At the end unless Firefox doesn't block JavaScript, it won't have much effect.
Actually it's also time to ban JavaScript after horrendous front end frameworks made simple page loads slow, energy and time consuming.
Actually it's also time to ban JavaScript after horrendous front end frameworks made simple page loads slow, energy and time consuming.
Javascript is useful, it is just a shame most people dont use it for good.
I have at least 5 progressive webapps open right now, none of which could work without javascript. Of the other 20 websites I have open in other tabs, none are being annoying or aggressive, and I'm not even using an adblocker.
If it was just as easy to write and distribute native applications, we'd be doing that, instead of bolting it onto the web. But it's pretty clearly not.
I will bet you that in 99% of alternative timelines, we'd end up with something incredibly similar to what we've got today, and you'd still be complaining that applications aren't "native" enough, because practically nobody cares that a taskbar or button isn't a native OS component. They care that their application works, and can be quickly deployed and updated.
Browsers not supporting nonsense like Javascript.
(I'm going to ignore the use of "proper application" instead of "native (non-web) application"; it isn't helping your argument.)
Native applications can choose whether they follow UI conventions or not; many games don't, for instance. Web applications have the same choice; they can use native controls provided by the browser, and I certainly agree that well-behaved web applications should if they don't have a good reason to do otherwise (e.g. use standard form controls for native look-and-feel and better integration/interaction).
> they appear in the task bar
So do progressive web apps (PWAs).
> are launched from the application launcher
PWAs are as well. (Likewise for many other aspects of integration with the rest of the system.)
> Proper applications can also be sandboxed
But there aren't yet standard mechanisms for that (outside of mobile platforms), and you can't necessarily trust that an application will sandbox itself. Current sandbox mechanisms mostly get used by applications to protect against exploits, not for users to protect themselves against applications.
macOS certainly has one.
There's another alternative, which is curated and audited app stores à la iOS, but the fact that you can't use applications unless they're approved by a megacorporation would also be bad for people's computing autonomy.
(Also, what makes you think that the developers of bloated JS apps won't make bloated desktop apps?)
> (Also, what makes you think that the developers of bloated JS apps won't make bloated desktop apps?)
Nothing. Its possible to create garbage desktop apps. But its impossible to create non-garbage web apps.
Please expand on this claim. What is a "pseudo-application" and what is a "document viewer"? In particular, how does having an app runtime outside a "document viewer" accomplish the goals you would like to see?
> Its possible to create garbage desktop apps. But its impossible to create non-garbage web apps.
Please expand on this claim. I've seen tons of non-garbage web apps.
Presumably, a webpage in a browser.
> In particular, how does having an app runtime outside a "document viewer" accomplish the goals you would like to see?
> I've seen tons of non-garbage web apps.
Good web software can't compete with good native software in things like performance and platform features, so this is my guess as to what is considered to be non-"garbage".
For example, url sharing / deep linking goes out the window. I can't share what I'm looking at in macOS' Maps.app like I can on the Google Maps website, pure downgrade.
I also don't want to download an application for everything. Very few things deserve a permanent spot on my computer. I have much less control over desktop apps than I do a website.
Or look at macOS' News.app. Another downgrade from reading news in a browser tab. It has no tabs. There's no right-click. It implemented its own back button. It only supports the few news sources that come preinstalled on it. I can't add my own. Why would I prefer this?
Obviously native applications have their place, but let's not suggest there aren't trade-offs.
What's odd about your posts is that you suggest it's an inconvenience that you might have to disable Javascript. Maybe you have to use NoScript or uMatrix or uBlock. But at least you have the option and this sort of control over the web browser. If a native application does something that you don't like, you have basically zero recourse beyond uninstalling it or begging the developer to change something you could've done in the browser with a quick browser extension or CSS tweak.
Yes, thats the one good thing about the web. But there is no reason proper applications cannot support this.
> Or look at macOS' News.app.
Im not familiar with that app but I guess its some sort of reader for hypertext documents (published by news organizations)? The one thing a browser is good at?
But you can? For example, https://maps.apple.com/?ll=36.103117,-103.901438&spn=0.00098...
> Or look at macOS' News.app. Another downgrade from reading news in a browser tab. It has no tabs. There's no right-click. It implemented its own back button. It only supports the few news sources that come preinstalled on it. I can't add my own. Why would I prefer this?
You shouldn't; you should be annoyed that Apple shipped this and demand that they give you better.
Now try this: https://goo.gl/maps/dvhDpd93gJs
Installing apps is really not aomething i want. I am trying to keep apps on my phone low for a reason, browser is actually perfect for most of what i do.
Word processors? Only if you're requiring something like Markdown.
Video chat seems right out, unless you're permitting a Flash solution, which would be severely cheating.
I can use web apps on any platform without waiting for the company to do it.
I refuse to install apps on my devices.
Yes! You dont have to update if you dont want to. Thats a feature. Of course, the rise of proprietary APIs over interoperable protocols has lessened that advantage.
Is better performance and more features not an improvement to you?
What most people dont realize is web apps are a boon to linux people. Most companies would not develop for linux at all.
Support for most platform APIs?
> I prefer companies spend their resources on improving the product instead of implementing same thing thrice.
Funny, this is exactly my issue with web apps. I don't want to use software where the engineers have done a poor job reimplementing things the system provides for free.
You havent heard of LibreOffice?
Theres Ted if you cant stretch to libreoffice though. https://www.nllgg.nl/Ted/
'offline' apps, 'local' cloud. Its the future!
That's not to say I disagree though. The tech world is very good at creating monopolies.
Don't be disingenuous. The thread's about Firefox and JavaScript. It's quite clear @tehlike wasn't talking about native desktop apps, but web apps.
Well, technically it's possible, and even some parts of the script could be allowed to run or not.
> a browser cannot distinguish it from the good
But the user can. And the machine could help, thanks to machine learning.
How? I don't think that users even agree what consists of "good" and "bad" JavaScript.
For the more advanced things, like identifying the part of Javascript code that brings e.g. 'the fancy eating 40% of the CPU scrollbar' user want to disable, some automation is needed.
I have to do it that way because it's very difficult to determine which scripts are bad and which aren't without actually reviewing the JS itself. In my view, "bad" usually means that the script is phoning home in some way.
Is this good Javascript? I dont think so. Does disabling it on an individual level help? No.
I built my last webapp entirely without JavaScript. Users constantly praise how fast it is. There's no bugs with the back button. It's accessible out-of-the-box. Form inputs work correctly out-of-the-box. It's clear when data is being loaded/submitted and when it's not (since that's already built into the browser). And on and on and on...
JavaScript is the worst thing to happen to UX, privacy, speed, caching, and accessibility. So much of the web's UX is broken because of JS. It's depressing because it was all unnecessary. We went from a standard declarative interface shared by all websites to an "anything goes" black box runtime.