Firefox 23 Makes JavaScript Obligatory

mikejuk writes "It seems that Firefox 23, currently in beta, has removed the option to disable JavaScript. Is this good for programmers and web apps? Why has Mozilla decided that this is the right thing to do? The simple answer is that there is a growing movement to reduce user options that can break applications. The idea is that if you provide lots of user options then users will click them in ways that aren't particularly logical. The result is that users break the browser and then complain that it is broken. For example, there are websites that not only don't work without JavaScript, but they fail in complex ways — ways that worry the end user. Hence, once you remove the disable JavaScript option Firefox suddenly works on a lot of websites. Today there are a lot of programmers of the opinion that if the user has JavaScript off then its their own fault and consuming the page without JavaScript is as silly as trying to consume it without HTML."

Comments

Solution in extensions

[Verteiron]

As long as it doesn't break Noscript, I'm ok with this. It really IS folly to try to use the modern web without any javascript at all, but with Noscript I can still pick and choose which sites are allowed to run it in my browser.

I miss progressive enhancement

[Kethinov]

I miss the days when web developers still gave a shit about progressive enhancement.

I miss the days when you couldn't be considered a real web developer unless you could make a CSS Zen Garden (http://www.csszengarden.com) skin without cheating by changing the markup or using JS.

I miss the days when you were only considered a good web web developer if your site was usable with both JS and CSS disabled because you used semantic HTML.

I miss the days when accessibility still mattered.

I miss the days when writing semantic HTML, enhancing it with CSS, and enhancing it further with JS was considered the best practice, rather than starting with just JS and an empty body tag as is so common today.

I miss the days before the now popular false dichotomy of thinking that progressive enhancement is extra work was popular among web developers.

I love that the web can do more now and compete with native apps better. But I hate that web developers are so quick to unnecessarily abandon progressive enhancement in the process when that's what made the web great to begin with.