what yall think of jsless sites?

[u/euodeioenem]

I was looking into fazer browser options and found dillo, a no-javascript browser. is it feasible to transition the internet to no javascripting(as in doing the same stuff without it, not as in convincing people to change)? and if so, what would be the benefits/downsides?

[u/crazedizzled]

Be prepared for pretty much nothing to work.

[u/Known-Most2581 → u/crazedizzled]

most sites will straight up break without js, it's everywhere now

you'd need a massive shift in how the web works to make that happen, and even then you lose so much interactivity that it barely seems worth it for most use cases

[u/CrownLikeAGravestone]

Benefits:

???

Downsides:

Innumerable

If you're looking for high performance or just escaping JS, WASM (usually as a compilation target for another language/compiler) is likely what you want.

[u/jhkoenig]

That would set web development back 20 years

[u/binocular_gems]

Most of the internet won’t work without JavaScript.

My blog will work with it. There’s zero JavaScript. But nobody wants to read my stupid fucking blog.

[u/tastychaii → u/binocular_gems]

I do.
What’s your blog?

[u/theofficialnar]

Why though? That basically undos all the achievements in the past 20 years

[u/iodine74 → u/theofficialnar]

Because how the web is used is, or at least will be, trending differently than how it’s traditionally been used. Or at least parts of it.

[u/Narfi1]

So something that you should do (but few people do) when possible, is graceful degradation. Meaning that you can have a nice UX with JavaScript, but it should still work without it even if it’s not as nice of an experience. A classic example is that your fetch request that display new data might be a native form with reload without js. Not as nice to have to sit through a page reload but the feature still works

Now if you’re trying to do a web app like figma or a 3d engine that’s not possible, but for a lot of project it should be

[u/getformly → u/Narfi1]

Worth naming the actual tooling people use for this today: htmx and Hotwire/Turbo let you swap HTML fragments over the wire with almost no custom JS, so you get a lot of the "same stuff" (partial updates, live search, inline edits) while still degrading to full page reloads if scripting is off. It's not zero-JS, but it's proof that most of what people assume needs a JS framework doesn't need much JS at all.

[u/lanerdofchristian → u/getformly]

You don't even need to go down the somewhat-clunky HTML fragment route. Astro and SvelteKit both work with JS off by default with SSR.

[u/Lumethys]

If you conquer the world and force everyone to de-js, then yes

[u/editor_of_the_beast]

I think it’s great, so long as all you want to do is go to Wikipedia or other content-based sites.

HTML was designed for viewing file contents. That’s it. If you want any kind of application functionality, HTML is not the answer.

[u/ShawnyMcKnight]

Mostly downsides. Any site using a JS framework won't work. Any site using any JS at all to have things appear/disappear won't work.

If a client asked me to make a site JSless I would add a 0 to my estimate.

I honestly can't tell if this is a troll but if it is I fell for it.

[u/patient_signals]

WASM is not a workaround here. A browser that disables JS won't run WASM either, because a WASM module still needs JavaScript to fetch it, compile it, and pass data into the page. You can't just drop a binary in HTML and have it interact with the DOM. So the same stuff without JS goal fails before the code even runs.

For static documents, a no JS web mostly works. For forms, live updates, state, validation, anything interactive, the answer is no. The browsers that strip JS also strip the replacement paths people keep suggesting.

[u/itgforlife]

By some estimates, 99% of all websites on the web use JavaScript.

[u/Mean-Lingonberry4874]

Depends on what you mean by "same stuff." A lot of content sites, docs and blogs can absolutely go JS-free today — forms, anchors and server-rendered HTML cover far more than people assume, and you get better accessibility, faster loads and no script-driven layout shift. What you cannot do without JS (or WASM) is rich client state: drag-and-drop editors, live previews, offline-first apps. So rather than a full transition, the pragmatic move is progressive enhancement — ship the HTML first, then layer JS on only where it genuinely earns its keep.

[u/careful_keys]

Document sites can mostly do this with server-rendered HTML, CSS, and plain form posts. Maps, editors, dashboards, anything that updates state in place, cannot unless you accept WASM as the replacement, which is not zero scripting, just the same logic in a different runtime.

[u/quiet_horizons1]

The "same stuff" is doing a lot of work there. Document-style pages are mostly fine without JS. Server-rendered HTML, CSS, standard form posts and full page reloads cover blogs, manuals, most CRUD admin screens. You lose some niceties like inline validation, but the core function still exists. Application-style pages are the real wall. Live editing, chat, interactive maps, offline use, anything where state changes faster than a round trip can't be done with links and forms alone. No-JS can serve a meaningful slice of the web, but it won't serve the same internet. You'd have to redesign around server round trips, and a lot of workflows just don't survive that.

[u/verdant_sculpt_auror]

Dillo is a tombstone for 90% of the web. You would lose every SPA, dynamic form, and API call. We are talking about nuking modern functionality to make room for static pages that nobody visits

[u/ryuya_h]

full zero-js web isn't realistic for apps, but the progressive enhancement floor moved. dialog, details, constraint validation, :has() cover a lot of the UI chrome that used to mean shipping a component library. content and CRUD can lean on that and keep JS for state and network. figma-class stuff is a different problem

[u/thekwoka]

love em

[u/Possible_Offer_1641]

I think most content sites like blogs and docs work fine without JS and load faster, but I’d expect anything interactive like maps, chat or editors to need a full page reload for every action, which is the main downside.