I remember noticing this shift in nerd culture. In the early 2000s, it was common for people to say on places like Slashdot that they don't trust JavaScript and run their browser with it off. In the early 2010s, I noticed HN commenters thought this was insane, tinfoil hat type thinking.
It became insane because nothing bloody worked without Javascript some time in the early 2010s.
Like cellphones, javascript became necessary if you want to use webmail, access your bank's website, or whatever.
I still run with u matrix though, and most third party requests can be limited, but I no longer have enough patience when a required page doesn't work - I'll just rely on ublock origin to work.
I say this as someone does NOT disable JS in my main browser (because like, I have a job), but also knows a fair bit about why Firefox inside Tails now restarts in some cases...
It's the classic thing. Across every gdmf metric, excluding with "true empathy", no one *gives a fuck* until it affects them, or someone within (1-3) degrees of separatation. And having broad empathy is generally a good way to get yourself labeled/astrocized: both about as obvious "compriate" and obvious "adversary".
Is compriate a typo, a neologism? I could not find a definition.
In fairness, in the early 2000s they were probably right. Early browser security model was a bit of a mess. The fact that this article is even talked about is a sign of how much better things are.
Plus add in Flash and Java applets.
I still do "random" browsing in FF with NoScript, that said, I'll acknowledge the frequency of updates of Chrome,etc and years of hardening.
It's not the Bonzi-buddy and driveby-installed IE toolbars wild west of the early 00s.
The browsers on the computers at work show that it is very much still the driveby tool-bar install days.
It's so ubiquitous and unavoidable at this point.. I was at a conference lecture in 2020 where someone was suggesting disabling JavaScript and I thought the same thing— how absurd. The times have really changed...
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