By using reader mode

It is some time ago since I last used it, but I found that too many websites that I want to read require Javascript to even show you the main body of text, or a reasonable layout. Is that different now?

No. Just whitelist the main domain for sites that are obviously broken. Then try one or two likely subdomains if that's not enough. In the rare cases where it still wants more crap enabled, then it's usually not worth the effort, close tab and move on to something else. As you build up a whitelist over time, it becomes pretty rare that you need to interact with it more than a couple times per day. Yeah, it takes some effort, but it's worth it to nuke cookie banners and sticky headers and videos and all the other crap people do with JS.

I already have that routine with uBlock Origin. I don't think NoScript offers all of uBO's functionality, and I certainly won't do the same dance for two extensions, but I'll look into uBO's abilities to specifically block JS.

Makes sense! I use both, uBO just does its thing and I never interact with it. NoScript handles blocking & whitelisting javascript. It's totally possible uBO has a similar feature and I just don't know about it.

I never understood how people can browser the we WITH IT. Even 10 years ago. today more then ever basically every website needs JS to work properly. I basically never come across a page where I have the urge to disable JS. I have a large list of adblock lists active that also help getting rid of cookie banners and other shit.

I can not imagine manually approving JS for every site. And again doing the inverse and have noscript installed to deny one website a year does not seem to be worth it for me. In this case I can also just use a adblock rule to block that specific script or all .js files from the domain I guess. So I really no not need NoScript.

By default the script for the page itself is whitelisted, it is just the third party scripts that are blocked. This works fairly often, but there are a few sites that you can also globally unblock because they provide value. One example is mathjax, used to format equations on many pages.

Many sites don't need JS at all, like the OP of this thread for example. For a lot of sites, disabling JS actually gives a better experience than leaving it enabled, again like the OP of this thread. It's a trade-off, but I find most uses of JS are so bad it's worth putting up with whitelisting. For example, I don't see cookie pop-ups, I don't see videos, disabling JS kills most of those stupid sticky headers that web designers love so much, and whatever too-clever crap the OP of this thread was doing is completely bypassed. The web is so, so much better with JS off by default.

For those sites that do need JS, NoScript's whitelist feature makes it quick & easy to fix. The first time I visit a new site, if it is obviously broken, then I whitelist the main domain. If that doesn't fix it, then I whitelist a couple likely-looking domains (often sites import JS from similar domains, or from common library domains). That's enough to get probably 90+% of websites working, while still leaving most garbage JS disabled. The remaining ~10% of websites that need a dozen domains whitelisted are probably not worth visiting anyway, so I just move on at that point. Or NoScript even lets you temp-whitelist everything for a given tab and just put up with the misery to get whatever I need from that one site. Since the whitelist persists forever, and I don't visit hundreds of different websites every day, after some time it becomes pretty rare that I need to whitelist more than one or two things per day.

You maintain an adblock blacklist, I maintain a NoScript whitelist. Not so different :)