The issue of blank mobile (iOS) pages with JavaScript disabled is discussed. JonahAragon1 describes the problem, where homepage and topic pages are not rendered with JavaScript off. sam and Falco explain that this is due to an optimization that doesn’t send the full payload to mobile devices to save traffic, resulting in better performance for most users but issues for those with JavaScript disabled. A possible solution, such as a redirect or button to reload the page with JavaScript enabled, is proposed, but considered low-priority work.
If I have Javascript disabled in iOS Safari, content just isn’t rendered: The homepage is blank and topic pages display only the title and category without any text content. I’m seeing this behavior on my own site as well as Meta:
Tested on iOS 16.5, as well as macOS Safari with an iOS user agent set.
Edit: I’m also seeing this with an Android/Chrome user agent set.
@Falco / @david I believe this is the optimisation we have for mobile where we don’t send the full payload to save on traffic?
Feels deliberate, but maybe there is something we can do here longer term and force a redirect or something for cases like these? (redirect to ?javascript_disabled or something…)
Yes, that’s exactly it. The trade-off is better performance for 99.999% of users, with saves for both network usage and user battery, but people who disable JS on their modern smarthphones don’t get the static HTML version.
Force a redirect with a meta tag? Maybe we render a button on the else of this if here
that reloads the current page with a parameter and/or setting a cookie?
Considering the impact here, and the work needed, I’d say it’s low priority work and pr-welcome.
