linuxmemes

The company I worked for used to use SSR which was fine but the web scraping was relentless and the "free" thing we offered was relatively computationally expensive. Eventually we moved to SPA and bought into the CloudFlare protection racket. This didn't stop it of course but it made the low effort scrapers have to use a browser and hopefully bumped their costs us The advent of the LLM crawlers has made everything worse as well.

We got a bunch of complaints when we moved to the JS only site saying we were ruining the Internet and while I didn't disagree the practicalities make it a requirement.

Bottom left text gives reasons that relate to security, which is also related to privacy. I don't trust arbitrary scripts, and I find it more convenient to simply disallow them. While css can theoretically be used to track mouse movements, that is typically done with javascripts, and I find that creepy af. I don't like the feeling that I'm being observed. I get enough of that whenever I go outside into this dystopic world.

So on that note, as I've said in some other comments within this thread, I prefer static pages from a UX perspective. Static pages feel comfy and safe, at least in comparison to the alternative. In contrast, javascripts tend to make the UX of sites worse in my view. So there aren't any compelling reasons for me to allow them most of the time.

It comes down to this: What do I gain by allowing javascripts? What I see is largely nothing. What do I lose by allowing javascripts? Comfort, calm, and a relaxed experience.

That makes it easier for dyslexics?

I find it awful to read - takes a lot more effort for me I'm surprised it helps with dyslexia.

This disabling scripts thing is really for hardcore privacy enthusiasts. Just install librewolf on your linux box, change the DNS on your router to block ads and you're good.

The reason i say it's for enthusiasts is that it will break everything as soon as you do it. And i mean it. The modern web is not useful without java script. Only websites designed specifically for working without javascript will still work.

It depends on the site. Some sites which leverage javascripts are still usable without the scripts. And there is a spectrum of usability. Lemmy is a good example. Most lemmy instances which are open to the public (without captchas or login) are generally usable without javascripts. Some features don't work, but knowing the path to the page allows manually getting there without javascript buttons. So like, adding /?sort=TopHour to the end of a lemmy instance's url sets the sorting for the page to top posts in the past hour. However, some other features don't seem to work at all. But then there are lemmy instances which utilize mlmym, which basically replicates old reddit and works 100% without javascripts. And then there are instances like mbin, which is designed to be a modern fediverse experience which does not require any javascripts, and it works very well.

When I load a site, any site, if I get a blank page or a bunch of placeholders for javascript elements, I just close the tab and move on. Sometimes if I'm curious, I'll switch from "Basic Page Style" to "No Style" (Alt+V Y N) to see if there's anything hidden beneath the surface.

In this fucked-up world, it turns out that I end up blending in, just not with other people. Users who disallow javascripts are often mistaken for bots nowadays. We don't stand out, and so we're assumed to be bots. I think that if more people browsed without javascript it'd eventually be easier to distinguish between bots and people, and captchas could maybe die out.

My laptop is airgapped, that’s why I use WLAN