NetEqualizer News Blog

This morning I read an article by Klint Finley about his experience with disabling Java Script.  I am about 8 hours into my experiment now, and here is what I have found so far.

The results were amazing for the on-line periodicals (traditional newspapers) that I like to browse through. Even with my 20 megabit Internet connection, some of these sites are just endless piles of garbage with advertisements and videos popping up, forcing screen refreshes, and making the content unreadable.  Some of them take so long to load, I just give up and get back to work. With Java script turned off, all that changed.   I have not tested the limits on this yet, but I was able to get through a couple of these sites clicking to various articles and my delays were about 1/10 of normal, which is a significant improvement.

On the downside I found some of  the web-based applications that I depend on to be nonfunctional.  Klint mentions issues with Google Docs, but it goes farther than that. My Google Calendar did not work and neither did my WordPress or Cisco Webex. What I am doing now on my MAC laptop is keeping two browsers active.  Firefox with Java Script disabled, and Safari with it enabled.  I feel that this is a good compromise and worth the effort of switching.

Editors Note: Turning off Java Script is only going to impact things that you launch from a traditional browser. The pre- loaded applications on your devices do not use Java Script.