website/org/articles/no-js.org

Any Browser and Why it's Important

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You've come to the site of a web developer (me) and were shocked. You immediately
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thought: "Lol, why is his site so <em>old</em> looking? This isn't the 90s!" Due to my
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prediction abilities, I foresaw this happening, thus, this article was born.
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But seriously, I do have a valid explanation as to why the site looks like this. In fact, I have 3 reasons: aesthetics, laziness, and freedom. The first two in the list are quick hitters and don't really need to be explain in too much detail. Aesthetics: I like how old sites look. They are simple, easy to understand, and have a hacker feel. Laziness: I didn't really feel like putting that much effort into this. I'd rather spend my time writing articles and lisping.

That's right, a new paragraph for explaining the freedom part. To explain this we must think outside of the first world country that you are probably in right now. We have to consider what the computing situation for people who are less fortunate; namely, those in lesser developed countries or poorer people in developed countries. Think about it. What kind of computer does someone in a third world country look like? How powerful might it be? Chances are that the machine probably isn't the best. It's either old and "obsolete" or under-powered and slow. Chances are that machine probably has slow Internet as well. Keep that in your head for a moment.

Now imagine someone using that computer to access a JS-bloated site such as Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, etc. That computer probably isn't going to work all that well. This is an issue because those sites are preventing people who don't have high-quality machines to properly use their site. This becomes a more serious problem if the site is an educational, news, or religious site. What that means is that the site owners are preventing that less fortunate person from education and information. This is a disjustice towards that person.

I found out about this concept when reading the literature found on the amazing dillo web browser's site (here). Dillo allows people with any kind of computer to access the web as best as they can. It is a truly great browser and probably my favorite. They can do this because their browser doesn't support JS. So a lot of the web is broken when using it, but at least you get the content. Another related reason is called Any Browser. This is basically a movement to make web content viewable on any browser with or without JS or CSS.

Most likely you think that those reasons are stupid - and that's okay! If the entire web looked like this site it would be pretty dang boring! However, it would make the web a better place. "Better place? How?" Well, there are a few issues with JS, especially when that JS is nonfree; meaning you have no idea/ what is being ran on your browser! JS can unmask your IP address if you're using a proxy such as [[https://www.torproject.org][Tor]], it can contain spyware that can do all sorts of nasty things, and since it's nonfree, it's a destruction of your freedom!

Once again, you probably don't care. I can understand that. I'm not super serious about the nonfree JS argument but I am careful whenever I do use JS. Especially on Internet tyrants such as Google, Facebook, or Scamazon! Attempt to not poison your computer by visiting these site. For web search, use a freedom respecting search engine like DuckDuckGo, StartPage, or (my favorite) SearX. If you have Facebook, don't use it on your personal machine. I only use Facebook on my already-compromised iPhone. Twitter isn't really any better and I'm sure I'll write an article about it someday. Reddit isn't bad but still requirements nonfree JS, but if you can get past that, you're good! There are also a few free software social medias but realistically they don't compare to the bigger ones due to lack of mainstream use. Screw Amazon... (Middle fingers to the sky screaming)

Anyways, I got a little off topic... Moral of the story is, I keep the site minimal such that any one with a slow or old computer can still view the site with ease! Also, I don't have any JS because I'm lazy, don't like the language, and don't want to mess around with licensing my JS.