That's not the point. 99% of the people out there have it on.

> 95% of the time it truly doesn't improve my web experience

Really? I find that hard to believe. Do most sites that use extensive JS (Facebook, Mint, etc) have non-JS supported versions?

No. Facebook is only vaguely usable without JavaScript (and actually has a banner telling you to turn JS on or use their mobile site), but most sites are not. For one of my projects we use Invision, Slack, and Trello for collaboration, and none of them work at all without JavaScript (though the latter two do at least prompt you to enable it). Google, in its primary function at least, does work perfectly without JS.

Periodically on here, and elsewhere, you hear people banging the "I browse the web with JS disabled and it's fine" drum, but I can only imagine that their use of the web is limited to a certain set of fairly static sites. RMS gets by just fine with web pages being emailed to him, but, you know, RMS isn't like most people.

I use NoScript which can whitelist domains where JS is allowed. Often, sites will degrade without JS but if you're only reading something or whatever, it doesn't really matter. And if it's totally broken, you can temporarily allow JS.

Mainly, it's that I don't want my PC executing code that I don't know about, if I can help it. If I notice a site is e.g. requesting to run JS from twenty or thirty different domains I can be more cautious.

Overall, turning Flash off by default (but still having it installed), using NoScript, Ghostery, and AdBlock, have really improved the web for me.

> Really? I find that hard to believe.

Really-really? Would you believe bacteria are the predominant global biomass even though you seldom think of them?

The vast majority of all time consumed (or forcibly-wasted) by default-enabled JavaScript goes towards... What? Ads, tracking-mechanisms, and various nonfeatures to eke out minor visual effects. Even ignoring the cost to dispel unfavorable interruptions, the cumulative load/render delays constitute a user-experience death of thousand cuts.

The few dependable repeat-visit sites are easy enough to whitelist.

Disabled by default meaning he enables it for sites that he frequents and need JS like Facebook, Mint, etc.

Ah got it. Makes much more sense.

Same here and I went a step further; I use two browsers. The websites where I need to login are in a different browser in a different workspace, so tab-nabbing by random websites can never fool me.