Conceptual acid test: Go to https://archiveprogram.github.com, then disable all CSS.
Observe: resultant web page is unusable.
Observe: resultant web page is unusable.
So the acid test is, have the people implementing this really thought this through?
Based on the web pages they are using, the answer appears to be, no.
Complexity is the enemy of reliability. A principle first stated in 1958 in The Economist.
https://books.google.com/books?id=aDsiAQAAMAAJ&dq="complexit...
I would consider it pretty obvious that the permanence of usability/readability for archiveprogram.github.com is orthogonal to the actual goal of this project. Do you think future generations will learn about the archive from archiveprogram.github.com?
(I am participating here solely out of curiosity about the web; am not trying to make any point or argue any position.)
We know plain text will be around.
I was surprised to find the website promoting this is tricked-out, which isn't consistent with very long-term vision of the project.
Chris Pedrick's Web Developer Toolbar, an extension that was once the greatest thing, does this and many other useful and insightful things.
My fave, I think, is Information -> View Document Outline, which is pivotal for gaming Google SEO, by telling you how your Heading tags semantically convey the page's story.
uMatrix can disable CSS for any source, including 1st-order references.
There are extensions which will disable CSS as well.
Alternatively, you can view under a console mode browser (lynx, links, elinks, w3m, etc.), and see what appears.