Ask HN: What percentage of HN users have JavaScript disabled?

I mostly browse HN and the linked sites on mobile Chrome with javascript disabled.

Many times I get a blank page or a turn javascript on page, and at that point I just hit back and move along. Sometimes, when the comments are positive or I think the content would be interesting to me, I use the Share feature to open the page on Firefox, for which I only have an ad blocker.

For sites I often use that require javascript, like HN or github, Chrome makes it very easy to enable javascript just for those.

For example, there was a link the other day about a new documentation site builder or whatever that I was interested in and all I got was a blank page. Closed the page.

As for the extra work, it depends on what you're building. For my side project I knew I wanted minimal js to begin with and was using django so making it non-js-enabled friendly was not a huge amount of effort for me. But I wouldn't consider it if I was using a javascript framework with server side rendering or any of that fancy new age stuff. That just creates more problems than it solves (ie the project may be dead before it goes public).

Quick edit: I write js for a living and I really like the language. As a user, not so much.

I'll echo it's worthwhile to include those who don't run javascript.

While I don't block JS, I do have a few dodgy script areas listed in my deny list, so I do run into sites that either don't load or whinge JS isn't enabled - the worst offending addition to my deny list, was a site which was supposedly just a new AI based tracking research area being way too intrusive that cropped up last year and nothing at all to do with scripts - I banned its arse and suddenly I found a bunch of sites would not display properly or were not as functional as they were, pretty stark for a no nothing area and perhaps one would think that's was the site's bread and butter was hosting scripts - but no doubt they were set up as a prerequisite. Since then I've noted a few sites that stopped functioning properly have moved to be be a bit more robust -- loss of exposure, maybe even potential customers isn't generally a smart move.

I'm not at all a no-JS person, quite the contrary, but I frequently note sites that have too much functionality instead of being more boring but also better to use. The one thing I learned from the Agile craze is that it's a good idea to start with HTML-only, then add styling, then add a dash of JS where it really helps to improve usability, looks and general enjoyment. Back then of course you couldn't do CSS animations or form validation w/out JS, so today it's even more worthwhile to implement as much functionality as feasible in HTML+CSS. It's worthwhile because done right such a site can have stronger foundations that better survive the vagaries of the web, such as NoScript users, flaky connections or being archived: the more dependencies you have, the worse any archived version will be.

I usually use Firefox/NoScript, with js from all but a tiny number of domains disabled by default. The web is far faster and less crap-infested that way.

Yes!

I sometimes just refuse to continue with sites that start as blank without JS, or require many clicks in NoScript to turn on layers and layers of JS.

On my current main site most pages have no JS at all, and only on a couple is it essential, though those are old pages.

Some sites are only relevant because of JS (games etc). If you don't need JS why use it. My guess is you are looking at libraries and frameworks which use JS just to produce static pages. Probably best avoid them.

Without JS you can be sure that your up/downvote worked: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30316645