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What is driving peoples hate of Javascript, it's a good way of adding functionality to a website without having to resort to underhanded measures. I have heard about how some sites use it to track you but I haven't encountered any of this in my years of being on the web and especially not on sites such as this one, where the main article writer is so clearly FOR internet freedom.

As a secondary note though, if you have javascript blocked you can always add a blocker exception for this site.

I think most of it comes from the way most websites use it when it's not necessary and, on top of that, a lot of js coding these days seems to be done by twelve-year-old script kiddies who have no understanding of code optimization rather than professional web developers. The over-use, misuse, and widely varying performance and implementation of Javascript across various browsers and platforms (particularly slightly older mobile platforms) has resulted in a great deal of wide-spread resentment of the technology. Javascript itself isn't the problem, it's the people who misuse it for in-your-face flashy looks or who accidentally degrade your machine's performance without realizing it. Remember that not everyone's running the latest and greatest, although I'd bet most people who visit OSNews are.


Are you saying you have never used Google, or any other modern search provider? If you have, then you'd better believe you've encountered it. Any webpages that have been infested with Facebook or Twitter? How about any web page that uwses Google Ads? You've never seen those, in years of being on the web? If you've seen any of these things at all, then you've seen use of both Javascript and cookies to track you.

Javascript is the #1 way of being hacked through the browser. Usually in combination with Flash, PDF or Java plugins.

I use NoScript for security reasons. It has the nice benefit of scrambling most advertisements and tracking methods as well.

Most sites work fine without script. For those that try to insist via overlay layers and other tricks, there's various methods to override their CSS or edit the DOM via script. I find these Javascript-demanding sites to be so annoying that I enjoy defeating their silly tricks.