The sheer amount of websites that are completely unusable without JavaScript

yeah but also fuck brave

I flip back and forth between Brave and Tor Browser, depending on which one appears less fingerprintable; and I've disabled all of the analytics.
- The more things you block, the more unique and fingerprintable you become. Blocking JavaScript altogether may mitigate some of that, but you can be fingerprinted even without JS.
  Tor is a little better because they make your browser blend pretty well with other Tor browsers, so instead of being unique 1 of 1 you’re more like 1 out of all Tor users.
  I haven’t looked into this in a couple years, but that is my takeaway last time I went down the privacy/fingerprint rabbit hole.
- it's still owned by a homophobe that loves crypto, and is likely an antivaxxer.
  He was run out of Mozilla after only eleven days as CEO, and he helped found it!
  the guy is an asshole, and he's very likely using brave money for evil shit.

I think the best web page is a photo with a page of paper of handwriting : several photos if one has a lot to say.

Today’s bandwidth and powerful computers can easily handle it

I mean, that would work, and it would be a fun site to visit; but visually impaired users and non-English speakers would have difficulty without alt text, and at that point you'd may as well just write a regular page. However, as I said, it would be fun.

People in this thread who aren't web devs: "web devs are just lazy"

Web devs: Alright buddy boy, you try making a web site these days with the required complexity with only HTML and CSS. 😆 All you'd get is static content and maybe some forms. Any kind of interactivity goes out the door.

Non web devs: "nah bruh this site is considered broken for the mere fact that it uses JavaScript at all"

