Goodbye web-components. A W3C spec that mandates the use of JS to keep browser vendors happy. Once upon a time, there was HTML imports which didn't need this, but the ad-boys killed that spec.
And good riddance. I really don't get any personal value out of the vast majority of modern web apps. Much, but not all, of what we do on the web could be via a much more basic interface.
> Much, but not all, of what we do on the web could be via a much more basic interface.
... but it won't be.
Delivering information and digesting it from users is the purpose of the web as the user sees it. HN is a good example of a website meant to do this. No ads, minimal algorithms, no feature creep beyond a traditional news-and-comment feed.
Only one problem: that doesn't drive engagement. I come to HN because I'm genuinely interested in the content and discussion here. Being interested in content and discussion, though, is not nearly as profitable as being addicted. A lot of the UI elements and behaviors of websites today are meant to drive addiction, and thus, engagement.
Hell, HN itself might not even be profitable or even break-even. It's the side-project of YC; something that exists to further the profit-building exploits of that organization.
This is not practical for common folks. I wouldn't be able to get into ebanking, buy anything in eshops, probably most stuff I use daily would be at least half-broken. Imagine this for my elderly parents, just endless desperation and frustration, I am happy if they manage to use internet as it is and not fall for some scam or hack.
Heck, stuff sometimes breaks without me even trying to disable anything, like airbnb login via facebook popup stopped working suddenly few months ago (biggest internet mistake I ever done many years ago, as a host I am locked to specific well-rated account and airbnb support told me they can't migrate my account to another form of auth).
Edit: just saw its 'per site' - that would work for me, but not for my parents who live far. But damn I don't want to do this active fight of cat and mouse with whole internet. Firefox/ublock origin user here, on both desktop and phone for many years. Internet looks utterly horrible when I open it somewhere without those, hell youtube with all those ads is absolutely ridiculous shit service. Apple devices I've seen aren't that good either, shame that would be a great selling point for me.
Disable JS in 2025 does NOT work. Petty much every site only works properly with JS, with some exceptions.
JS is a core part of the modern web experience. 10 years go MAYBE Noscript would work, I never bothered, you end up having to whitelist a bunch of sites anyway even 10 years ago.
Whitelisting is still practicable. I use NoScript, and if I have to whitelist scripts from two domains of the company operating the site, while keeping those of the 40 other domains blocked, I still gain something.
That is a huge exxageration except your idea of "works properly" includes a bunch of user-hostile scripts that add nothing to the experience running in the background. Some websites won't work but more will.
Although I wish more browsers made it easier to selectively enable it per site, like Orion.