Do web sites really need to cater for browsers that don't have Javascript enabled? [closed]

Answer 1

Phones would be a primary one that I can think of off the top of my head. A lot of mobile devices just aren't very good at working through a javascript heavy site. And considering that mobile devices are quickly becoming one to the top internet access points you might want to reconsider your position.. ;)

Answer 2

Many people disable Javascript because of security concerns with plugins like NoScript.

Answer 3

Think outside of the PC... lots of mobile phones have browsers that don't support javascript. If you want your site visible to them, then it might pay to think about how the non-javascript experience would be to those clients.

Answer 4

This is more a personal pet peeve but...

I really don't like it when webpages load additional pages using AJAX calls and don't provide any method for opening the window in another tab. For example, on gmail, if you want to open up your drafts folder in a new window, you can right click on it and hit open in new window. No problem there.

On the other hand, if you want to open the contacts window, there is no non-javascript method of doing that. Therefore, you aren't able to right click and choose open in new window. The option doesn't exist!

Answer 5

Who uses browsers older than Firefox 2 or IE6?

Wrong question. It's not the age of the browser that's the problem. There are plenty of new browsers out there that don't support javascript or don't support it well, and they can be just as important as the latest safari or firefox.

Others have mentioned smartphones or lynx, but the main one in my book is Googlebot. That's a browser just like any other, and it won't run most of your javascript. Also, even if you have firefox you might use a plugin like NoScript. That's not the same thing as running with javascript disabled, but if you do things wrong you can really mess up for those users (ie, detect javascript state once at the start of a session or creation of an account, and then no longer serve javascript pages at al, even if they wanted to enable it for you). Finally, if you do any work for the US Goverment you are required by law to support certain accessibility standards that include working with javascript disabled.

Answer 6

I disable and reenable JavaScript several times a day depending on which site I'm about to visit. For example, news sites that like popups and resizing my window, stay still wih me.

It doesn't take much for an ordinary user to learn that these things are done by something mystical called "JavaScript" and where to turn it off in browser.