I have use NoScript consistently for years and I disagree with you. Essentially the only thing NoScript does is make it so when you haven't visited a website before, it doesn't automatically trust it. For the most part every single website I go to needs to have JS enabled for anything to work beyond just reading content.
And even then, I would say 70% of the time, some critical piece of content on a website does not work with JS disabled, be it images or text or video or etc.
I disable JS on my phone, and I disagree with you: the vast majority of the text content web is perfectly readable without JS.
If you want to watch video, you're out of luck. If you want to use a web app, you're out of luck. But if you just want to consume text content, the majority of the web just works, and a lot faster too.
(I've never been able to get NoScript to work right, it's always given me problems. Perhaps part of the problem is NoScript?)
> For the most part every single website I go to needs to have JS enabled for anything to work beyond just reading content.
What percentage of websites is that though? Of course it depends on your browsing habits if it is feasible or not. I don't click social media stuff, I participate only if I really want to or if I am part of a community.
The majority of sites I visit are either regular revisits (rules are easily set up then) or random browsing where security & privacy by default is good.
I never used NoScript but am a bit uMatrix fan. There I can easily allow things. NoScript looked super complicated.
I've been using NoScript for years as well, and I have to disagree with you. Now that NoScript auto-permits the base domain (which you can switch off), I don't have to do much manual permissioning. There's the occasional bit, but really, 70% is a ridiculously high estimate.
Then there's the occasional 'funny photo' site which won't work until you enable 15 different sources - in which case, I just pop open Chrome if I really want to see that funny photo.
And then starts the crazy hunt for the one thing you need to turn on to make the page work.
I was trying many years ago to create a public DB/wiki telling us which things we need to turn on to get the page to work, but it got abandoned before I really started.
And even then, I would say 70% of the time, some critical piece of content on a website does not work with JS disabled, be it images or text or video or etc.