Why I Use NoScript | daft.redSkip to main content×<br>Dear user with JavaScript disabled. Bravo! We respect your choice. This site uses a small amount of JS to control the light/dark theme toggle and show/hide the post list sidebar. Everything else should function without it.<br>I wish I didn&rsquo;t have to use NoScript. For those unacquainted, NoScript is a browser plugin which I use with Firefox that allows me to control the running JavaScript on a website. After years of finding questionable JavaScript all over the wider internet, I check every new website for domains and JS code they import. I first scan the domains that the page is requesting to load JavaScript. Many sites do not function at all and show a blank page until I enable a couple their core domains. A domain that has not been seen before in the NoScript database is untrusted by default.

It supports 4 primary options and a default by clicking the icons to the left of the listed domain.<br>Default - Do not allow the JavaScript to load and run on the page<br>Temp Trusted - Allow the JavaScript to load and run for a short time<br>Trusted - Allow the JavaScript to load and run on the page permanently, and update the NoScript database<br>Untrusted - Do not allow the JavaScript to load and run on the page permanently, and update the NoScript database<br>Custom - Edit specific permissions of the DOM objects<br>Why Block JavaScript?<br>Many sites load pages from companies and domains I do not wish to support. I run a pi-hole blocking many of these domains on my network, but NoScript allows precision when I am seeking temporary functionality that I need. Often I need to enable temporary domains to make purchases. This is pretty annoying for a common user, but for someone with deep desire not to be tracked across the web, it actually helps me track trust. I don&rsquo;t trust many large companies because I think they are poor stewards of the web. There are small number of large companies I would even go as far to say are evil.<br>The NoScript menu UI cleanly shows how many of these &ldquo;partners&rdquo; each website contains on load. If I see a website that loads 27 different domains, I often just close the website and find another alternative. A website with 5-10 domains feels somewhat reasonable as of this writing, but over that count I think the sites just start to rot. How are developers of the site able to keep an effective track of all those applications working well together? I don&rsquo;t believe anyone is, and the site which started has likely lost their mission in focus of whatever recent metrics they are trying to optimize. Inherently there is nothing wrong with adding more dependencies to a website so long as performance is managed. But in practice outside of CDNs and payment resources, the vast majority of sites host spyware ment to steal as much information about the user as possible. I reject this model of the internet whole heartedly.<br>NoScript does not guarantee I will not be tracked across the web, but I don&rsquo;t wish to make it easy for anyone as a default. I don&rsquo;t really mind click tracking, so long as my identity is not bound to it. And there in lies the problem, these tracking companies monetize clicks to sell my identity and behavior profiles.<br>I do wish NoScript had default option to trust any JavaScript from the root domain of the site, but I don&rsquo;t think it does. I generally prefer sites that function just fine with HTML and CSS. There are just too many sites that do not support and need JS to function. The expectation unfortunately is a lost cause. It is probably time for me to get off my ass and submit a PR to the wonderful people who built this amazing extension.