How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

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suzyne
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How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by suzyne » 2025-02-04, 10:45

I came across a blog post which is about precisely what the title says. For some reason, while reading I thought of the Pale Moon forum and some of the members here. Weird, eh?

Anyway, here's the link for your enjoyment.

https://donald.cat/how-javascript-overuse-ruined-the-web/
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gepus
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Re: How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by gepus » 2025-02-04, 11:25

Sure, frameworks make things easier for developers...
Overuse of JavaScript makes it also much easier to spam you with all kind of crap served usually via JS and user data collection.
BTW, make the same test with JS enabled and disabled.

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Moonchild
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Re: How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by Moonchild » 2025-02-04, 12:39

What bugs me more than the fact that JavaScript frameworks are used, is the fact that those frameworks insist on constantly pushing the envelope for the latest draft specs, while most of those are actually not changing any fundamentally important parts of the language for framework use. If anything, frameworks should be as broadly compatible with browsers as possible because they abstract web development and literally don't need the latest convenience apis for their consumers (the web devs) since it will never be exposed to them. But... the framework devs seem adamant to do the opposite.
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Gemmaugr
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Re: How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by Gemmaugr » 2025-02-04, 12:52


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Gemmaugr
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Re: How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by Gemmaugr » 2025-02-04, 12:56

gepus wrote:
2025-02-04, 11:25
Sure, frameworks make things easier for developers...
Overuse of JavaScript makes it also much easier to spam you with all kind of crap served usually via JS and user data collection.
BTW, make the same test with JS enabled and disabled.
I can't get CoverYourTracks to work with my hardened setup. It just throws a "Bad Request - Request Line is too large (8192 > 4094)"

I've found these to test with instead:

https://www.deviceinfo.me/

https://noscriptfingerprint.com/

https://abrahamjuliot.github.io/creepjs/

https://browserleaks.com/

https://browseraudit.com/

https://amiunique.org/

https://fingerprint.pet-portal.eu/?menu=1#

https://privacy.net/analyzer/

https://www.browserscan.net/

vannilla
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Re: How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by vannilla » 2025-02-04, 13:17

The claim about frameworks simplifying development and reducing maintenance is false.
It does that when you only use certain components as-is only when you need them where you need them; the moment you do anything more detailed it all falls apart because the complexity of your own codebase surpasses the saving brought by frameworks and the inherent complexity of the framework is added to it, resulting in a double loss.

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Re: How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by BenFenner » 2025-02-04, 15:30

Gemmaugr wrote:
2025-02-04, 12:52
Reminds me a bit of https://tonsky.me/blog/js-bloat/
The blog post reminds me of one of my favorite front-end opinion web sites, but one I never feel comfortable referencing at work (I'm a full-stack web developer) because reasons. ;)

https://motherfuckingwebsite.com

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Mæstro
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Re: How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by Mæstro » 2025-02-05, 15:41

Just under a decade ago, when these pernicious practises were first becoming widespread, my favourite speech on the matter was held. I recommend reading it in full, but here are some of my favourite lines:
Maciej Cegłowski wrote:It’s not hard! We knew how to make small websites in 2002. It’s not like the secret has been lost to history, like Greek fire or Damascus steel.
The same wrote:In conversations with web performance advocates, I sometimes feel like a hippie talking to SUV owners about fuel economy.
I thought that it would be over within several years. It has only become worse since then. The collapse in web advertising never came, as far as I know. The sample NPR page from the talk, disabling scripts, is today 21 kB in HTML, with another 275 kB in the hero image, 130 kB for the favicon and smaller amounts for other images. In addition to the factors which Mr Cegłowski named, I believe that many institutions which should know better simply give up, admitting most users will never read most of what they write and hence breaking their work into the smallest bits possible. I sometimes wonder to myself how things might ever return to sanity.
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Bilbo47
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Re: How JavaScript Overuse Ruined the Web

Unread post by Bilbo47 » 2025-02-05, 21:12

Moonchild wrote:
2025-02-04, 12:39
What bugs me ... is the fact that JavaScript frameworks insist on constantly pushing the envelope...
... [they] should be as broadly compatible with browsers as possible ... But the devs seem adamant to do the opposite.
Thrashing of JS is just another facet to the overarching trend that the web is being weaponized.

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