A lot of this interactivity is complete bullshit, especially on sites that are mostly just for static data like news articles or blog posts, the JS is there for advertisement and analytics and social media, tracking and other bullshit.
The fastest and smoothest websites are usually personal blogs of software engineers, no ads, no social media, no tracking, no pointless comments threads and no gimmicky UI animations, just text and images and if they do add interactive components it's usually done in a good way
- News site dev here. I’ll never build a site for this company that relies on js for anything other than video playback (yay hls patents, and they won’t let me offer mp4 as an alternative because preroll pays our bills, despite everyone feeling entitled to free news with no ads)
It's not about using js or not, it's about failing gracefully. An empty page instead of a simple written article is not acceptable.
- An empty page isn't great, I would indeed agree with that.
That site is literally just static content. Yes JS is needed for interactivity, but there's none here
- If you have static content, then sure, serve up some SSR HTML. But pages with even static content usually have some form of interactivity, like searching (suggestions/auto-complete), etc. 🤷‍♂️
Making a static site is a piece of piss. There are even generators on npm.
- Not sure that was the issue. I mean more that if you use only HTML and CSS all you'll be able to create would be static sites that only change the contents of the page by full reloads. 🙂
I can do it but it’s hard convincing clients to double their budget for customers with accessible needs they’re not equipped to support in other channels.
That being said, my personal sites and projects all do it. And I’m thankful for accessible website laws where I’m from that make it mandatory for companies over a certain size to include accessible supports that need to work when JS is disabled.
- What country or area would that be?
  And what do you mean by "do it"? What is it exactly that you do or make without JavaScript?
it sounds like you're saying there's an easy solution to get websites that don't have shit moving on you nonstop with graphics and non-content frames taking up 60% of the available screen
it's crazy that on a 1440p monitor, I still can't just see all the content I want on one screen. nope, gotta show like 20% of it and scroll for the rest. and even if you zoom out, it will automatically resize to keep proportion, it won't show any of the other 80%
I'm not a web dev. but I am a user, and I know the experience sucks.
if I'm looking at the results of a product search and I see five results at a time because of shitty layout, I just don't buy from that company
- I had a bit of trouble following that first paragraph. I don't understand what it is that you say it sounds like I'm saying.
  Either way, none of what you wrote I disagree with. I feel the same. Bad design does not elicit trust.
I'll take an API and a curl call over JavaScript any day of the week.
- If I didn't input it myself with a punch card I refuse to run it.
Stop, can only get so erect. Give me that please than the bullshit I have to wade trough today to find information. When is the store open. E-mailadress/phone. Like fuck if I want to engage
- 😆 F—ck, I hear you loud and clear on that one. But that's a different problem altogether, organizing information.
  People suck at that. I don't think they ever even use their own site or have it tested on anyone before shipping. Sometimes it's absolutely impossible to find information about something, like even what a product even is or does. So stupid.
Ehhhhh it kinda' depends. Most things that are merely changing how something already present on the page is displayed? Probably don't need JS. Doing something cool based on the submit or response of a form? Probably don't need JS. Changing something dynamically based off of what the user is doing? Might not need JS!
Need to do some computation off of the response of said form and change a bunch of the page? You probably need JS. Need to support older browsers simply doing all of the previously described things? Probably need JS.
It really, really depends on what needs to happen and why. Most websites are still in the legacy support realm, at least conceptually, so JS sadly is required for many, many websites. Not that they use it in the most ideal way, but few situations are ideal in the first place.
A lot of this is just non-tech savvy people failing to understand the limitations and history of the internet.
(this isn't to defend the BS modern corporations pull, but just to explain the "how" of the often times shitty requirements the web devs are dealing with)
- Virtually any form validation besides the basics HTML provides is enough to require JS, and input validation (paired with server-side validation ofc) saves both user frustration and bandwidth
- Of course it depends, like all things. But in my mind, there's a few select, very specific types of pages that wouldn't require at least a bit of JavaScript these days. Very static, non-changing, non-interactive. Even email could work/has worked with HTML only. But the experience is severely limited and reduced, of course.
I would argue that a lot it scripting can and should be done server side.
- That would make the website feel ultra slow since a full page load would be needed every time. Something as simple as a slide out menu needs JavaScript and couldn't really be done server side.
  When if you said just send the parts of the page that changed, that dynamic content loading would still be JavaScript. Maybe an iframe could get you somewhere but that's a hacky work around and you couldn't interact between different frames
- If you want to zoom into a graph plot, you want each wheel scroll tick to be sent to the server to generate a new image and a full page reload?
  How would you even detect the mouse wheel scroll?
  All interactivity goes out the door.
“nah bruh this site is considered broken for the mere fact that it uses JavaScript at all”
A little paraphrased, but that's the gist.
Isn't there an article just today that talks about CSS doing most of the heavy-lifting java is usually crutched to do?
I did webdev before the framework blight. It was manual php, it was ASP, it was soul-crushing. That's the basis for my claim that javascript lamers are just lazy, and supply-chain splots waiting to manifest.
- CSS doing most of the heavy-lifting java is usually crutched to do
  JavaScript you mean? Some small subset of things that JavaScript was forced to handle before can be done in CSS, yes, but that only goes for styling and layout, not interactivity, obviously.
  I did webdev before the framework blight. That's the basis for my claim that javascript lamers are just lazy
  There is some extremely heavy prejudice and unnecessary hate going on here, which is woefully misdirected. Well get to that. But the amount of time that has passed since you did web dev might put you at a disadvantage to make claims about web development these days. 👍
  Anyway. Us JavaScript/TypeScript "lamers" are doing the best with what we've got. The web platform is very broken and fragmented because of its history. It's not something regular web devs can do much about. We use the framework or library that suits us best for the task at hand and the resources we are given (time, basically). It's not like any project will be your dream unicorn project where you get to decide the infrastructure from the start or get to invent a new library or a new browser to target that does things differently and doesn't have to be backwards compatible with the web at large. Things don't work this way.
  Don't you think we sigh all day because we have to monkey patch the web to make our sites behave in the way the acceptance criteria demand? You call that lazy, but we are working our knuckles to the bone to make things work reasonably well for as many people as we can, including accessibility for those with reduced function. It's not an easy task.
  ... "Lazy." I scoffed in offense, to be honest with you.
  It's like telling someone who made bread from scratch they're lazy for not growing their own wheat, ffs.
  Let's see you do better. 👍👍👍👍👍👍

Skill issue - on the devs side.

