What Difference Does Ajax Make?

To convince yourself that JavaScript is at work in web applications such as Flickr, Google Maps, and Gmail, you can turn off JavaScript in your browser and see what changes in the behavior of the application.

To turn off JavaScript in your browser, do the following, depending on which browser you’re using:

Once you have JavaScript turned off, notice the following changes in Flickr and Google Maps:

When using JavaScript, there are interesting and important issues regarding usability/accessibility. Many computers, including mobile devices, do not use JavaScript. How should apps gracefully deal with browsers that don’t use JavaScript? Some apps are so dependent on JavaScript that a non-­JavaScript version would look drastically different.

Now that you have seen the effects of turning off JavaScript in the browser, be sure to turn it back on if you want to learn how to use JavaScript-­based widgets and APIs.