Learn why disabling JavaScript is not viable and how it was made safer to run on websites.
Episode #11-22 released on January 26, 2021
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Disabling JavaScript is probably one of the most effective ways of preventing your device from being infected, the issue is that by doing this, you now cause a whole host of unintended issues. Learn how the mobilization of the Internet made the process of disabling JavaScript no longer viable.
JavaScript, as a whole, is one of the oldest languages on the Internet, with a great deal of different iterations based on it, including jQuery.
With the advent of these new iterations of JavaScript and the development of frameworks, as well as the mobilization of websites, we start seeing a slow trend. Many websites have begun the process of being mobile friendly or mobile first.
The process is slow at first and it is not until Google and other web search engines prioritizing mobile first websites that we start seeing a surge in mobile friendly websites. The issue is how to make a website that is both mobile friendly and desktop friendly. This is where some of the most common frameworks come into play. I personally use Bootstrap.
Bootstrap, and many other frameworks are heavily reliant on the various JavaScript iterations and this means that any browser that is meant to run these sites are defined as supporting HTML5. HTML5 has a deep partnership with JavaScript iterations and other standards.
Meanwhile, many websites are being compromised infecting user computers and with only a few options to defend users, there is a need for active scanning by companies like Google Search, web browsers, and antiviruses. One of the most common suggestions, disable JavaScript. However, with the mobilization of websites and the use of frameworks, this completely breaks the majority of websites, especially with the push from Google Search for websites to be mobile first or mobile friendly.
Now, the issue is that disabling JavaScript either does next to nothing or destroys the entire experience. It really does depend on what the user is doing. But from my own experience, things like navigation, and anything highly dependent of JavaScript for rendering simply do not work properly after, and with no way to do most of this without JavaScript, advanced websites simply become unusable. Things like continuous scrolling would no longer work in many cases, drop downs in bootstrap, embedded videos, anything written to work from JavaScript explicitly, etc.
Basically, in order to prevent malware from being able to infect a target computer, web browser developers had to resort to a different way of allowing a website to render, and this is by sandboxing the website completely. This separates the website from the computer and allows code to run safely minimizing risk of infection to computer. It is not perfect, but it is better than nothing when you consider disabling JavaScript will ruin our experience of the Internet nowadays.
Host : Steve Smith | Music : | Editor : Steve Smith | Producer : Zed Axis Dot Net