Disabled JavaScript myths | Hacker News Reader

Disabled JavaScript myths

blog.istvan-antal.ro

2 pointsDjDarkman3 comments

Seems like JS is a hot topic today. Let me try to argue in favor of disabling JS, using the very same three points. I'm one of those more strict JS disable people, but feel free to correct me if I see things wrong.

1) Using JavaScript is insecure: Without doubt JS had security holes in the past, and they continue to show up.

2) JavaScript is a privacy threat: This has a lot to do with what you define as privacy. To my knowledge it is possible to track my cursor in the entire website, while I'm on it. This is a example of what I call a privacy issue. Some people my not care about that. Interactive parts of a website always expose the way I interact with it. Sometimes this is fine, because the product needs it to function.

3) JavaScript saves bandwidth: I think that not so much because of the initial load of a webpage. JS enables a webpage to costantly query back to the server. An example is gmail, and the notification for a new email, while you are logged into gmail.

People should not take this too personal. If your webpage is truthfully, or offers something I'm eager to use, I'll give it to you.

> 1) Using JavaScript is insecure: Without doubt JS had security holes in the past, and they continue to show up.

Those are browser vulnerabilities, not JavaScript vulnerabilities, you should have seen the same happen with PDF, these are browser bugs, they get patched. Example: if your break malfunctions in your car, you'd get it fixed instead of replacing your car with a bike.

> 2) JavaScript is a privacy threat: This has a lot to do...

Native applications can also do that. Here you could easily write a browser extension to disable mouse tracking or whatever you wish, you don't get this so easy anywhere else.

> 3) JavaScript saves bandwidth: I think that not so much because of the initial load of a webpage. JS enables a webpage to costantly query back to the server. An example is gmail, and the notification for a new email, while you are logged into gmail.

If you do this correctly you could mostly get away with few bytes per request. You can't do this without JS.

I argue this one all the time, just look at my post history. The fact is the world moves on and this is the way of the future whether one likes it on not. It is happening, has reached critical mass, and users are demanding the increased usability that it provides. Further marketing and accounting departments are crunching the numbers and finding that you spend more chasing this small sub-set of the market. When faced with spending 25% of your budget chasing a slower development model to support 5% of the market or to spend that 25% adding revenue streams or increasing conversion on the 95% then it becomes a no brainier.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com