Dr. Matt Lee (mattl)

So, I’ve taken to surfing without JavaScript on websites where the JavaScript is not free software. This is harder than I thought it would be, but has given me a much greater insight into how lazy web developers have become and how much a reliance on JavaScript has become accepted as the norm.

The reason for doing this: JavaScript is code. I’m trying to determine my attitude towards free software on the web, and until I can do that, I’m only allowing free JavaScript to run. It’s hard, but at the same time, useful.

NoScript is a great, free software plugin for Firefox and Iceweasel that allows you to handle this problem well. The sites I have allowed are fsf.org, plone.org and my blogs. All these sites run GPLd licensed systems (Plone and WordPress) and so the JavaScript is fine, it’s also worth noting that they work well without it.

The best website I’d visited without JavaScript was Tesco, which detected a lack of JS and took me to their accessible website, where I was able to buy all my groceries without compromising my freedom.