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

  • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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    4 hours ago

    They need Javascript to serve users an experience that doesn’t look like it’s from the 90s. “You don’t need Javascript” is technically correct in the same way you don’t need Google because you can go look through an encyclopedia in the library.

    The kinds of people that disable Javascript probably don’t use Google anyway, and if they do, they’ll have their browsers so full of tracking protection that serving them costs more money than it earns.

    • AA5B@lemmy.world
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      2 hours ago

      Like lack of accessibility? I generally use reader mode, because it gives an actual good user experience rather than “one that doesn’t look like the 90s”. I’m not sure if it turns off JavaScript, but it clearly turns off the crap that it does. Maybe half of websites work that way, the rest I either skip or click to turn off reader mode.

      I just tried google, and reader mode is disabled, which is a problem for people with accessibility issues.

      Does EU have accessibility protections? Does google give the same ad filled, cluttered, crap as the rest of us? What if you try reader mode

    • rtxn@lemmy.world
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      4 hours ago

      It’s not about looks, it’s about functionality. I could add a hundred lines of CSS to make it sparkle without touching Javascript. I could think of a dozen convenience features that would require Javascript, but none that, if disabled, would prevent the search bar from functioning as a search bar.

      • Skull giver@popplesburger.hilciferous.nl
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        3 hours ago

        You’re not doing AJAX without Javascript, and that’s what the Google search site is optimised for. Plus, there’s no way to deal with the mandatory cookie consent popup without additional page loads either.

        You can do most of Google with CSS but you can’t do it easily without sacrificing functionality and Google doesn’t care about the people without Javascript anyway. Why invest time and effort into making this stuff work for customers that don’t earn you anything? It’s not an open source nonprofit that cares about its users, we’re talking about Google.