web app Google Search no longer works without JavaScript.

[Ertio]

Google Search used to work with HTML and CSS only, with JavaScript being optional. Now, JavaScript is necessary. (sources: slashdot, techcrunch)

 

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In an email to TechCrunch, a company spokesperson claimed that the change is intended to “better protect” Google Search against malicious activity

Google simply couldn't resist dropping the P-bomb ("protect") again (context), could they?

I am not sure how requiring JavaScript is supposed to protect against anything. If anything, it increases vulnerability.

 

Now, you might be asking:

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But pretty much everyone has JavaScript, so what is so bad about it?

 

Well, I'm glad you asked. It is because (1) not all JavaScript is the same and because (2) it's slower.

 

There are many versions (or iterations) of JavaScript. If a website uses a feature only existent in a recent version of JavaScript, the site will be completely inaccessible in any web browser released before this version of JavaScript. This can break the site in a web browser version released just weeks ago, so this isn't a problem that only affects years-old browsers.

 

JavaScript is unlike HTML and CSS, where unsupported features are just ignored by the web browser and the site will mostly just work fine. When sites start requiring JS, they sometimes require a very recent version of JS, so they cut off even read-only access to older web browsers, even though it would be perfectly safe.

 

Besides, pretty much all large sites have switched to requiring JavaScript. For example, YouTube switched to requiring JavaScript in 2017 (polymer), Twitter in 2019 (Twitter Web App, using react JS), Instagram in 2015 (react JS), Archive.org in 2023 (redesign using Lit.dev), Reddit in 2018 (though they still run old.reddit.com which works without JavaScript).

 

Until 2017, only video playback on YouTube required JavaScript, but title and description could still be viewed without it and channels could still be browsed. They're just text and pictures after all.

 

Even if browsers support JavaScript, a site requiring JavaScript (or "web app") consumes more power and loads slower than a site where JavaScript is only optional "web site" (source: Progressive enhancement is faster – Jake Archibald).

 

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Why not just update the browser?

Sometimes people may be stuck with older browsers. For example, some Smart TVs have firmwares that are no longer updated, and buying a new TV just to get a newer web browser isn't worth it.

 

Years ago, me and classmates actually used the lightweight HTML-based Google on old school computers that had out-of-date browsers. As students, we obviously lacked the permission to update the browser.

 

DuckDuckGo thankfully still maintains html.duckduckgo.com for compatibility.

 

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[manikyath]

i'd agree with you, if it werent for that just about any website i've googled since installing noscript requiring javascript for the website to have any usability at all.

 

there's some aspects of being strictly html/css that makes it easier for bot crawlers to abuse the site (for example, an automated process googling keywords to gather intel on google's search algorithm) but these days i doubt that's much of a hurdle for bad actors to deal with.

 

to me, it just sounds like an excuse to just stop supporting legacy code. i get the performance aspect of it, but realisticly having a dynamically loading page actually has benefits of it's own (if you hadnt noticed yet, youtube playlists dont actually reload the entire page anymore, and the next video just starts playing) and either way on anything vaguely modern the difference is neglible. 

 

and like you said.. there's plenty of legacy alternatives out there. for the douzens of people who are running an old smart TV on which they want to use google for whatever reason, or those 2 people still using the wii web browser.. why must every search engine *have* a legacy option?

 

no one is mad that discord doesnt run on windows 9x, because the userbase is just not there. at some point the idea of every search engine having a non-js friendly version of their site will become the same amount of "userbase is just not there".

not everything is a malicious data harvesting you-dont-own-anything ploy.. sometimes it just doesnt make sense to keep allocating dev time to something that is used by less people than the dev team keeping it alive.