TIL About .bold(), .blink(), and More JavaScript String Methods

While playing around in the Chrome DevTools, I noticed a string method I had never seen before: .bold(). Curiosity got the better of me, and I gave it a try.

let myString = 'Hello World!';
myString.bold(); // returns "<b>Hello World!</b>"

It's a method that returns the string wrapped in a <b> tag. It's very deprecated, but all major browsers still support it.

.bold() is not alone - I've found several other string methods that are in the same boat. Again, these are all deprecated, and should not be used in the wild.

• .anchor(name): Returns the string wrapped in <a> tags with the name attribute set to the given name
• .big(): Returns the string wrapped in <big> tags.
• .fixed(): Returns the string wrapped in <tt> tags.
• .fontcolor(color): Returns the string wrapped in <font> tags with the color attribute set to the given color
• .fontsize(size): Returns the string wrapped in <font> tags with the size attribute set to the given size
• .italics(): Returns the string wrapped in <i> tags.
• .link(url): Returns the string wrapped in <a> tags with the href attribute set to the given URL
• .small(): Returns the string wrapped in <small> tags.
• .strike(): Returns the string wrapped in <strike> tags.
• .sub(): Returns the string wrapped in <sub> tags.
• .sup(): Returns the string wrapped in <sup> tags.

... and, of course, my personal favorite: .blink(), which returns your string wrapped in a <blink>.

As with .bold(), these methods are all officially deprecated. Several of them even wrap your strings in tags that have long since been deprecated. These methods remain in browsers for the sake of backwards compatibility, an artifact of development past.