sent from a disposable whonix qube
this post was submitted on 15 Aug 2026
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Those last two panels are so far past the inconvenience I'd ever be willing to put up with. I'm not sure how it could ever be worth it.
I tried it for a while. I got caught up in the 'privacy' crowd on Reddit and went all out for a bit. Even de-googled my Android phone at the time. It is inconvenient as fuck. And you're going to be spending more time tinkering and looking for workarounds and alternate software than actually ever getting anything done. All just to stop an advertising company from detecting what you clicked on, or for the website owner to never get any telemetry.
Same.
I went from iOS and OSX to linux mobile and Qubes OS.
It certainly can be, living my digital life on my own terms like this. And yet I persist.
I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't feel that I'm held back by FOSS. I feel strengthened by the wide array of free software available to me. I have no use for anything from google other than their free noto fonts.
It's far beyond that. From the moment I began my journey into understanding and attaining privacy, security, and freedom, I was challenged. It was as if the world itself denied me the right to walk that path. And so I persisted.
I will continue to make decisions for myself based on what I want and what I'm willing to sacrifice. Sites which require javascripts aren't even a sacrifice. I do not like them. I do not value them. I lose nothing by avoiding them. I have rare exceptions, and those are handled in disposable qubes.
The world has hardened me into defiance in many ways, and I won't be bullied into compliance by corporations.
de-googling your android can be pretty easy and convenient, nothing compared to disabling javascript IMO
Nah it's really not convenient when it comes to things like banking apps that get fussy about how customised your phone is. It's fine most of the time but you're going to be running into issues at inconvenient times when you don't really have the time to sit and play. Although I'm also talking a couple of years ago now, chances are things have improved.
Yeah you're basically breaking everything. I did this before it was chic when I had a Nokia phone running Opera Mini lmao.
I don't trust banking apps, and I have absolutely no desire to install software that is so controlling.
Sites which are non-functional without javascript are already "broken" in my view. So I simply don't use them.
Is it though? Most people tend to try to talk me out of it. There seem to be lots of people who view it as unacceptable, and I've actually been bullied about it on a few occasions by people whom I'd thought were friends. I've learned to be defensive as a result, but that can come across the wrong way sometimes. I'd certainly rather it be chic than what it currently is, though I'm glad the comments in this thread have remained civil and generally positive.
(I spent a long time typing that last paragraph and debating about whether or not to include it in this comment. Hopefully it's fine.)
Yeah, even banks are something that's forced onto us, that you actually just can't live without in the current system. I also tried fighting it for a bit but the bank I'm with is trying to eliminate ATMs and making it really difficult to do online banking the old school way. And afaik, other banks are trying to do the same now. Just a matter of time before a vanilla smartphone is as much of a requirement as a bank account itself.
Yeah I was honestly just making a joke about the chic thing. It's definitely not even close to mainstream. I really love your passion for this though lol. And I agree with the cause. Glad you stuck it out.
That's a really sad thing for a people to allow to be done to them. Like, idk about other people, but I'm never buying another apple or google product for the rest of my life. I think it'd be really weird if that became a death sentence, in which people like me could no longer access their own money to pay for necessities like food.
Oh I know. I liked that it gave me an excuse to say that stuff in response though, and I was uncertain if I should make such a serious response to a joke. But I went for it cuz why not, lol.
tyvm for the appreciation π©·
My impression was that the OP was about disabling javascript. I've also had issues with banking apps on CalyxOS and iodΓ©OS, but overall could be worse
Yeah I've been running graphene for years. I can understand how the technically illiterate might have problems on rare occasion. Multiple stores can get confusing. Launchers are a thing. Nevertheless its nothing over the frustration I had previously carrying something I couldn't trust in my pocket.
Bottom left is a super-convenient built-in feature of Qubes OS, via qubes-whonix. I just click a button and a new disposable whonix qube is generated from the template, and it only takes seconds to boot. When I'm done with it, I close the window, and the disposable qube is automatically deleted.
Bottom right is my default, since I don't like broken sites.
Okay I just did some cursory research and it doesn't sound simple. Is it just installing qubes-whonix and creating a template (I'm guessing a yaml config or similar)?
As far as sites with JavaScript being "broken", that one puzzles me. I have tried turning off JavaScript in the past and probably 70% of websites became fully non functional. That shouldn't be the case, but it often is, and my impression has been that this has gotten worse, not better. I'm a web developer and no one talks about progressive enhancement anymore and frankly my coworkers have mostly thought it's silly to even try to support users who turn off JavaScript.
