{"id":10371,"date":"2025-01-17T11:18:35","date_gmt":"2025-01-17T18:18:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/?p=10371"},"modified":"2025-01-17T11:18:35","modified_gmt":"2025-01-17T18:18:35","slug":"google-begins-requiring-javascript-for-google-search","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/17\/google-begins-requiring-javascript-for-google-search\/","title":{"rendered":"Google Begins Requiring JavaScript for Google Search"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It’s implied they’re making the change because of third party sites and tools, though I suspect some AI slop they want to include. Consequently, I run privacy search proxies, SearxNG and Whoogle<\/a>, that use Google search while protecting the privacy of users, and both were updated this morning. This wasn’t unusual for SearxNG which is updated often, but Whoogle just for Google isn’t updated very often. And SearxNG can use a lot of different search sites\/engines including Brave’s web crawlers, and the user can select the ones they want to use. And you can’t really trust the privacy search engines as you don’t know who is running them and what they’re doing, and DuckDuckGo was caught in a deal with Microsoft a while back. The privacy search proxies I run are open source and you can run them yourself, though best on a VPS with IP isolation instead of on your home network. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/2025\/01\/17\/google-begins-requiring-javascript-for-google-search\/<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By Kyle Wiggers<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Google says it has begun requiring users to turn on JavaScript, the widely-used programming language to make web pages interactive, in order to use Google Search.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In an email to TechCrunch, a company spokesperson claimed that the change is intended to \u201cbetter protect\u201d Google Search against malicious activity, such as bots and spam, and to improve the overall Google Search experience for users. The spokesperson noted that, without JavaScript, many Google Search features won\u2019t work properly, and that the quality of search results tends to be degraded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cEnabling JavaScript allows us to better protect our services and users from bots and evolving forms of abuse and spam,\u201d the spokesperson told TechCrunch, \u201cand to provide the most relevant and up-to-date information.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many major websites rely on JavaScript. According<\/a> to a 2020 GitHub survey, 95% of sites around the web employ the language in some form. But as users on social media point out<\/a>, Google\u2019s decision to require it could add friction for those who rely on accessibility tools, which can struggle with certain JavaScript implementations<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

JavaScript is also prone to security vulnerabilities<\/a>. In its 2024 annual security survey, tech company Datadog found that around 70% of JavaScript services are vulnerable to one or more \u201ccritical\u201d or \u201chigh-severity\u201d vulnerabilities introduced by a third-party software library.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that, on average, \u201cfewer than .1%\u201d of searches on Google are done by people who disable JavaScript. That\u2019s no small number at Google scale. Google processes around 8.5 billion searches per day, so one can assume that millions of people performing searches through Google aren\u2019t using JavaScript.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of Google\u2019s motivations here, may be inhibiting third-party tools that give insights into Google Search trends and traffic. According<\/a> to a post on Search Engine Roundtable on Friday, a number of \u201crank-checking\u201d tools \u2014 tools that indicate how websites are performing in search engines \u2014 began experiencing issues with Google Search around the time Google\u2019s JavaScript requirement came into force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Google spokesperson declined to comment on Search Engine Roundtable\u2019s reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s implied they’re making the change because of third party sites and tools, though I suspect some AI slop they want to include. Consequently, I run privacy search proxies, SearxNG and Whoogle, that use Google search while protecting the privacy of users, and both were updated this morning. This wasn’t unusual for SearxNG which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tech"],"blocksy_meta":[],"featured_image_src":null,"author_info":{"display_name":"Jason","author_link":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/author\/jturning\/"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10373,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10371\/revisions\/10373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jasonsblog.ddns.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}