Most sites these days that aren’t just displaying content will fail in interesting & mysterious ways if you don’t have JavaScript enabled. For the general population, Firefox will appear broken.
And yes, I know that some people have reasons (privacy, web development) to turn off JavaScript. There are many add-ons that can help with this — but it’s not something that we should ship to hundreds of millions of users.
(EDIT: this is the relevant quote, but worth reading the whole article)
I have to say that this article is actually quite terrible, as is the opinion that any option that might ever be confusing to a user is an option that shouldn't ship with the product. The thesis of the article is:
"Well, we have met the enemy, and he is us.* In the currently shipping version, Firefox ships with many options that will render the browser unusable to most people, right in the main settings ui."
The solutions offered? Kill it all with fire. I'm paraphrasing, of course.
Problem: People today change some feature then have a "broken" browser (basically, they forgot to turn it back to the default, or they didn't realize they changed it in the first place).
Solution: reset button, also notification to the user that "this page might not work correctly", some sort of an extension of how Chrome shows you that a popup and/or a cookie was blocked, based on your settings. Don't treat your users like idiots, just provide information that clears up certain odd states by explicitly informing them of something like:
"The webpage you are viewing may not work correctly because the following options differ from their default values:
1. Enable automatic loading of images.
2. Enable JavaScript.
These features of Firefox are essential for most webpages to run properly. If the webpage you are trying to access is behaving strangely or appears to be working incorrectly, <click here> to load the page with the default browser configuration."
Done, and done. No removing useful features from the browser, no treating users like morons, but now I have a new, useful, awesome, self-debugging feature which is user friendly, and doesn't require a pesky IT guru's assistance navigating the sea of 10 trillion options.
Is there any empirical evidence that suggests that people accidentally disabling JavaScript and then being confused as to why websites don't look right is a significant problem?
The author of that article says: "Is it really worth having a preference panel that benefits fewer than 2% of users overall? — obvious spoiler alert: The answer is no."
The answer is yes. If 2% of users have a purpose for it, perhaps it wouldn't have been high up on the priority list to implement as a new feature, but it's already there, and removing it requires extra work. Is it really worth removing features from an application to deal with some hypothetical problem that's been posited under the assumption that most users are idiots?
If there really is a problem, it may be worthwhile to move it to an "advanced settings" panel, but removing it entirely is a terrible idea.
It's worth noting that Chrome - a browser that's far less configurable and customizable than Firefox, overall - not only offers the ability to disable JavaScript globally, but has it as an option in the domain-specific permissions menu.
The other thing Alex posted is firefox really gives you no indication of why the internet looks weird and is breaking left and right. So you can disable js or images or ssl and unless you're lucky enough to know a programmer or IT person really have no guide to undoing whatever happened.
Try disabling cookies. This exactly describes the effect, except that it's not mysterious once you're used to it. If something doesn't work, I open it in Chrome (where I have cookies enabled), and it works.
In many cases, I suppose the developer doesn't know about the cookie dependency (because of a framework or some other dependency). In other cases, I guess they don't care. Rarely does the page actually tell you that cookies are required.
Limi's blog post "Checkboxes that kill your product" is cited in the bug as a good explanation of the motivation behind this: http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/
A few months ago, I switched to using w3m inside emacs as my primary browser.
w3m is not capable of handling Javascript at all. And you know what, for 90% of the websites I visit, it doesn't matter. They function fine and look fine without Javascript. And if w3m could manage to make most websites look fine without Javascript, so could Firefox -- if its developers cared.
As for non-technical users -- they're probably not going to be opening Firefox's Preferences dialog in the first place. And if they do, they probably aren't going to start randomly checking and unchecking stuff to see what it does. That's something an adventurous geek might try, but certainly not your typical non-technical user.
If Firefox developers wanted to additionally protect the average user from this dangerous button, they could have simply stuck it in the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog, or added a scary warning about being doubly sure that the user knows what he's doing (like they do with about:config).
