Mildly Infuriating @lemmy.world m_f @midwest.social 1 mo. ago

Google now requires JavaScript

Just started getting this now. Hopefully it's some A/B testing that they'll stop doing, but I'm not holding my breath

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I know this may come off as a surprise: but I imagine that requiring JS in 2024 isn't a big deal to most people.

Now of course Lemmy skews more into that small crowd.

I don't blame any website for requiring JS for full functionality in 2024.
- Google is a text input and a list of links. It should work without JS.
  
  It's far more than that. Even on a basic search page. Ever expanded the 'Peaplo also ask' section, for example? It loads more results based on your scroll position or interaction.
  There's loads of little things like this, you may just not notice or care about it - which is another discussion.
  
  This is an optional feature. The core search functionality does not require JS.
  
  *Was an optional feature...
  
  That's not up to you, or any of us.
  Not maintaining non-js version makes sense for the business, considering how few people are affected.
  
  All we can do is move away to something better.
  
  Thank you for deciding what was better for us, we would have been so wrong without you. /s
- All of the people replying to this saying you shouldn't need JS are totally unaware how modern web development works.
  
  Yes, you could do many sites without JS, but the entire workforce for web development is trained with JS frameworks. To do otherwise would slow development time down significantly, not allow for certain functionality to exist (functionality you would 100% be unhappy was missing).
  
  Its not a question of possibility, its a question of feasibility.
  
  Permanently Deleted
  
  Even things like lazy loading and such require js though
  
  A lot of features might not be obvious honestly
  
  If you're interested though, you could check the source which should be able to tell you immediately what they use it for
  
  I love how Lemmy users just assume everyone is a coder... Just a funny observation, not being rude. Lol
  
  Presumably.. If you're complaining about the use of Javascript, you have some coding knowledge. Otherwise it's like complaining about the steering wheel in a car, when you can't drive and don't have a licence.
  
  Either they have the knowledge to confirm your answer, or you're just being a backseat driver
  
  It wasn't required, but id wager 99% of website that exist currently run JS in some form or another for something.
  
  Id wager its impossible to have anything dynamic on a webpage without JS (minus visual dynamics which can be handled with css), at that point you have to replace it with a different programming language and every browser needs to completely change gears to allow other code to run instead. But what advantage is gained by changing to another programming language? Cleaner code w/ less jankyness? Sure I guess, but we would be moving mountains to accomplish a silly thing.
  
  I'm wondering if many people in this thread understand what JS is and does.
  
  I’m a React dev. You can create server side websites, written in JS, that don’t require JS to be turned on in the browser. Granted, this just became a new official feature in React but has already been available with React frameworks like NextJS
  
  That is insane! I'm wondering how they handle modifying the DOM w/ out JS, did HTML 5 get a significant update? I gotta look into this because that sound super interesting.
  
  Any chance you know what version that went out with? I did a brief look at 18 and 17 and couldnt find it. Id really love to know how they are managing this.
  
  It’s called Server Components. If you actually build a fully static website, there is no DOM modification going on. I would actually not recommend doing that with React because it kinda defeats the purpose. The goal of it is to have a mix of both. The initial render is super fast because it is prerendered once for everyone. Then dynamic data is being fetched if needed and elements are replaced. It also improves SEO.
  
  React 19 is not yet officially released but you can read more about it here https://react.dev/blog/2024/04/25/react-19
  
  So you're offloading the JS processing onto the server? I cant be understanding this correctly because there is no way anyone wants to pay for the serverside cost of something that used to be an end user "cost". Also this would add interaction latency.
  
  There is no latency on static pages. They are rendered once as regular HTML and then saved on the server to be immediately ready for the user. The server is only processing that initial data fetching and rendering once per site. If needed, it can be retriggered. This is great for blogs and other regular pages.
  
  Server pages on the other hand will do the initial fetch request every time but once the site is there, no data is missing and everything is there. It’s not for everyone. Regular dynamic pages still make sense. For every method there are use cases.
  
  Disclaimer: I’m speaking from my experience with Next.js which did the same thing long before and React now aims to make that easier. But I’m not sure if React has the distinction between static and server. It’s all new and I haven’t had a project to test it on yet.
  
  Oh I see, its only for a static page. This makes so much more sense.
  
  I can see why you mentioned this feature fits weird with react, and I have to agree, its contradictory to the entire purpose of React lol.
  
  It does make sense when you mix. You get the benefit of instant rendering and dynamic content all in one. And web dev becomes even more complicated…
  
  Hey that's some good job security, learn the niche thing and become irreplaceable.
  
  I wish JS would die and we get nice and simple websites back. I hate web dev so god damn much. The internet is pure enshittification
  
  I don't know how to tell you this, but removing JS doesn't turn the internet into a wonderland. Capitalism is to blame for enshitification not JS
- For full functionality sure. For basic functionality no. Searching on Google is basic functionality I'd say.
  
  Not really. Showing ads and gobbling up data is Google Search's core functionality, and JS is indispensible for that.
  
  Idk if you were around when Google popped up, but it was at a time where the internet was feeling increasingly "loaded" with thousands of info per page. One where the popular engines tried to serve you twenty different things along with your search. Here's an example:
  
  https://www.definitions-seo.com/images/altavista-3.jpg
  
  Or another:
  
  https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/uploaded/timeline/yahoo/yahoo-2003.png
  
  This isn't a search engine. This is an all you can eat buffet, where the smallest plate is two main courses and three sides. And users just wanted a candy bar.
  
  So you see, a lot of us started to use Google because it was simple. It was decluttered. It was a text input with a 'submit' button, and that's all we wanted. THAT is, and was, google's core functionality, and I think it'd do them well to remember that.
  
  Now, if you wanna argue that's changed, I can agree to that. But I don't want morning news when I search for porn, that's just gonna kill my boner. And I don't want ads about coffee makers when I've just bought a coffee maker, that just means you're incompetent. I want a search engine that searches things and provides results. That's it. And just like Google caught momentum because they delivered this minimalistic facade that the users wanted, this is also how Google will die - at the hands of the next lightweight engine without corporate bullshit. Because the users will gobble it up.
- You should still be able to use something like Lynx to browse and search. There's no reason to block basic functionality except that you can and don't care.
- I agree that it's not a big deal, but there still should be an option in my opinion. It can be a lifesaver to be able to search on older devices.

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