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Comment by ciarannolan | Hacker News Reader

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ciarannolan

Do you use an ad blocker? Or browse with js off by default?

I do both and this site looks fine, like any other article online.

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I think we can agree that one shouldn't need that in order to have a decent experience on the web.

Yes indeed!

Can we also agree that we don't need JS in order to produce a decent experience on the web?

Not really to be honest. The web does a lot more today than just transmit text documents. SPAs are overused and generally too bloated, but the idea that JS is not necessary (or should not be necessary) is a non starter.

For a decent browsing experience I'll take a plain ol' HTTP POST that causes my browser to reload the whole page giving me as a user a clear indication the app has understood my intentions (I wanted to submit information) over the initial page load time, elements jumping around, making me click the wrong element, any day of the week.

I remember when mapping sites worked that way: image in the middle. Want to move it to the right? Click the right arrow button and the page will reload with the map shifted a little.

Compared to Google Maps it was the Stone Age. I get it, a lot of sites use an unnecessary amount of JS and bog down the user. But there are very clear benefits to having JS in browsers.

SF Gate is a newspaper. It's not an interactive map.

Different tasks should use different methods.

Sure. OPs comment was not specific to SF Gate.

It is pretty rare that a website requires JS for a good reason though (from a point of view of someone that would ratter not use JS). But many website are completely broke when JS is disabled...

I think you would be in the extreme minority of web users there.

Not on this website

It would be nice if it ran in formatted blocks and had to be activated like flash is on its deathbed.

Ads aside, when an article is written specifically about a rare video/audio that has been released, I expect it to be right at the top and clearly visible. Even with ad-block, you have to get past a long intro and dig for that single word link in the middle of the article to get to the audio.

That's true. I've completely given up on watching videos on news sites like this for all the reasons you mentioned.

I usually see the headline and go to youtube to find the video.

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