A lot of pages even fail if you only disable 3rd-party scripts (my default setting on mobile).

I consider them broken, since the platform is to render a Document Object Model; scripting is secondary functionality and having no fallbacks is bad practice.
Imagine if that were a pdf/epub.

wild thing is that with modern css and local fonts (nerdfonts, etc), you can make a simple page with a modern grid and nested css without requiring a single third party library or js.
devs are just lazy.
- Devs are lazy but also product people and design request stuff that even modern CSS cannot do
- devs are just lazy.
  *cost-efficient. At this point it's a race to the bottom.
- Have you ever built anything more complex with CSS and HTML5? It is a massive pain
no fallbacks is bad practice.
This is how you know they're extra lazy -- no "please enable javascript because we suck and have no noscript version".
- It reminds me of flash when it first gained popularity.
  “Please enable flash so you can see our unnecessary intro animation and flash-based interface” at, like, half of local restaurant websites
- people who don't know what graceful degradation is make me sad
But they're not pdf/e-pub, they're live pages that support changing things in the DOM dynamically. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be mean but people not wanting scripting on their sites are a niche inside a niche, so in terms of prioritising fixing things that's a very small audience with a very small ROI if done they might require a huge rewrite. It's just not financially feasible for not much of a reason other than puritan ones.
- More simple websites have some advantages like, less work to maintain, responsivity and accessibility by default.
  Sure, what is already, that is. It starts already at choosing the frameworks.
Personally, I love server-side rendering, I think it's the best way to ensure your content works the way YOU built it. However, offloading the processing to the client saves money, and makes sense if you're also planning on turning it into an electron app.
I feel it's better practice to use a DNS that blocks traffic for known telemetry and malware.
Personally, I used to blacklist all scripts and turn them on one at a time till I had the functionality I needed.
- please never turn anything into an electron app
All modern browsers have Javascript enabled by default. A good dev targets and tests for mainstream systems.

because modern webdevs cant do anything without react

I'm a webdev. I agree. I like react.
- I disagree,I did fullstack for years without react, I used the much superior Vue.js
- Reactjs exists mostly due to how well know it is
It's like JavaScript is used way over its reasonable use cases and you need a thick layer of framework indirection to be able to do anything, and yet still sucks.
because ~~modern~~ young/unskilled webdevs cant do anything without react
There are plenty of modern frameworks most of which as better. Even the lightweight ones need JavaScript.

I have 13 sites whitelisted to allow JS. The internet is fairly usable for me without JS.

Same. This is the way.

Yes.

Many people won't even know what we're talking about; to them it's like saying "the sheer amount of websites that are unusable without HTML". But I use uBlock Origin in expert mode and block js by default; this allows me to click on slightly* fishy links without endangering my setup or immediately handing my data over to some 3rd party.

So I'm happy to see news websites that do not require js at all for a legible experience, and enraged that others even hide the fucking plain text of the article behind a script. Even looking at the source code does not reveal it. And I'm not talking about paywalls.

real fishy links go into the Tor browser, if I really want to see what's behind them.

Said it on a top-level comment as well, but I use "medium mode" on uBlock (weirdly not advertised, but easy enough to enable: https://github.com/gorhill/ublock/wiki/Blocking-mode:-medium-mode). I've found it to be a good middle ground between expert mode which is basically noscript, and rawdogging it.
If I encounter a site that I can't visit unless I enable JS, then I leave.

If I'd want to write a site with js-equivalent functionality and ux without using js, what would my options be?