During the installation of Qubes OS, you can select a checkbox to have Whonix templates and qubes automatically installed. After installation, you can simply click a launcher to start an app like Tor browser in a new disposable whonix qube from the disposable whonix template. It really is that simple. Installing Qubes OS does take a while though.
Yes, those sites which become non-functional without javascripts are very much broken.
Yes, much of the web is broken. On a related note, much of the web is infested with malicious ads and trackers.
That's a shame. And yeah, those are basically just dead sites. If they're non-functional then there's really no point for them to exist.
As the web continues to devolve, with a growing graveyard of dead sites (and an increasing prevalence of malicious scripts), I hope that more people wake up to the reality that this is bad. It's similar to the dead-end that is google's android. Eventually they'll pull it away and leave a lot of people scrambling for their next option. I think the modern web will go through a similar transformation one day. I hope so.
I will give qubes-whonix a shot, you have convinced me!
There are certain functionalities that cannot be done without JavaScript. In my perfect world either no one would abuse JavaScript with ads and other shitty design choices, or at least I'd have an easier time with toggling it off/on. For now I'm leaving JavaScript on because it's simply far too inconvenient otherwise. Browsers are pretty good about preventing actual harm if you have UBO installed though.
Out of curiosity, what harm are you concerned about JavaScript doing with an ad blocker and while loading sites within a container? That seems extreme to me.
You definitely shouldn't rush into Qubes OS. If you're seriously interested, I'd recommend checking out videos and reading about it so you can understand it a little deeper.
Besides that fact that javascripts can be used to track and profile users, they also make the user experience of sites worse. I love static pages. Sites that require javascripts are the polar opposite of that. Useless blur effects and other "features" can cause pages to be significantly slower than static pages, and I absolutely hate it. I should be able to scroll smoothly and click buttons once the page has loaded, and I should be able to keep pages cached indefinitely. With javascripts, scrolling can often be laggy, buttons can appear and disappear in odd ways, and pages can be automatically reloaded without my consent, causing lots of frustrations. I cannot understand how anyone prefers browsing the web with javascripts. They are a fucking cancer, like 99% of the time.
I hear you on qubes.
RE: js, you're talking about the web as if it should only ever be what it was first conceived of: documents. In reality now it's used for full on software applications. It's not just used for animations and polish (and the shitty things you mention specifically), it's also used for dynamically updating the UI. A world you speak of would mean much worse order forms, paperwork for doctors, etc. I mean you do you, but you can't just not acknowledge that dynamic updates of a UI are better than filling out a long form then getting back "invalid data, you selected this and entered that, start over". It's literally useful.
The tracking concerns are mostly mitigated by vpns, ad blockers, and private browser features. I understand there are many flaws and issues I'm glossing over, but for the most part, the average person can just use those things, then opt to close the tab of a horrible website like you're describing.
tldr; you may prefer static documents, but modern society is built on forms and other types of vital apps, which would inevitably be worse without javascript.
I did web Dev when that was how sites worked, and they worked fine. No, it was never live updating, but the errors could be corrected and resubmitted just fine. I don't use QubeOS but this post has me intrigued.
I think software applications are better made as actual applications instead of browser-based web-apps.
It might seem useful on the surface but is prone to the same sorts of breakage and annoyances I was talking about.
That's an interesting example, because that's happened to both of my parents within the past few months from two different healthcare-related sites. The javascript elements frustrated them more than me, since they didn't understand why certain things weren't working, and I had to figure it out for them. And there were a few times when we had to start over due to the sites being poorly made.
That's really what I see in this reliance on javascripts, corner-cutting which causes problems. Properly-configured sites work better, and the ones reliant on javascript tend not to be.
I would prefer static order forms so that I can have the entire form and fill it out before submitting, while retaining a copy so that if there were issues I could more quickly and efficiently resubmit with the corrections.
Some people might prefer the dynamically updating UI stuff, but except for live chats I can't see a good use for it that static pages can't do better. And I think live chats are better in non-web apps which support end-to-end encryption anyway.
The most useful and efficient private browsing feature is the ability to disable javascripts. Using vpns and ad-blockers protects against very specific vectors of surveillance, while javascripts allow a diverse set of surveillance capabilities, so blocking them protects against several forms of surveillance. And with more people disabling javascripts, we all blend together better.
Modern society is also built on ignorance, conformity, and exploitation, all of which make javascript-based sites more dangerous and prone to issues. It's the easy answer thrown at every problem, like "a.i." and is similarly dangerous.
