Pale Moon forum

All users of NoScript please take note: this extension is the cause of many, many websites breaking (more every day) and we cannot reasonably provide support with the browser any longer when you have NoScript installed, because in the vast majority of cases it is not a browser issue, but something in NoScript being overzealous in its blocking (e.g. from external hosts) or even due to bugs in the extension itself. In addition, and more importantly so, the extension itself causes browser instability and profile corruption when used in Pale Moon, and in some cases crashes of the browser unrelated to anything. Please do not ignore the warnings given; they are there for legitimate reasons. Switching NoScript to "allow all", disabling NoScript in the add-on manager, or any other attempt at fixing these issues without performing a full uninstall of the extension are, on top, usually met with failure.

In most cases, the only way to get back to a sane working condition is:

1. Complete remove NoScript from the browser
2. Clear your cookies (Options -> Privacy -> Remove individual cookies -> Clear all cookies)
3. Empty your cache (Options -> Advanced -> Network -> "Clear now" button under "Cached web content")
4. Restart the browser

We're sorry that you will be considered to be "on your own" when you use NoScript, but it's been a cause for way too much lost troubleshooting time and wasted energy from developers and community members alike, and we simply can't keep doing this.

I am extremely late to the NoScript party (only started using it on one machine, 6 months ago). I finally had enough of JS nonsense ruining my browsing experience. I have found the plugin works well with Pale Moon, and always lets me know if it is blocking JS items. I can temporarily/permanently enable JS on the page, and it will allow the scripts that initially tried to load. However, new scripts can try to load from those initial scripts, and it will block those obviously, as they are new. The plug-in lets me know it is still blocking items, and gives me the ability to temporarily/permanently allow the new ones as well. I've had to do this process sometimes as much as a dozen times to get a page to load completely, but that's in extreme cases where I actually care enough to use this site. Usually I'm not that interested.

If, after all of that things still do not work as expected, I may start considering possibly thinking about maybe this might in an off-chance be a Pale Moon issue, but I will rule out other things first.

I certainly haven't noticed any proper bugs in the plug-in, but then again I haven't been using it for a long time, nor taxing it much I bet.

No doubt, if a user is not aware of how the plug-in works, or other aspects of web behavior they may mistake Pale Moon as the cause for an issue when it is actually NoScript. It is unfortunate that must be happening enough to prompt this post, but I guess that's life. No big deal. Carry on.

I've been using NoScript for almost ten years now, and I have come to expect that more and more sites will break as long as I'm running content-blocking add-ons. If something doesn't work, those are the first things I troubleshoot. I am slightly disappointed by this decision, but I understand it, and I am willing to accept the risks for the time being.

For troubleshooting reasons, will running Pale Moon in safe mode be enough to temporarily mitigate issues caused by NoScript, if cookies and the network cache are also cleared?

This is a by-design way from NoScript.
Anyway uMatrix is even better then NoScript.

It should be noted that when noscript is uninstalled from PM that remnants can still be found in about:config.
FWIW i think UBO is far better.

Moonraker wrote:FWIW i think UBO is far better.

uBlock Origin by default isnt a replacement, but uMatrix is.

I'm well-aware that conscientious users of the extension will not ask immediately for support, but that isn't the problem (so no negatives if you actually know what you're doing).

The problem is users who install NoScript, without knowing the inherent risks, and expecting it to "keep them safe" but otherwise not expecting (major) breakage, and as a result come knocking with "Pale Moon doesn't work on site X!", the start of a usually pointless exercise that sometimes can even result in heated debates that nobody wants.

To cut all that short, we simply can't keep spending time on this setup. If you install NoScript, you're on your own with any breakage.

As for Safe Mode: considering that should completely short-cut any extension involvement, and clearing cache and cookies taking care of any "poisoned" web content in the browser, that should be a reasonably-safe environment to rule out NoScript's involvement. note: should.

I agree with the decision, though I think it's the growing pile of script madness out there and NoScript does a good job (mostly). However it's annoying for me too sometimes, if certain overscripted sites don't work the way they should, even if I "(Temporarily) Allow" in NoScript, and I've seen enough posts from users who aren't aware of all these functions.

