For those of you who disable JavaScript, why?

[littlelum]

Everyone says to keep people who disable JavaScript in mind when making a website. I'm curious as to why people do that. Is there some sort of privacy or security concern? Does turning it off create inconveniences for you? Is it worth it, in your opinion?

[futurearcana]

Most of the bad, undesirable stuff that modern websites do these days, including but not limited to cookie consent popups, most ads, random videos on autoplay and invasive telemetry, relies on javascript. Add to it the fact that most of the time this javascript code is proprietary and obfuscated and the end result is random untrusted programs (because that's what javascript "scripts" are) running on your computer without consent.

Given all this I think it's more than understandable for some people to want none of that and just disable javascript entirely.

Of course there are legitimate ways to use javascript, I use it a fair bit on my websites and I like what I can do with it, and to be quite honest while my websites all mostly work without it, I don't usually go out of my way to make javascript free websites. But I do respect people's decision to disable it because of the corporate distopia we find ourselves living in.

[ThunderPerfectWitchcraft]

I use NoScript to disable all types of script per default. Most parts of the "normal web" (Wikipedia is a honorable exception here) only work in a reduced version this way: No video playback, no music, buttons and links often do not work, sometimes even the whole layout is defunct.
When I want something from such a page, I give it a temporary allowance to use scripts.

Additional to the reasons mentioned above: Yes, security concerns are a thing. Most of the drive-by exploits and other malicious behavior that one can encounter when surfing work by utilizing scripts.

[candycanearter07]

I also use NoScript, like stated above it makes a lot of websites more convenient and less annoying. I also like how you can whitelist or temporarily allow certain websites, since its a good balance between a binary on/off. It's really nice to be able to turn off cross-site google stuff since a lot of websites have that, too.

[noahie]

On my browser (Ungoogled Chromium), I set up site permissions so that sites aren't allowed to use Javascript by default, but I can easily give permission to use Javascript on a site-by-site basis. I do this for a few reasons. The biggest reason is for performance. Javascript, in most use cases, doesn't make the site more functional, and is often used for tracking. Beyond privacy, disabling Javascript generally makes sites load faster. What I've found is that in a web browser, the only thing I really use it for is to consume media. When it comes to reading text, listening to audio, looking at images, and watching most videos, you don't need Javascript for it. HTML handles all of that just fine.

Of course, there's other use cases for Javascript like in the case of dynamic websites. If your site needs any kind of user input, Javascript has become the best bet for it outside of languages like PHP or Perl. If you're making a web-based game or some other kind of application that's more complicated than just basic media consumption, Javascript there makes sense. However, most sites (especially news sites and magazines!!) use tons of Javascript and it's literally all just for tracking and ads. Gross!

Overall, I've found that it's best to not allow Javascript as a base rule, and allow sites on a case-by-case basis. I do a lot of internet browsing and find myself on all different kinds of unique sites every day, so disabling Javascript is generally going to be a more secure option. Regarding a personal site, I don't think it makes sense to accommodate to those who don't use Javascript. It's not like it's an accessibility thing. If someone doesn't want to enable Javascript but your site uses it, that's their problem; there's plenty of other sites they can browse.