Javascript On or Off?

[Mobius]

Webtrends stats for a site of ours which gets 40,000 user sessions a week shows almost 10% of surfers running with Javascript disabled!

I'm amazed by this stat, and a little horrified too. How on Earth do these people use the web? It must be 90% broken for the 10% which disable javascript under the paranoid delusion it'll "save" them from "Internet bad stuff"(tm).

Now the client wants us to completely rebuild the 120 page e-commerce site to not use any javascript at all. *sigh*

[Unix]

Hah! Have fun with that

I'm sure it's AOL users.

[Avder]

I have javascript on, but severeely neutered. It cannot resize windows, it cannot change context menus, it cannot disable the status bar, and it cannot change status bar text.

Quite frankly I dont see what javascript is needed for on the web anyway. Its just a luxury.

[Tetrad]

I use both. My server has it off, my main computer has it on.

[Grendel]

On for trusted sites (neutered tho), off for everything else.

[Mobius]

Same Avder.

[Samuel Dravis]

Same as Avder. I like Javascript and appreciate what it can do, but I don't like it messing with my browser much.

[Top Gun]

I assume it's on by default, since I've never so much as touched it.

[Lobber]

You left out an important third option:

Exceptions

[Lothar]

Like Grendel, I have it neutered on sites I want it, and completely disabled on sites I don't trust.

It's partly a holdover from the days before popup blocking was built in to browsers. Javascript is basically a great language for two things: doing trivial unimportant stuff to your webpage, and annoying people who view your site.

How on Earth do these people use the web? It must be 90% broken

Nope. Only broken on a few sites. If they're worth it, I'll enable it for them, but for the most part, javascript is more of an annoyance than anything. Having it disabled just keeps sites from doing annoying stuff like popping up windows or otherwise messing with my browser.

Now the client wants us to completely rebuild the 120 page e-commerce site to not use any javascript at all.

Good for them. The less you use javascript, the better.

[MD-2389]

Enabled, but can't do ★■◆● to my browser.

[Kyouryuu]

Javascript is basically a great language for two things: doing trivial unimportant stuff to your webpage, and annoying people who view your site.

Unfortunately, also frequently true of Flash. Whenever I do a fresh install, I tend to hold out on installing Flash for as long as I can because it usually annoys the bejeezus out of me. Which is sad considering I've seen some really amazing Flash-based web sites.