That said, I'm happy to use NoScript for this functionality anyway, as it's far more flexible than a blanket "turn off Javascript everywhere with no exceptions" button.
"As for non-technical users -- they're probably not going to be opening Firefox's Preferences dialog in the first place. And if they do, they probably aren't going to start randomly checking and unchecking stuff to see what it does."
You would be surprised what non-geeks tend to do when they have no clue what to do.
> As for non-technical users -- they're probably not going to be opening Firefox's Preferences dialog in the first place. And if they do, they probably aren't going to start randomly checking and unchecking stuff...
You clearly haven't worked with the same non-technical users I have. It took ages to figure out that "use TLS" getting unchecked was the reason our site wouldn't load for one particular visitor.
I wholeheartedly support removing all of these check boxes.
I like this! The option is still there for power users (who most likely _know_ why they want to disable Javascript) and normal users can't accidentally disable it. Win-win!
It's even more relevant now with all the front end JavaScript frameworks that so many web apps rely on these days. In an age where web sites are now web apps that rely almost totally on JavaScript to function removing this option except for those who really have a good reason is acceptable and probably preferable. I feel like educating users is becoming harder and harder due to how hard we've all pushed for "it just works" type experiences so rather than fight the tide Mozilla is going with it.
Plus, apart from security concerns which can be dealt with other ways, JavaScript engines are now capable of running multiple web apps in many tabs simultaneously without being noticed. Wasn't performance one of the primary reasons for having this option back in the day? Now its not an issue. Going forward we might not see a disable js button and think it just as normal as not seeing an option to disable CSS or even html. It's kind of a non-optional piece of the web now.
Completely agree. Non technical users generally won't find the option to disable javascript, and won't understand it if they do find it. Enabled by default, users are better off using add-ons to disable or block JS where whitelists or better yet blacklists can be defined.
I supppose too many people accidentally disabled Javascript in recent months while trying to disable Java. As long as there's an about:config option that does the same thing, I don't think it's a bad move to remove that option from view.
I will, however, miss the "Advanced" button next to the "Enable JavaScript" checkbox (if that button is going to go away, too, which the article isn't clear about). I use those Advanced options all the time to prevent websites from messing with my neatly tiled windows and trying to prevent me from using the right mouse button. Here in South Korea, the majority of blogs and forums have right-click protection enabled (and refuse to display any content if you disable Javascript altogether) due to ridiculous defaults in popular platforms, and every other website feels like they have the right to go full-screen. Firefox is the only thing that makes this stupid trend bearable. I guess I'll have to go and check whether NoScript has a similar option.
You know in Firefox you can hold shift and right click and it will bypass any event handlers on the website. It will just give you your FF context menu.
> This destroys a non-technical user's grasp of the differences between static HTML and programatically manipulated HTML.
I think this line says it all.
Non-technical user don't even know what HTML is, the concept they'd ever "grasp of the differences between static HTML and programatically manipulated HTML"? Do these people live in the real world?
well said. The fault lies in assuming that the rest of the world works like the way we (hackers) do. The fact is that they do not. Further, many of end users actually do like some of those animations that we find shitty.
JS makes the web feel responsive and interactive. I helps keep the user engaged with you site if used in the correct manner. Removing the option that easily disables it for a majority of users if the right step. Hackers will always find a way around it.
I can't remember the last time I wrote an application that didn't rely on Javascript for even parts of its basic functionality.
I simply don't understand why you would want to browse the web without JS enabled and the average user definitely would never turn it off except in error, causing them to think the browser is broken.
Every single common-use browser on the Internet supports Javascript, there is no reason to assume it is not there as a developer.
> This destroys a non-technical user's grasp of the differences between static HTML and programatically manipulated HTML. It hides the setting amidst hundreds of other obscure settings, and does not emphasize the extremely powerful tool that JavaScript is, and the fact that it is optional.
Most 'non-technical users' don't have a clue about HTML, Javascipt, static features, etc. To them the internet consists of Facebook, Google and Youtube.
