Once in a while I get the occasional email from trusted readers telling me they are  having trouble viewing parts of my website . Something just doesn’t seem right. So after a little bit of an exchange of emails back and forth I get to discover how Internet Explorer 4 just doesn’t seem to get along with my website. Oh dear! What a drag. And to think I was going to go deeper into experimenting some of the nifty features that come along with HTML 5. But again who is complaining?

Like there was this one guy who after brainstorming with and figuring out that the problem was he was holding dear to his old version of Internet Explorer 4, I suggested he seriously get a web browser upgrade for him to experience my website like I intended it to be experienced.

I don’t remember the next three or so minutes of the conversation (This time the dialog had escalated to a phone communication as email no longer did justice to this issue). Suddenly I was slapped back to reality when the guy asked me how to enable Javascript on his Ie4. Oh boy. I knew it was going to be a long day ahead of me.

Fast forward back to the present… or at least those of us living in the present. The question really shouldn’t be “how do i enable Javascript on my computer”? But rather “how do i disable javascript on my computer”.

Most web browsers today come with Javascript enabled by default. I think there is no clearer answer than that. The reason why I say most is because there are some exceptions out there. Take for instance this list here:

• Some Mobile Browsers. Even those that can render Javascript may not cover everything.
• Screen readers/accessible browsers (like for blind people).
• Console-based browsers (Used sometimes by SysAdmins from Linux/Unix servers with no gui installed)
• Search Engine Bots (Google, Yahoo, Bing etc) and
• Of course off-brand browsers or older browsers with buggy Javascript engines

Because of instances like as above, you would say that even though it is absolutely safe to go ahead and use Javascript you might want to consider using something to fall back on such as the good ol’ <noscript> HTML tag, should one of these application categories land on your website.

For those that have browsers that have Javascript enabled by default, I’d say most users have Javascript working. By most I think probably 99% of the users. This is my best guess so don’t take me down on that as its just a guess. The best thing to do is decide whether you’d want to go through the trouble of developing a version for the remaining 1% of your users. As for me, Ie6 or less? I don’t think so unless its an e-commerce website then I would consider the 1%. Just as a point to note, I will be beginning work in about a month on an accessible version of this blog and main website as well.

I know of a guy who surfs the web with disabled Javascript by default. Now, he is different in that he uses a pluggin called NoScript that can be downloaded here. So what he does is he enables Jascript on the fly whenever he needs it.

This now brings us the real question. How Do I Disable Javascript On My Computer?