In IE 11- How can I ascertain JavaScript enabled.

[MplsBob]

[couldn't figure out where to post this question]

The question ACTUALLY is

"How in IE 11 can I readily ascertain whether JavaScript is ENABLED or DISABLED?"

A followup question-

I thought that several years ago JavaScript was viewed as an avenue for hackers to use and should be disabled.

I may be wrong on this idea.

My concern- Is JavaScript now considered relatively safe to use?
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[Dahak]

You can look at the steps her enable-javascript
it will give you the steps on how to enable it.

as for how safe it is, it depends on if you trust the site or not.

In the steps on that site you can change it from enabled to prompt and anytime you go to a site that needs it you can allow it to run per site

 

[Savatar]

The above post tells how to check whether JavaScript ("active scripting") is enabled in IE11. It pretty much will be most of the time.

I would say that yes, JavaScript is generally considered safe as well. Javascript _can_ still be used to do some things that you may not want done (like tracking the end-user, even when cookies are disabled, or open up popup ads / alter content on page with XSS, for example). However, nowadays JavaScript provides a much richer experience on many webpages - and many sites are practically inaccessible without some javascript enabled. In general browsers have done a good job of securing it... and more serious vulnerabilities/exploits take advantage of things like Acrobat Reader, Flash and Java instead of JavaScript (this is different than Java).

A decent compromise is to use Firefox with something like NoScript, with which you can then selectively allow scripts to run for particular domains. If you find yourself on a site that looks horrible or isn't usable then, you can allow scripts for just the required domains. It does require a user who knows what they're doing though.

Much more important, though, from a security perspective is to disable Acrobat Reader, Flash and Java plug-ins for whatever browser you use - and only selectively enable them when needed (i.e. Flash when you want to watch YouTube videos or something).