WASM and cry because you can't directly modify the DOM without JS.
- You can't modify the DOM.
  But ~~some~~ most dynamicity can stay - sites can be built freely server-side, and even some "dynamic" functionality like menus can be made using css pseudoclasses.
  Sure, you won't have a Google Docs or Gmail webapp, but 90% of stuff doesn't actually need one.
  A basic website doesn't require js.
  A webshop, for example, does for the part around adding to cart and checkout - but it doesn't for merely browsing.
- You can't use web assembly without JavaScript to initialize it.
HTML and CSS can do quite a lot, and you can use PHP or cgi-bin for some scripting.
Of course, it's not a perfect alternative. JavaScript is sometimes the only option; but a website like the one I was trying to use could easily have just been a static site.
- The problem is that HTML and CSS are extremely convoluted and unintuitive. They are the reason we don't have more web engines.
htmx or equivalent technologies. The idea is to render as much as possible server side, and then use JS for the things that can't be rendered there or require interactivity. And at the very least, serve the JS from your server, don't leak requests to random CDNs.
- Htmx requires JS. At that point you already failed in the eyes of the purists. And CDNs exist for a reason. You can't expect a website to guarantee perfect uptime and response times without the use of CDNs. And don't get me started on how expensive it would be to host a globally requested website without a CDN. That's a surefire way to get a million dollar bill from amazon!
I mean you could build a site in next.js, ironically. Which is very counter intuitive because it literally is js you are writing, but you can write it to not do dynamic things so it effectively would be a static server rendered site that, if js is enabled, gets for free things like a loader bar and quick navigation transitions. If js is disabled it functions just like a standard static site.

I use uBlock medium mode, and if I can't get a website to work without having to enable JavaScript, then I just leave the website.

I generally do the same. In fact, on desktop, uBO is set to hard mode. Unfortunately, I do need to access these sites from time to time.

I just use NOSCRIPT to do this and its annoying to visit websites that need Javascript, but its handy with noscript cause I just turn on the Javascript the website needs for functionality (this should also speed up load times)
Sometimes if am using a browser without extension support (like Gnome WEB) I just disable Javascript on Websites or frontends that dont need it like Invidious (if am facing issues)

i just add any site that breaks without js to my list of sites to eradicate adguard filter and send it to /dev/null

🤨 The sheer NUMBER of websites, you mean? Yeah, that is sometimes annoying.

Ok boomer

As a web developer, I see js as a quality improvement. No page reloads, nice smooth ui. Luckily, PHP times has ended, but even in the PHP era disabling jQuery could cause problems.

We could generate static html pages It just adds complexity.

Personally I use only client-side rendering, and I think, that's the best from dev perspective. Easy setup, no magic, nice ui. And that results in blank page when you disable js.

If your motivation is to stop tracking.

replace all foreign domain sources to file uris. e.g.: load google fonts from local cache.
disable all foreign script files unless it's valid like js packages from public CDNs, which case load them from local cache.

If your motivation is to see old html pages, with minimal style, well it's impossible to do them reliably. If you are worried about closed-source js. You shouldn't be. It's an isolated environment. if something is possible for js and you want to limit its capability, contribute to browsers. That's the clear path.

I can be convinced. What's your motivation?