Arguably users who want to disable Javascript could be classified as 'technical', at least enough to be able to Google either a) how to do it from within Firefox, or b) install a plugin such as NoScript to do it for them.
Right. Non-technical users do not think that way, at all. Javascript and HTML are implementation details of the website they are using. Even people who hire IT consultants tend not to understand these things much, although they might think they do.
I can imagine most web developers who freelance have dealt with a complaint from a client who had mistakenly turned off JavaScript, at least once.
Firefox is the most customizable browser available. It's about time they cleaned-up their Preferences panel and leave that stuff for extensions to tackle.
I personally never disabled Javascript from the Preferences panel because I never find anything in that panel. To disable Javascript, I use the Web Developer toolbar, which is much more convenient, although not convenient enough - since one might want to enable/disable Javascript automatically on a domain basis, which is why this should be best handled by extensions that are free to innovate the UI.
And while we are at it, I wish Firefox would add a search box in that Preferences panel. Its usefulness has been demonstrated in Chrome's Settings and Windows' Control Panel.
Also, Firefox rocks and I'm so happy to see it improve.
The following rant is somewhat tangential but, as a front-end developer that takes pride in progressively enhancing websites I work on, I think this is a shame for a different reason.
So many times when speaking to employers/product owners about progressive enhancement of JavaScript components, the answer I get back is along the lines of "we don't care about that" or "we don't have the time". Sometimes in conversations with other developers too. I think this change will contribute to an increase in that attitude.
Progressively enhancing a website enables you to still deliver a whizz-bang, fancy-pants UI but ensure that it degrades to a sane text document when viewed in, say, lynx [1]. And it doesn't mean doubling the development time of every feature, which I often hear cited as an argument against. Often it can involve providing a very cut-down equivalent that takes relatively little time to build.
Should we care about people that turn off JavaScript or use a non-JavaScript browser enough to write code for them? Given that the web is an open, standards-based platform, I think we should.
Way too many Geeky answers here. I could understand that, after all this is Hacker News.
But Majority of Users, My guess that is 60-70% of them, wont even know what Javascript is or mean.
My bet is that there is Less then 10% of users who cares about this. And less then 5% who just cant stand to disable it in about:config instead of UI.
And It is true what Mozilla have pointed out, Disabling even some totally unrelated Javascripts like tracking will somtimes make a mess of Websites. I have seen it far too many times with Ghostery.
For those 5% who REALLY cares about Disabling Javascript for any reasons because you think you know so much. I dont see why using an Add-On or going to about:config searching for Disable Javascript is such as big hassle.
And if you DO have such a big concern over a missing UI features, you can always go to Opera.
Is it just me, or do most of the commenters here seem to believe that it's no longer possible to disable JavaScript, as opposed to it simply being removed from the UI?
One aspect of this that I haven't heard people get into very much: the idea that a lot of people have, including (probably) most developers at Mozilla and many web developers such as myself, is for the web platform to be a ubiquitous way to deploy applications.
The idea is that JavaScript allows a relatively safe way to do that in a sandboxed environment (the browser) that is available on almost every computer.
The developers who really want the web to just be a bunch of static HTML are actually inhibiting that vision of a web platform. Because if disabling JavaScript were to become popular, that takes away that capability of web browsers to run applications. The conversation would go from something like "we can use JavaScript and this application will run for anyone who has a new version of Firefox, Chrome, or IE10/11, or Safari" to "we can deploy our application to the latest browsers, but we will have to first present a screen asking users to enable JavaScript on our site" or something along those lines. It goes from being a ubiquitous cross-platform solution to one that will only run for people who like JavaScript.
JavaScript in the browser is by far the best option we have now and in the foreseeable future for easily deploying applications across different types of operating systems and even devices.
Its amazing to me how many people don't appreciate that goal or really take it into account.
