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Comment by MzHN | Hacker News Reader

First-party tracking has been increasing in the last couple years or so I've been told.

When I first heard about it I decided from now on I'll run uBlock Origin in default JavaScript off mode. It's a checkbox in the settings.

I only re-enable on a per-site basis if I have no other choice.

I prefer this over NoScript, since it's one click and I still get all the uBlock filters even after enabling JS.

I've been using web like this for over a year now, and while it's painful, it's also enlightening.

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I do that, too. cmd-J as shortcut to enable JavaScript without needing to reload. In my experience once I hardcode which websites I need JavaScript on, browsing becomes painless. And much faster obviously.

Alright but the last time I did this the answer to "which websites I need JavaScript on" was "All of them". Is that still the case.

You don't need all of the javascript for all websites. In my experience, I enable javascript to load from probably 10-20% of domains (using noscript).

How do you set the shortcut? When I press cmd-j the Library in Firefox opens. I have checked "Disbale javascript" in settings in uBO. I guess that setting will be disable for just the site i visit when i click cmd-j?

This shows the keyboard shortcut configuration: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Keyboard-shortcuts#ac...

The setting is called "Relax blocking mode" and will enable JavaScript (but keep all ad blockers) if JavaScript is disabled by default.

In summary, for Firefox it’s under

  about:addons > gear icon > Manage Extension Shortcuts

and for Chrome you can set it under

  chrome://extensions/shortcuts

Not to mention how much faster the web feels with Javascript turned off.

Sometimes if a web page claims to require JavaScripts, the text can still be viewed if you disable CSS as well as JavaScripts. Another thing you could try is view source; sometimes the text or data will be visible in there, or you can find a link.

An idea which might be able to help more, is a script substitution feature, allowing the user to substitute their own scripts for some or all of the existing ones (and enable or disable or limit the rest of the scripts), by the URL or by the hash (if there is a integrity attribute, then it will not be necessary to download the file in order to determine its hash).

Thanks for telling me about this. I was already blocking most web fonts and suspicious third parties, but now I can also selectively unblock the sites I really need.

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