Depends on your blocker. uBlock Origin does this well.

Where can we get the bookmarklet from?

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