I still completely disagree making the web an application platform. Because of the absurd HTML5 cult, many websites are obtaining unpredictable and inconsistent behavior. The difficulty of explaining it to my old parents is increasing day by day. Moreover, browsers are getting fatter unlimitedly and only a few vendors can survive and develop them. It gives browser vendors special privileges. As we are experiencing now, no one can stop this "Disable JavaScript" removing. How can people say this is "open" movement? The good old web is dying.
The web should be words and documents first (I think this page is worth reading http://justinjackson.ca/words.html). It's too late to say but if you want a sandboxed application platform, develop it out of the web. I still believe the plug-in was not a that bad idea, not the best idea though. At least you can disable it anytime and you have freedom of choice.
I suspect that the back button will be eliminated next. Because it collapses most web applications and "user experience".
If the web want to become a perfect application platform, all virtue of the web will be lost.
I just want to mention that the order of operations here was that the web took the world by storm overnight and application developers said "there is a turning complete language in the standard, lets use it for programs rather than document scripting".
It didn't start out as lets make an application platform that can be accessed via url, it was make a document format (html) and share them over a network protocol (http) and provide scripting with javascript, and when everyone and their moms PC had that, developers started saying "can't we make that into a full blown application platform?" (besides failed experiments like java plugins or flash as an application framework)
I really wish we had just let html be documents and made a real remote-access application framework to work along side it, rather than having your program be 2 - 3 tags of html and 5MB of js. I'd much rather be sharing a qml application than an html5 one, because the latter was ground up designed to be a full featured interactive graphical interface program.
That would actually be neat, if browser engines included a qml parser and could load qml files as programs in the browser window frame. It is just extended javascript after all.
In addition to traditional client-server webapps, what about making local-only apps that just happened to be written in HTML, JS, and CSS? Possibly with a package manager run by the browser?
Okay, since Opera seems to have gone the way of the dodo: Is there a browser for power users? I mean, good luck to Firefox and Chrome, but considering I rarely use flashy websites, I really would rather use something that only works with half the sites, but has the experimentation and hunger for ideas for the sake of ideas more than for the sake of market share these so sorely lack.
Why do you think Opera has gone the way of the dodo? It's an excellent browser, by far the best browser in my opinion. Furthermore, they're changing their renderer to webkit which will ensure no more Opera incompatibility. If anything, Opera just keeps getting better.
There was a talk (or podcast?) that discussed how cluttered with vestigial options Firefox and other browsers are. One of the examples was JS - if you turn it off entirely it makes the entire web seemingly broken. As long as the option is there for power users, this is the kind of thing that removing will probably cause less headaches for people in the long term.
You're probably thinking of "Checkboxes That Kill": http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/ - and I believe it's what inspired Firefox to remove the option.
Wow, how times change. The smart advice was to never use Javascript. (Years ago pg even wrote, "I would not even use Javascript, if I were you. Most of the Javascript I see on the Web isn't necessary, and much of it breaks." ) Javascript has gone from horribly flaky -> occasionally useful -> necessary -> mandatory.
That's because more people are actually taking the time to understand the browser, dom, markup and language itself, instead of copy/pasting some poorly written image-swapping script. (God I've seen too many of those)... JS has been capable of doing some fairly impressive app-like functionality since the late 90's. I'd say NN4/IE4 was the beginning of that ability, despite dramatically different approaches.
Today, browsers have far more in common (regarding js/dom) with each other (IE8+ too) than at any point pre-2005. And it is about damned time. I still think the likes of jQuery round out a ton of those rough edges, and it still disappoints me to see so many who hate JS because they want it to be (insert preferred language here).
JS is, and has been my favorite language for a very long time.
disabling javascript is the most effective method against XSS, so it's really bad choice to not be able to do it simply.
not that firefox would be that security-minded in other areas regarding to javascript (XSS + form autofill without SecureLogin addon = fun & profit for hackers)
I hope you realize that the users of Gnome and other X11 desktops have already passed a serious level of technical literacy. In the event they haven't, it's because they're the direct family member of some techie.