If your motivation is to see old html pages, with minimal style, well it’s impossible to do them reliably.
Not only should your site be legible without JS, it should be legible without CSS, and infact without rendering the effects of the HTML tags (plain text after striping the tags).
At one point in time this was the standard, that each layer was an enhancement on top of the one below it. Its seems that web devs now cannot even imagine writing a news article or a blog post like, something that has the entirety of its content contained within its text. A plain .txt file renders "reliably" on anything. You are the one adding extra complexity in there and then complaining that you're forced to add even more to deal with the consequences of your actions.
- What I meant is that you cannot turn any existing webpages to a basic page with some simple tricks like disabling js. That would be a never-ending fight.
  You are the one adding extra complexity
  I'm not the one defining the business requirement. I could build a site with true progressive enhancement. It's just extra work, because the requirement is a modern page with actions, modals, notifications, etc.
  There are two ways I can fulfill this. SSR with scripts that feel like hacks. Or CSR. I choose CSR, but then progressive enhancement is now an extra work.
Luckily, PHP times has ended
I guess I earn my living with nothing then. What an absurd take. PHP powers WordPress, Shopware, Typo3 and many other CMS systems and is still very strong. Especially in Europe.
(Apart from that, a lot of people shitting on PHP base it on outdated knowledge or have never used it at all. With modern OOP practices, you can write really clean code.)
- I was developing with Laravel until 2019. I agree that you can write clean code with it. Still, there are many better options nowadays, I switched to nodejs because I can use typescript for both backend and frontend, and I'm happier with it. Although js is not a great language, typescript is almost perfect. But it's not only me who switched, people ditching php because there are better options.
https://lyra.horse/blog/2025/08/you-dont-need-js/
- It suggests using minimal js, I use react the same way, whatever I can do with css, I do it with css. But I am not going to footgun myself. I start the app with react because at some point I will need react.
- Fuck yeah!
  Bookmarked for future use. CSS has developed a lot since I started getting aquainted with it.
  I didn't read it completely, is browser coverage addressed in the article?
- The only non-heated comment. I appreciate it. I will read it.
If your motivation is to see old html pages, with minimal style
Huh? i just want to see a web page. Usually a news article, i.e. text with few styling elements. In other words, HTML.
For most use cases JS is not required.
well it’s impossible to do them reliably
Huh again? Why?
If you are worried about closed-source js.
Isn't it always open, i.e. one can read the script the browser loads if one is so inclined? No, that's not the point at all. JS increases the likelihood of data mining, by ordes of magnitude. And most addons that block js also block 3rd party requests generally.
Use as much js as you like (most third party stuff is not really up to the web dev anyhow), but the page must always fail gracefully for those who do not like it, or browse the web in some non-standard way. An empty page is not an option.
Please also read some of the other (top level) comments here.
- You were completely fine with slow page reloads blinding you when the theme was dark. I'm speaking to those who appreciate modern tech.
  But anyways, unfortunately javascript obfuscation is a common thing.
even in the PHP era disabling jQuery could cause problems.
WTF. Do you think jQuery is what JavaScript used to be called or something? Pretty much everything you wrote is insane, and I specifically think that because I've been building webpages for 25 years. You sure never heard of progressive enhancement.
- It seems you misunderstood me.
  There were horrible tricks and hacks that were addig not only ux improvements but useful content. We used jquery for many of those things. That's why I wrote it, and for the legacy vibe.
  Disabling js would have broken that site as well, reinforcing my point that it was never a reliable solution to disable js.
This community is full of older people who have never done modern development
As a web dev, and primarily user, I like my phone having some juice left in it.
The largest battery hog on my phone is the browser. I can't help wonder why.
I'd much rather wait a second or two rather than have my phone initialize some js framework 50 times per day.
Dynamic HTML can be done - and is - server-side. Of course, not using a framework is harder, and all the current ones are client-side.
Saying making unbloated pages is impossible to do right just makes it seem like you're ill informed.
On that note - "Closed-source" JS doesn't really exist (at least client-side) - all JS is source-availiable in-browser - some may obfuscate, but it isn't a privacy concern.
The problem is that my phone does something it doesn't have to.
Having my phone fetch potentially 50 MB (usually 5-15) for each new website is a battery hog. And on a slow connection - to quote your words, "great UX".
The alternative is a few KB for the HTML, CSS and a small amount of tailor-made JS.
A few KB's which load a hundered times faster, don't waste exorbitant amounts of computing power - while in essence losing nothing over your alternative.
"Old pages with minima style" is a non-sequitur. Need I remind you, CSS is a thing. In fact, it may be more reliable than JS, since it isn't turing-complete, it's much simpler for browser interpreters to not fuck it up. Also, not nearly the vulnerability vector JS is.
And your message for me and people like me, wanting websites not to outsource their power-hogging frameworks to my poor phone?
Go build your own browser.
What a joke.
- You can build some very light pages with JavaScript. JavaScript isn't the issue, it is the large assets.
- Who said making unbloated pages impossible? Your comment would be more serious without your emotions.
  Source code is the source code which gets transformed to some target code. An obfuscated code is not source code.
  A reminder, in the past, large pages downloaded all stuff at once. In contrast, with dynamic imports the first load is much much faster. And that matters most. And any changes in dynamic content would just require the dynamic data to be downloaded. My phone lasts at least 2 days with one charge (avg usage), but I charge it every night, that's not an issue.