There is gemini which is basically that (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol))

I mean, you could just turn JavaScript off in your browser, but we all know your experience of the web will be abysmal.

I think what you actually want is a web without JavaScript. One where you can only find documents and not accidentally run into apps.

While true, we're at the point where JS is often used to pull static content to display anything useful at all. 20 years ago it was done on the server with PHP. Disabling JS ends up with a way worse result than it used to.

That was indeed my point. You can't just disable JavaScript and expect the web to work for you.

I would like to see more common browsers like Netsurf and Dillo. All of HTML 5, with CSS and stuff, but no JS at all.

Some promotion and branding and badges for how to build a site that contains no scripts at all.

I don't see the need for a new protocol and new clients. Just a plain ol' JS-free Web.

And, equally, something similar for the back end. No scripting languages, no PHP and no JS and nothing akin to them. Just native code, compiled from safe languages with bounds-checking.

No CMS, just dump text or markdown in a folder and presto you have a website.

I think we agree but you missed my point. You can create JavaScript-free websites (“documents”) and you can use a JavaScript-free browser, but there will still be websites with JavaScript (“apps”) around that your favorite websites (“documents”) will link to. You won't be happy with this arrangement until it becomes possible for your browser to cleanly separate the document-web from the app-web.

OK. How do you propose to do that?

It doesn't sound impossible. So let's think about how.