[+] [-] gkoberger|12 years ago|reply
Most sites these days that aren’t just displaying content will fail in interesting & mysterious ways if you don’t have JavaScript enabled. For the general population, Firefox will appear broken.
And yes, I know that some people have reasons (privacy, web development) to turn off JavaScript. There are many add-ons that can help with this — but it’s not something that we should ship to hundreds of millions of users.
(EDIT: this is the relevant quote, but worth reading the whole article)
[+] [-] just2n|12 years ago|reply
"Well, we have met the enemy, and he is us.* In the currently shipping version, Firefox ships with many options that will render the browser unusable to most people, right in the main settings ui."
The solutions offered? Kill it all with fire. I'm paraphrasing, of course.
Problem: People today change some feature then have a "broken" browser (basically, they forgot to turn it back to the default, or they didn't realize they changed it in the first place).
Solution: reset button, also notification to the user that "this page might not work correctly", some sort of an extension of how Chrome shows you that a popup and/or a cookie was blocked, based on your settings. Don't treat your users like idiots, just provide information that clears up certain odd states by explicitly informing them of something like:
"The webpage you are viewing may not work correctly because the following options differ from their default values:
1. Enable automatic loading of images. 2. Enable JavaScript.
These features of Firefox are essential for most webpages to run properly. If the webpage you are trying to access is behaving strangely or appears to be working incorrectly, <click here> to load the page with the default browser configuration."
Done, and done. No removing useful features from the browser, no treating users like morons, but now I have a new, useful, awesome, self-debugging feature which is user friendly, and doesn't require a pesky IT guru's assistance navigating the sea of 10 trillion options.
[+] [-] Gormo|12 years ago|reply
The author of that article says: "Is it really worth having a preference panel that benefits fewer than 2% of users overall? — obvious spoiler alert: The answer is no."
The answer is yes. If 2% of users have a purpose for it, perhaps it wouldn't have been high up on the priority list to implement as a new feature, but it's already there, and removing it requires extra work. Is it really worth removing features from an application to deal with some hypothetical problem that's been posited under the assumption that most users are idiots?
If there really is a problem, it may be worthwhile to move it to an "advanced settings" panel, but removing it entirely is a terrible idea.
It's worth noting that Chrome - a browser that's far less configurable and customizable than Firefox, overall - not only offers the ability to disable JavaScript globally, but has it as an option in the domain-specific permissions menu.
[+] [-] x0x0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gavinpc|12 years ago|reply
In many cases, I suppose the developer doesn't know about the cookie dependency (because of a framework or some other dependency). In other cases, I guess they don't care. Rarely does the page actually tell you that cookies are required.
[+] [-] Osmose|12 years ago|reply
Limi's blog post "Checkboxes that kill your product" is cited in the bug as a good explanation of the motivation behind this: http://limi.net/checkboxes-that-kill/
The option has been added to the DevTools for developers who find it useful: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=864249
And of course addons like NoScript or js-switch are available if you still want this in your UI: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/noscript/ and https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/js-switch/
[+] [-] gnosis|12 years ago|reply
w3m is not capable of handling Javascript at all. And you know what, for 90% of the websites I visit, it doesn't matter. They function fine and look fine without Javascript. And if w3m could manage to make most websites look fine without Javascript, so could Firefox -- if its developers cared.
As for non-technical users -- they're probably not going to be opening Firefox's Preferences dialog in the first place. And if they do, they probably aren't going to start randomly checking and unchecking stuff to see what it does. That's something an adventurous geek might try, but certainly not your typical non-technical user.
If Firefox developers wanted to additionally protect the average user from this dangerous button, they could have simply stuck it in the Advanced tab of the Preferences dialog, or added a scary warning about being doubly sure that the user knows what he's doing (like they do with about:config).
That said, I'm happy to use NoScript for this functionality anyway, as it's far more flexible than a blanket "turn off Javascript everywhere with no exceptions" button.
[+] [-] dotmanish|12 years ago|reply
You would be surprised what non-geeks tend to do when they have no clue what to do.
