What's the deal with sites that require JavaScript to render any content at all? | Hacker News Reader

What's the deal with sites that require JavaScript to render any content at all?

8 pointsjamieweb8 comments

I use Google Chromium, and I have JavaScript disabled by default. I then whitelist specific trusted sites that require it.

There are a large number of websites that display nothing but a blank, white page when visiting them with JS disabled.

Some of these websites are very popular, large and well-known, while others are smaller startup/personal projects that are posted on HN.

Is there a particular design decision that results in this large number of websites? Or perhaps a common framework that doesn't have a <noscript>-like component?

I'm not expecting the full website to work with JS disabled, but I should at least be able to view the static content. At the very least there should be a warning suggesting that JS should be enabled.

I know that I'm in an extreme minority with this, but it seems like a silly thing for website operators to miss out.

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Most JavaScript frameworks load content just fine without JavaScript. For instance, React, Vue and Angular can all do this with server side rendering.

But it requires a bit of work to set up, and so some developers either can't figure it out or can't be bothered to try and figure it out, hence the JavaScript needed to render the page at all thing.

The thing is that in 2018, JS is a requirement. Yes developers could spend extra time adjusting for static vs dynamic content but there is a tradeoff to everything. In most cases, it is not worth tweaking the site to cater to audiences who turn off JS by default. You are just a small minority and not worth the time. It is all about trade-offs.

There is the <noscript> tag, but its usage seems extremely low. I'm half surprised that it made it into the HTML5 spec to be honest, similar ones such as <noframes> were left out.

The thing that annoys me the most about this are websites that render a blank white page, but when you check the page source you realise the content is right there, but hidden by default and then unhidden through JavaScript. It boggles the mind.

I do agree that a <noscript> tag would make it a bit more user-friendly but again, it is just not a priority for majority of web devs these days. I bet a lot of noobs don't even know those tags.

I agree, but I use user CSS to fix that (and many other problems, many of which have nothing to do with JavaScript anyways). One thing I saw in one webpage is in the comments of the JavaScript code they mentioned it is for "click jack" protection, apparently.

It seems to be part of the whole JS-ification of everything. I expect this to take its time, and in 3 years people will be laughing at the kitchy-ness of this era.

I agree this is stupid, most document you shouldn't need any scripts to display them.

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