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Wildflowers
of the
Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area
About JavaScriptWhat is JavaScript?JavaScript is a programming language that web developers use to give their web pages the ability to perform complicated operations. Practically all web sites with any real complexity make use of it. For this reason almost all modern web browsers come with JavaScript enabled and consequently our Flower Finder should work just fine without needed you to change anything. It is worth mentioning that JavaScript is not related in any way to another web programming language called Java (except perhaps that the publishers of both languages like to drink coffee :)What does it mean that JavaScript is disabled in my web browser?A web browser is a computer program that displays web pages for you. Examples of browser programs include Mosaic, Netscape Navigator, Internet Explorer, Mozilla firefox, Opera, Konqueror, Lynx, and several others. Most of these support JavaScript and come with it "enabled" by default. However, some of the worst internet security breaches have been associated with scripting languages like JavaScript. For this reason some people like to turn off or "disable" the scripting built into their browsers (this might also have been done for you by security programs that you install on your computer.) This makes surfing the web safer but unfortunately you also miss out on a lot that the web has to offer. If you keep your system current with the latest security patches the risk of using JavaScript is small. This is because internet scripting has been designed to be safe and in an ideal world it would be totally safe. It is only the presence of errors or "bugs" in software that make it unsafe. The browser publishers continually post updates or "patches" that fix their bugs as they are discovered (and hopefully before a hacker has a chance to exploit the bug and start harming people's computers.) Note that it is the combination of having un-patched buggy software on your computer and visiting a hacker's web site that leads to problems. By the way, this is not just a problem of web browsers but a generic problem will all of your computer's software. Hence the importance of keeping your computer's software continually updated.How do I enable JavaScript?Unfortunately each browser program has its own way of doing this. Even different versions of the same program sometimes have different methods of doing this. Here is a way of doing it for a couple of the most popular web browsers:Internet Explorer: IE has a full-featured options menu that allows you pretty much complete control of which types of content are displayed. This also means it can be a rather complicated procedure if you want to fine tune its security settings. For this reason Microsoft created a set of built-in security "zones" so that people can easily choose a common group of settings based on their own level of paranoia. Usually the Internet zone allows JavaScript to run on all but the high position of the security slider. To check this go to Tools | Internet Options | Security and then click on the Internet zone. Note: if a custom level has been created the slider will probably not be visible. It can be brought back by erasing the custom level by clicking the Default level button. Firefox: Got to Tools | Options... | Content and then make sure the Enable JavaScript checkbox is checked. In version 1.0 go to Web Features instead of Content. [ Wildflowers Home ]
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