Why Bother?

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Scripting in web pages has done a lot of good. It enables web pages to react to users' actions instantly - increasing the speed and usefulness of pages, and taking load off the server.

The Problem

The downside to all this is that a lot of web developers have got into the habit of presuming scripting exists on the client - to a stage where many, many commercial sites absolutely require scripting to even view the homepage.

However, a reasonably large number of users for one reason or another do not have scripting in their browser. According to thecounter.com, this is currently (December 2001) around 12% of all web users.

The same site also shows that Netscape 4 is at 4% - a browser a lot of developers spend hours and hours supporting, but then totally forget people with scripting disabled - despite the fact that there are over three times as many without scripting than there are NS4 users - make any sense to you?

The Reasons

Some of these users are people who have become fed up