[+] [-] nfriedly|12 years ago|reply
You clearly haven't worked with the same non-technical users I have. It took ages to figure out that "use TLS" getting unchecked was the reason our site wouldn't load for one particular visitor.
I wholeheartedly support removing all of these check boxes.
[+] [-] jlgreco|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sergiotapia|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bpatrianakos|12 years ago|reply
Plus, apart from security concerns which can be dealt with other ways, JavaScript engines are now capable of running multiple web apps in many tabs simultaneously without being noticed. Wasn't performance one of the primary reasons for having this option back in the day? Now its not an issue. Going forward we might not see a disable js button and think it just as normal as not seeing an option to disable CSS or even html. It's kind of a non-optional piece of the web now.
[+] [-] smokestack|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exodust|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kijin|12 years ago|reply
I will, however, miss the "Advanced" button next to the "Enable JavaScript" checkbox (if that button is going to go away, too, which the article isn't clear about). I use those Advanced options all the time to prevent websites from messing with my neatly tiled windows and trying to prevent me from using the right mouse button. Here in South Korea, the majority of blogs and forums have right-click protection enabled (and refuse to display any content if you disable Javascript altogether) due to ridiculous defaults in popular platforms, and every other website feels like they have the right to go full-screen. Firefox is the only thing that makes this stupid trend bearable. I guess I'll have to go and check whether NoScript has a similar option.
[+] [-] jwarkentin|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] thristian|12 years ago|reply
At least for the moment, the dom.disable_window_move_resize and dom.event.contextmenu.enabled preferences still exist in about:config, though.
[+] [-] aaron695|12 years ago|reply
I think this line says it all.
Non-technical user don't even know what HTML is, the concept they'd ever "grasp of the differences between static HTML and programatically manipulated HTML"? Do these people live in the real world?
[+] [-] slaxman|12 years ago|reply
JS makes the web feel responsive and interactive. I helps keep the user engaged with you site if used in the correct manner. Removing the option that easily disables it for a majority of users if the right step. Hackers will always find a way around it.
[+] [-] kondro|12 years ago|reply
I simply don't understand why you would want to browse the web without JS enabled and the average user definitely would never turn it off except in error, causing them to think the browser is broken.
Every single common-use browser on the Internet supports Javascript, there is no reason to assume it is not there as a developer.
[+] [-] BoyWizard|12 years ago|reply
Most 'non-technical users' don't have a clue about HTML, Javascipt, static features, etc. To them the internet consists of Facebook, Google and Youtube.
Arguably users who want to disable Javascript could be classified as 'technical', at least enough to be able to Google either a) how to do it from within Firefox, or b) install a plugin such as NoScript to do it for them.
[+] [-] readme|12 years ago|reply
I can imagine most web developers who freelance have dealt with a complaint from a client who had mistakenly turned off JavaScript, at least once.
[+] [-] bad_user|12 years ago|reply
I personally never disabled Javascript from the Preferences panel because I never find anything in that panel. To disable Javascript, I use the Web Developer toolbar, which is much more convenient, although not convenient enough - since one might want to enable/disable Javascript automatically on a domain basis, which is why this should be best handled by extensions that are free to innovate the UI.
And while we are at it, I wish Firefox would add a search box in that Preferences panel. Its usefulness has been demonstrated in Chrome's Settings and Windows' Control Panel.
Also, Firefox rocks and I'm so happy to see it improve.
[+] [-] philbo|12 years ago|reply
So many times when speaking to employers/product owners about progressive enhancement of JavaScript components, the answer I get back is along the lines of "we don't care about that" or "we don't have the time". Sometimes in conversations with other developers too. I think this change will contribute to an increase in that attitude.
Progressively enhancing a website enables you to still deliver a whizz-bang, fancy-pants UI but ensure that it degrades to a sane text document when viewed in, say, lynx [1]. And it doesn't mean doubling the development time of every feature, which I often hear cited as an argument against. Often it can involve providing a very cut-down equivalent that takes relatively little time to build.