I suggest to make this clear in the FAQ too, because many NS users were just recommended to install NoScript, then realize 'Ma browsa don't work' and may not look here for a browser extension problem.

I believe I have a good amount of experience with NoScript now; I hope I won't blame Pale Moon for sites not working in Pale Moon, except when they still don't work after disabling NoScript and uBO completely.

And if it was a decision of the Pale Moon team to flag NoScript as "risky add-on" now, I am even more aware to run it on my own, despite warnings, by re-enabling it manually.

I have about 98% success using PM as primary browser. An excellent all round experience. I am concerned that fewer and fewer add-ons are allowed in PM. I use these for security. I like to see what scripts are running on every site. if a site forces me to accept too many unknown scripts I simply avoid it . I routinely block amz, goog, fb, and other scripts and still get perfectly adequate function on many sites. Even many streaming content sites - especially those for which I do not want to allow tracking. It is easy to experiment and discover the minimum number of scripts that allow normal functions and eliminate those which are data trackers. I would rather not have a nanny overseer that forces me to blindly accept excessive JS. We know JS has become a malware vector due to a poorly written API and lack of security checks on various pkgs. Why is it that FF can run with perfect stability using many add-ons banned on PM? Please do not interfere with my ability to review and purge individual scripts at will. The last thing i want is to be forced to use the most invasive data-mining engine - Chrome Browser. Unlike what I call site-sheeple who opt for convenience and zero security, I abhor persistent ID and do not use Browser based password managers or other "conveniences". I have zero problems running in SandboxIE isolation, on VPN while erasing cookies, tracking and limiting scripting. These add-on prohibitions are becoming a nightmare.

sqelch7 wrote:I have about 98% success using PM as primary browser. An excellent all round experience. I am concerned that fewer and fewer add-ons are allowed in PM. I use these for security. I like to see what scripts are running on every site. if a site forces me to accept too many unknown scripts I simply avoid it . I routinely block amz, goog, fb, and other scripts and still get perfectly adequate function on many sites. Even many streaming content sites - especially those for which I do not want to allow tracking. It is easy to experiment and discover the minimum number of scripts that allow normal functions and eliminate those which are data trackers. I would rather not have a nanny overseer that forces me to blindly accept excessive JS. We know JS has become a malware vector due to a poorly written API and lack of security checks on various pkgs. Why is it that FF can run with perfect stability using many add-ons banned on PM? Please do not interfere with my ability to review and purge individual scripts at will. The last thing i want is to be forced to use the most invasive data-mining engine - Chrome Browser. Unlike what I call site-sheeple who opt for convenience and zero security, I abhor persistent ID and do not use Browser based password managers or other "conveniences". I have zero problems running in SandboxIE isolation, on VPN while erasing cookies, tracking and limiting scripting. These add-on prohibitions are becoming a nightmare.

It's still your free choice to use NoScript with Pale Moon but you're on your own when problems arise. That's all Moonchild said.

I switched to Pale Moon precisely because of the heavy-handedness of nannyism in Firefox releases for the last few years, and now you're mimicking their bad behavior. Good job, nitwits. Now I'll be on the look-out for another browser that acts as a USER AGENT that recognizes me as the user.

I run NoScript precisely because I don't want websites to "work" when they define "working" as spying, keylogging, cryptocurrency mining, or even simple crap like wasting CPU time on animations and other UI garbage. 99% of it is annoying, stupid, and unnecessary and NoScript allows me to prevent it from getting in my way.

So here's the deal. For the short term, I'm going into about:config and changing extensions.blocklist.url to about:blank. For the long term, I'm looking for a new browser.

I hope your newfound mediocrity finds you some success with all of those non-advanced users you supposedly have... you know... the ones that switched away from browsers they had actually heard of (and who know what a browser is) and started using an little-known fork of a browser they had heard of. Yeah, good luck with that user... that poor, lone user. If Firefox did something like this, I could understand it. I'd expect it from Chrome. But Pale Moon users already know what they're getting into, or they wouldn't be Pale Moon users. For it to pop up a "you're too stupid to use this add-on so we're going to disable it for you" message is just asinine.

Lunix wrote:It's still your free choice to use NoScript with Pale Moon...

