I dislike running third-party scripts in my browser and have disabled these generally.
I can enable them on an exceptional basis, but it strikes me that Stack Exchange has an unusually heavy reliance on JavaScript code that's hosted externally, that is, on other sites.
In particular, much of Stack Exchange's functionality is dependent on scripts hosted at googleapis.com
(although there are several other locations called out to).
Copied from External JavaScript code failed to load, the following functionality is dependent on external sites:
- Adding comments.
- Voting.
- Controls (image, code buttons, etc.) missing from message posting form and the preview does not appear.
- Automatic recognition that you are 'not a bot'.
- Notify daily of new answers option.
- ...
I find this annoying - I consider it to be a (mild) security/privacy problem.
But, also, it must cause problems with Stack Exchange's proper function. If such an external site is down: much of Stack Exchange's functionality will fail.
Can this be changed?
sstatic.net
, which might be one of the "other locations" you refer to, is an SE cookieless domain, so that would not be external. – waiwai933 May 27 '12 at 21:08