Should we care about people that turn off JavaScript or use a non-JavaScript browser enough to write code for them? Given that the web is an open, standards-based platform, I think we should.
[1] http://lynx.browser.org/
[+] [-] ksec|12 years ago|reply
But Majority of Users, My guess that is 60-70% of them, wont even know what Javascript is or mean.
My bet is that there is Less then 10% of users who cares about this. And less then 5% who just cant stand to disable it in about:config instead of UI.
And It is true what Mozilla have pointed out, Disabling even some totally unrelated Javascripts like tracking will somtimes make a mess of Websites. I have seen it far too many times with Ghostery.
For those 5% who REALLY cares about Disabling Javascript for any reasons because you think you know so much. I dont see why using an Add-On or going to about:config searching for Disable Javascript is such as big hassle.
And if you DO have such a big concern over a missing UI features, you can always go to Opera.
[+] [-] bdcravens|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ilaksh|12 years ago|reply
The idea is that JavaScript allows a relatively safe way to do that in a sandboxed environment (the browser) that is available on almost every computer.
The developers who really want the web to just be a bunch of static HTML are actually inhibiting that vision of a web platform. Because if disabling JavaScript were to become popular, that takes away that capability of web browsers to run applications. The conversation would go from something like "we can use JavaScript and this application will run for anyone who has a new version of Firefox, Chrome, or IE10/11, or Safari" to "we can deploy our application to the latest browsers, but we will have to first present a screen asking users to enable JavaScript on our site" or something along those lines. It goes from being a ubiquitous cross-platform solution to one that will only run for people who like JavaScript.
JavaScript in the browser is by far the best option we have now and in the foreseeable future for easily deploying applications across different types of operating systems and even devices.
Its amazing to me how many people don't appreciate that goal or really take it into account.
[+] [-] NinjaWarrior|12 years ago|reply
The web should be words and documents first (I think this page is worth reading http://justinjackson.ca/words.html). It's too late to say but if you want a sandboxed application platform, develop it out of the web. I still believe the plug-in was not a that bad idea, not the best idea though. At least you can disable it anytime and you have freedom of choice.
I suspect that the back button will be eliminated next. Because it collapses most web applications and "user experience".
If the web want to become a perfect application platform, all virtue of the web will be lost.
[+] [-] zanny|12 years ago|reply
It didn't start out as lets make an application platform that can be accessed via url, it was make a document format (html) and share them over a network protocol (http) and provide scripting with javascript, and when everyone and their moms PC had that, developers started saying "can't we make that into a full blown application platform?" (besides failed experiments like java plugins or flash as an application framework)
I really wish we had just let html be documents and made a real remote-access application framework to work along side it, rather than having your program be 2 - 3 tags of html and 5MB of js. I'd much rather be sharing a qml application than an html5 one, because the latter was ground up designed to be a full featured interactive graphical interface program.
That would actually be neat, if browser engines included a qml parser and could load qml files as programs in the browser window frame. It is just extended javascript after all.
[+] [-] comefrom30|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PavlovsCat|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] icebraining|12 years ago|reply
[1]: http://surf.suckless.org/
[2]: http://uzbl.org/
[3]: http://mason-larobina.github.io/luakit/
[+] [-] ubernostrum|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] asnyder|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tessellated|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Shank|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] duskwuff|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ck2|12 years ago|reply
It's only being removed from the UI
The backend ability is still there.
Extensions like no-script and yes-script (I prefer) will still function.
[+] [-] alister|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tracker1|12 years ago|reply
Today, browsers have far more in common (regarding js/dom) with each other (IE8+ too) than at any point pre-2005. And it is about damned time. I still think the likes of jQuery round out a ton of those rough edges, and it still disappoints me to see so many who hate JS because they want it to be (insert preferred language here).
JS is, and has been my favorite language for a very long time.
[+] [-] Dylan16807|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] srikarg|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] holalala|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gcb0|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] readme|12 years ago|reply