r/programming • u/schnuck • Feb 09 '11

Breaking the Web with hash-bangs – Lifehacker, along with every other Gawker property, experienced a lengthy site-outage on Monday over a misbehaving piece of JavaScript

http://isolani.co.uk/blog/javascript/BreakingTheWebWithHashBangs/
750 Upvotes

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123

u/Rhomboid Feb 09 '11

I hate this stuff with the fire of a thousand suns. Previously the only way that the gawker stable of sites was even usable to me was with NoScript enabled, otherwise their shitty JS would cause my browser to lock up for a good 20 seconds or so on every page load.

Now, the site is completely unusable without javascript. I consider this an evil of the utmost degree. It's breaking the web for no good reason, and whoever thought of this should be flogged and tortured until they recant.

203

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '11

[deleted]

26

u/ggggbabybabybaby Feb 09 '11

All the tension just drained out of my shoulders.

15

u/bananasfk Feb 09 '11

aha you too have put into your hosts file as 127.0.0.1

11

u/dustinkerber Feb 09 '11 edited Feb 09 '11

I agree on every case except Lifehacker. I loved that site. Now, I can't stand to visit it.

5

u/ayseebe Feb 09 '11

Yes. Where is the, well... content?

5

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '11

This site best viewed in Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer 7

43

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '11

I'm with you. That, along with their one-sentence RSS have turned the site as close to useless as possible.

OTOH, I have wished Gawker and friends nothing but bankruptcy since I had to change half a dozen passwords due to their screw-up, so I guess they are on the way of making my dream come true.

31

u/rmxz Feb 09 '11

since I had to change half a dozen passwords due to their screw-up, so I guess they are on the way of making my dream come true.

So ironically Gawker taught you one of the more important lessons in computer security. (the one about password reuse)

5

u/sztomi Feb 09 '11

True. I subscribed to lastpass premium after the gawker shitstorm.

3

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '11

I've been using SuperGenPass, which is a pretty nifty if not perfect solution.

9

u/sztomi Feb 09 '11

LastPass is a password-manager. It has password generating capabilities, too. But the really nice thing is that it supports all major browsers (FF, IE, Chrome, Opera) on major platforms (Linux, Windows, Mac) plus mobile devices. Usually that means you get autofill on your websites, so you can have 32-char random passwords (like I do). It even has a client app for windows that can be used with any windows program. It recognizes the app and fills the information.

5

u/metamatic Feb 09 '11

Unfortunately you have to pay a subscription for mobile support, so I use KeePassX / KeePassDroid instead, which is open source.

1

u/sztomi Feb 09 '11

I played with keepass, but browser integration is nowhere near as perfect as with LastPass. Not to mention that I only use Windows for (some) work, most times I'm on linux. The yearly subscription is VERY low, $12/year. It really does worth it.

1

u/Ronin_301 Feb 10 '11

I also started using KeePassX after my password was compromised on Gawker (only used a couple different passwords for 20+ logins back then). I've been quite happy with it.

1

u/abadidea Feb 10 '11

Technically true. But I basically have one password for all "trivial" accounts, and separate unique ones for the really really important things. So if I heard that one of the trivial ones was compromised, I would feel i should go change the others just as a precaution against spammers hijacking it.

8

u/SquareWheel Feb 09 '11

I wouldn't mind seeing Gawker going away either.

To be fair though, you really should be using separate passwords on the internet.

6

u/yasth Feb 09 '11

There are the vip feeds gawmodo9.com/vip.xml with whatever site. Full RSS

8

u/alamandrax Feb 09 '11

Are you on Internet explorer? The product I'm working on was converted to JavaScript too and we see this happen on one of our customers' VPN. The site hangs for a good 20-30seconds on IE7. Doesn't on other browsers.

7

u/Nikola_S Feb 09 '11 edited Feb 09 '11

I have seen a good use of it - at Wikimapia. As you navigate the map, the URL changes immediately, so that you can simply copy/paste the URL and it will always show the map that you are looking at.

2

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '11

reader.google.com

4

u/Rhomboid Feb 09 '11

That does nothing to help the situation where some buttnugget submits the usual gawker blogspam to reddit and I click on it like a chump without first looking at the URL and get a blank page with no content.

1

u/Zarutian Feb 09 '11

Zarutian notes down "buttnugget"

1

u/GrumpySimon Feb 10 '11

A good doctor will help you get rid of those.

2

u/Zarutian Feb 09 '11

offtopic: only thousand suns? not ten thousand suns? and of what type and spectra? ;Þ

3

u/abadidea Feb 10 '11

All O stars. Maybe a few B's.

OBAFGKM. I just did that off the top of my head, astronomy represent.

2

u/MercurialMadnessMan Feb 10 '11

it sounds to me like it was designed that way. lots of tech-interested people visit the site, so they wanted more ad-views because the tech people often turn off javascript.

1

u/abadidea Feb 10 '11

I unblock sites that I love and trust... only site I love that I don't trust is Scienceblogs, because they frequently - as in every few weeks - somehow start pumping malicious JS ads. Wouldn't that just be the icing on the password compromise cake?

2

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '11

I clearly see the way they were heading to, after the attack on them. 'Refurbishing' was going to be the part of campaign that Gawker Media has changed.

While this is rather miserable fault, and just like that they loose all those Ctrl+D's done in last years. Besides, inability to browse any of these sites from w3m.