So you're saying all of this as though "on the surface" is all I've ever considered and have never tried to do what you claim to be the only acceptable way to do things. It is only your opinion that dynamic UI elements aren't worth it. They particularly help with forms. Conditional data in forms aren't something I just made up, it's a legit use case. Again I've tried your way and I lasted less than a day. Very poor experience.
I was talking about my own experiences. We can agree to disagree on what is a better user experience, as it's inherently subjective. I can't think of a site I've come across that was made better by javascripts, from my own perspective and experiences. I have always been let down and frustrated by such sites and always relieved to find static sites.
Yes. And for all of the reasons I've given, I stand by my opinions on javascripts. You're free to disagree. I wasn't trying to convince anyone, just sharing my experiences and opinions on them.
Sorry if I came across as dismissive of your experiences and opinions.
I tried using the web again last night with a browser extension that toggles off JavaScript. Out of like 8 websites I tried to use, literally all of them were broken.
So it's not even just convenience. It's that practically no one is building websites to work without JavaScript. I think that sucks, but I cannot change it by just avoiding most websites in defiance.
I don't know what websites you're using that still work without JavaScript, but they're in the minority from what I can tell.
I legitimately believe that most websites suck, and that is one of the reasons. If I enable javascript. I still find that the vast majority of sites suck.
We cannot change much in this world. I don't believe that I'm changing things by avoiding these sites which I don't like. I can hope that more people will realize the same things I do and join me in avoiding such sites, but without numbers there's nothing to be gained except personal comfort in the moment.
Well yeah, cuz (imo) most sites suck, lol. But even though they're in the minority (like me, lol), there are lots of good sites which work very well without javascripts, like distrowatch, duckduckgo, feditrends, invidious, lemmy (for the most part), librey, mbin, redlib, rimgo, searxng, wikipedia, and lots of smaller niche sites. Lots of news sites are also pretty accessible, especially the ones that work with firefox reader mode. So, that list covers multiple options for search engines, fediverse platforms, mainstream social media frontends, wikipedia (and various other wikis on totally different sites), and lots of news & informational sites.
Some sites that don't work quite as well are able to be fixed by simply switching from from "Basic Page Style" to "No Page Style" with
Alt+vYN(Menu -> View -> Page Style -> No Page Style). Lots of sites which appear totally blank can be fixed with that method. Granted, they don't look so good, but the information is accessible. But that's an example of a not-so-good site which is helped by disallowing javascipts and correcting the page. The truly good sites don't require fucking with them like that.So anyway, yeah. idk. I don't see the issue. The sites which don't work are the sites I have no interest in using. Allowing javascripts doesn't tend to make them better in my view. And I think the stuff that legitimately needs scripts are better accessed as standalone apps (like matrix and other instant messengers which support end-to-end encryption). I think it's better to use FOSS apps which have been reviewed by OS maintainers and others than to blindly allow sites to execute scripts through a browser.
But again, this is all just my perspective, my own experiences and opinions shaped from them. We each walk our own paths and have our own wants and needs, along with our own likes and dislikes. I just hope I'm able to be better understood by others who otherwise would have no idea why I and some others have chosen this path for ourselves.
(also, sorry if my walls of text are annoying.)
It's just a very confusing thing to claim, that's all. If 90%+ of the web doesn't work with js off then you're either predetermining that you just won't use 90% of the web. You've decided that ahead of time, so you cannot really say "these sites suck" because you haven't even been able to use them. If you had said "I try not to use JavaScript dependent sites" that makes sense. But the way you're presenting it, you don't have any trouble and just use most sites. Which I happen to know is not possible.
You put the "either" part, but I think you forgot to put the "or" part, which in my case here is that I used to allow javascripts for all sites and access all of the worst most popular ones but have come to realize over years of experience that the javascript-dependent ones are extremely likely to be god-awful experiences (to me). So I don't tend to bother with them anymore. That doesn't mean I don't occasionally get curious and investigate. It's just that my investigations do not deviate from my expectations. So I continue to conclude the same: that things have not improved (and in fact, they have gotten worse over time).
Based on my past experiences and random experiments, yes, I continue to conclude that those types of sites suck. The commonality is the requirement of the user to allow javascripts, which I see as forced self-harm at this point.
Idk how it seems that I actively use most sites. I would think that's impossible of any human. I recognize patterns, and the one that's relevant here is the quality/value (to me) of javascript-dependent sites.