Less so than before. It was just put on the blacklist.

Lunix wrote:It's still your free choice to use NoScript with Pale Moon but you're on your own when problems arise. That's all Moonchild said.

Yes well, one of the problems that arose today is that a dialog popped up that to the average user might suggest that No-script is malware, rather than a tool for preventing it.

This dialog took the liberty of de-activating a plugin which I installed, and all I needed to do to restart 100 tabs without it was brush against the spacebar.

Do I understand the practical side of saying that this plugin is unsupported? Yes. That part is fine.

I remember when Alex Limi removed javascript from the preferences dialog, and this is one of the reasons I wanted to stop using Firefox immediately. He did a little blog post where he said "It breaks so many websites! If you want to turn off javascript use a plugin or about:config" ignoring that the dialog made it trivial for users to deactivate js at any time, on nearly any machine.

No-script is designed to break some functionality that some people may not consider neutral, but I don't take issue with the fact that it is unsupported in Pale Moon.

I take issue with the fact that I consider Firefox and increasingly unsuitable browser, I have generally considered Pale Moon to be a replacement which does not do the same dubious, arrogant or foolish things to take options and power (and responsibility) away from the user, and not because of this decision but *because of the way this decision is implemented* (with scare language and attempting to automatically disable things I installed. YOU didn't install that plugin) I am now between not being able to recommend Firefox to anybody--

and because of the implementation, not the decision itself, I am also extremely reluctant to recommend Pale Moon to anybody either. I cannot recommend ANY web browser to anybody.

Seriously. What the heck is happening to software design lately?!

Further decisions like this and there will be cause to fork Pale Moon. Aw heck, there will be further decisions like this. Time to fork Pale Moon! (Darn you, darn you, darn you for this.)

Did you really have to go and manually disable the addon in a browser blocklist? Of course, this is only a minor inconvenience, but the line in the info page saying "Your add-on has been blocked or disabled because it is known to be malware" is kind of excessive, isn't it? Also, it should be common sense to anyone using NoScript that it will break websites, that's just what it does. Why discourage its use by discrediting the addon, rather than simply giving a warning that people shouldn't hold pale moon accountable for broken pages?

I consider noscript is irreplaceable, sure ready to poke it for temporary allow some scripts and objects. Note that many sites are loaded better and faster when to allow their essential script and block other shit.

Obviously the request for support is to be made only after check on the vanilla browser profile.

Put on the blacklist? this is ridiculous, i rather throw out the blacklist.
extensions.blocklist.enabled;false

As a matter of Pale Moon history..

We have only directly added 12 extensions to the blocklist in the entire history of this Project.

That is TWELVE out of TWENTY-FOUR THOUSAND SEVEN HUNDRED AND SIXTY-EIGHT give or take one or two. Please get some perspective.

Also, level 1 status means it is an add-on that is known to cause security OR stability issues. Which it is.

By default this will not even disable an extension. It will only put a warning in the Add-ons Manager.

Would you prefer a whitelist instead? Perhaps in the form of enforced signing of all extensions and then only by our Add-ons Site?

No?

Then, quitcha bitchin'.

Please get some perspective.

This makes the whole idea of switching from Firefox a farce-- it is replacing the arrogance of one party with the arrogance of another.

You are the one who needs perspective, and people are going to be giving it to you. You will certainly not gain it though.

I use NoScript, and I think that there is some confusion to what the add-on is for.

From the "advisory":

Unless finely tuned for every website visited,

That's the whole idea. You can permanently allow scripts (the ones you want/need to allow) on sites you visit regularly or temporarily on sites that you don't.

For those who wanted the opposite I thought that there was an opposite type add-on?
ie; allows all scripts unless you block them.

Yes, and it's called YesScript. In my opinion, I think it's really difficult to use NoScript, unless you really know exactly what is essential to have full functionality on every page you visit (as you quoted, "finely tuned"). People who have this level of control over webpages will likely know how to install it in spite of any warning and/or blocklist.
Also, NoScript opens a website on first install, which is full of ads like: "How to make your PC faster" (and I use uBlock Origin).
I'd be more concerned about that.

Edited for typos.