Without javascripts, I get neat and tidy static pages that load super fast. I can have dozens of them loaded in separate tabs on my Librem 5 or Pinephone, which only have 3GB of RAM. It's nice and comfy.
With javascripts, I get a bad experience involving
There are so many things I hate about these types of sites, and the ones which require javascript tend to have at least a few of these awful "features". And another major bad experience is the first one: being given a demand in order to access the page, being required to allow javascript, especially the condescending messages that are like "sorry this is required" or "you must allow javascript". The demands are toxic/hostile and then the javascript elements themselves are an affront. The whole experience is always terrible (to me). I just want to get what I was seeking and leave in a rush to gtfo of there. It's never pleasant for me.
Hopefully this was more clear and to the point, but if there's anything else, please let me know and I'll address it. I am probably the most talkative person on this platform when I actually have people and a topic.
Though, sorry again for another wall of text. It is really easy for me to just keep going and is kinda difficult to hold myself back. And again, I don't intend for any of this to come across in a negative light. It can be difficult to create a text-based vibe that matches what I'm trying to convey sometimes. Probably doesn't help that I'm almost always sleep-deprived.
And now I'm struggling to finish this comment, so how about an emoji π©·
What confuses me is that in this case "these types of sites" is "almost the entire Internet"
I'll be more direct and ask a question. What percentage of the Internet would you say you run into major functionality broken without JavaScript?
I'm not sure why you're quoting me there when that is not a direct quote. Other users were insisting that most of the internet "is broken" without javascript, and I simply agreed with them.
From my experience, I'd say that maybe around 50% to 70% of the time, a website I open in a new tab shows the signs of being a broken site, and I usually don't bother to check further. Sometimes I do check and find that the site is indeed broken, but other times I find that it's fixable.
But yeah, it feels like at least about half of the sites I randomly try to open in a new tab end up appearing broken. I'm not sure what you're suggesting is a normal percentage, so idk if that guestimate seems reasonable or unreasonable to you. But I've been browsing the web like this for the past several years, so I do have a good bit of experience with this sorta thing, and that's my honest assessment. It's very common, but there are still lots of sites which are functional, so the web continues to have things of value to offer to me.
The first string in quotes was you, the second was me. Probably was confusing. In any case you answered my question and I feel less confused. For me, this number would probably be 95% no kidding. 50-70% is surprising but again, before I thought you were implying most sites, maybe even 90% worked fine without JavaScript. Once I consider that you already know many sites that don't work without JavaScript which you don't even try anymore, I guess those percentages could make sense.
It's a wild way to live, gotta say. By turning off JavaScript, you're essentially turning off most of the Internet. And especially when you are already running it in a super secure container, this is just wild to me.
I understand, I just felt you were stating things as if they're objectively true. Maybe I missed something. Have a good rest of your day.
Wasm seems like a good step towards a better web, and still is something really niche AFAIK.
I hope that it becomes standard, because is way more secure, and of course more performant than JS.
I do even think that the HTML+CSS+JS triad (and its single components, too) are a historical bad design decision, a HUGE one, and should've superseded.
What makes WASM more secure than JavaScript? I'd think that the main issue with JS is that it's a programming language that's running on the client-side, not that it's specifically JS.
The fact that WASM is NOT a programmimg language, and that WASM is intrinsically sandboxed and has really granular permissions (through WASI).
Also, how do you expect that, for example, a videoconference site (let's say, Jitsi Meet) will work if you don't execute any client-side code? And I'm not saying that all client-side code is permisible, justified or good, but rather that not all the client-side code is unpermisible, unjustified or bad, as you seem to imply.
And if you do use FLOSS, that's really paranoid, even if FLOSS isn't perfect.
I never said that you should never run client-side code. Even OP doesn't say that (which is why they're running some sites in Whonix, they just really don't like it), and they're way more extreme about not allowing JS than I am.
Interesting. Are the actual implementations of it sufficiently secure so far?
I have to admit that I may have exaggerated a bit, but I think the point is still clear.
Yeah, at this point it's quite mature, and especially the implementations in languages like Rust, Zig, or Nim are particularly secure, although the classic ones in C or C++ are too, and there are great implementations for JS, TS, and other subsets of ECMAScript.
Gonna code up a plugin that adds a button to disable or enable JS on browsers.
NoScript?
If it's a dedicated toolbar button I'm about to download it
NoScript is one of the oldest browser addons for selectively blocking/allowing scripts and some other things, and it's the only addon which comes preinstalled in Tor Browser. And yes, it has a dedicated toolbar button.
Uhhhhhhhhhhhh you are kinda late on this idea