Want to talk about NoScript? Post here. Topic is solved

[therube]

Nothing to do with amusing.

Something cannot be allowed if it is not there.
And at the time you Allowed All, it was not.
It was not until after you Allowed All that it was, so it was at that point, when it was, that it then could be Allowed (All or otherwise).

Anyhow, except for total PITA sites, you would (think you would) want to try to limit what you allow to the minimum required...


Allow Globally would not have that "issue" (if you consider the above an issue).
But then Allow Globally, well, allows globally - which you might consider, an "issue" .

[4td8s]

totally agree with therube here.

I did try out umatrix 1.1.4 legacy on PM for a while but I switched back to using Noscript when v5.1.9 came out because NS was easier to use than umatrix

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

Thank you, coffeebreak, Pale Moon Rising, helloimustbegoing, therube, & doofy for very responsive & articulate answers. Above & beyond. Considering them all, I think I'll tweak my ad blocker thoroughly first, and after I get everything I can out of it, THEN I'll see about wringing some additional functionality out of NoScript. Unless someone points out a reason I should do it the other way around. You've been a big help.

Re:

. . . I'm kind of perplexed about what this quote has to do with anything else in your post.

It doesn't. It's a 70 word humorous aside. If that's against a rule, I missed it.

. . . funny thing is, there are probably people who will read this and totally not get the humor, and others who will totally not get the seriousness.

. . . hmmm . . .

[retroburrower]

Why can't this be an option under Preferences? That's how it is with SeaMonkey, with further suboptions to turn off just selected features when javascript is on.

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

Why can't this be an option under Preferences? That's how it is with SeaMonkey, with further suboptions to turn off just selected features when javascript is on.

There are a lot of prior posts, covering a lot of ground, so I think you'd be more likely to get an answer if you clearly identified what "this" you're writing of. If you mean the ability to install NoScript, it is an option, but like many options, I count about 50 beginning with 'a', so probably around a thousand, it's in about:config. Couldn't very well put them ALL in preferences. That would be a horribly big menu. Somebody has to choose what goes where. And the ones that are more likely to cause problems when they aren't set to the default value, naturally belong in the less accessible place.

[coffeebreak]

Why can't this be an option under Preferences? That's how it is with SeaMonkey, with further suboptions to turn off just selected features when javascript is on.

Expect you mean these SeaMonkey's preferences ( Edit > Preferences... > Advanced / Scripts & Plugins )

SM2.49.4-js-prefs.png

There was similar in Firefox 3.6.28 options too - I don't know when mozilla removed this UI.

FF3.6.28-js-prefs.png

Currently you can get the UI for those sub-options and more with the extension Pale Moon Commander (PMC).
Take a look at its preferences: Security section > General tab, and DOM tab.

PMCommander-js-prefs.png

PMCommander-prefs2.png

PMC does not have a global on/off switch for JavaScript, and I'm pretty sure that's deliberate, done out of concern for site breakage (Moonchild can please say if that's incorrect.) So by inference, it's not likely that the UI for such setting would be restored to the browser's core. (JavaScript can still be disabled without an extension, just not conveniently.) Edit: see here.

I am not personally a fan of removing options, or of making them harder to access/use, to prevent users from breaking sites.

But I do believe that a simple global JS on/off switch has limited usefulness, and that people are better served by any of the tools (extensions) that allow for making exceptions, and give finer control in varying degrees of granularity over what JS can do on a given site.

[yami_]

PMC does not have a global on/off switch for JavaScript

It does:

JS-disable.png

[coffeebreak]

PMC does not have a global on/off switch for JavaScript

It does

Ah. Thank you.

I don't use PMCommander, but installed it/looked at it (where I thought such a setting would be) before posting.
It didn't occur to me to look under "Performance". My bad, my ignorance and carelessness.

So for someone who wants what @retroburrower suggested, it fulfills that completely.

[retroburrower]

Why can't this be an option under Preferences? That's how it is with SeaMonkey, with further suboptions to turn off just selected features when javascript is on.

There are a lot of prior posts, covering a lot of ground, so I think you'd be more likely to get an answer if you clearly identified what "this" you're writing of. If you mean the ability to install NoScript, it is an option, but like many options, I count about 50 beginning with 'a', so probably around a thousand, it's in about:config. Couldn't very well put them ALL in preferences. That would be a horribly big menu. Somebody has to choose what goes where. And the ones that are more likely to cause problems when they aren't set to the default value, naturally belong in the less accessible place.

I meant having Allow js Globally be a part of PM's preferences, so as to have priority over settings in extensions. The suboptions were mentioned simply because SeaMonkey is a Mozilla browser, so that they can be imported with not much more effort.

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

FWIW, to anybody considering NoScript, I tried some of the alternatives mentioned, and several are worth while, I don't regret installing or exploring them, & I still have a couple of them installed. But I never could stop PM from eating all my RAM & locking up until I finally installed NoScript again. It's a bear with a steep learning curve than can screw you up if you aren't careful, but hey, so is a chain saw. YMMV. This is under a bare bones Ubuntu 18.04, 64 bit, installed from the mini.iso, with plain X, Openbox, & Lightdm - & no DE per se.

If you try it, back up your profile before installing. Actually I think that's a good thing to do before making ANY significant mod. If you have the drive space, the simplest way is just to make a copy, preserving ownership and perms (aka "mode") of the whole folder. I use a script that appends the time to the name. I've used extensions to do this, and they are probably more efficient space-wise, but this is faster and simpler for me.

[Pallid Planetoid]

^ I've been using NoScript (NS) for years and have absolutely found as well that overall PM actually does perform better using NS as opposed to not using NS (as long as NS is used properly). I've found that NS and Disconnet will sometimes not play well together which can be solved by disabling either of the two add-ons (for those who might be using both add-ons), an issue I can actually solve by disabling and re-enabling either one at which time they will once again both work together again.

[gepus]

I meant having Allow js Globally be a part of PM's preferences, so as to have priority over settings in extensions.

You can test/use the Toggle JavaScript extension by riis, basically a shortcut that toggles JS globally in "about:config". It's what I'm using.

My default setting for JS is always "disabled".
If a site doesn't work with JS disabled (no such site among my bookmarks), it's a matter of one click to enable.
If some content on a site requires JS (e.g. video), it's upon me to decide if it's worth or not to enable.
Most of the crap on the Internet is delivered through JS. With JS disabled most sites load 10%-50% faster even on modern hardware.
Besides, most browser APIs meant to identify/fingerprint your device need JS.
Last but not least, JS gets also misused as an attack vector being the most common one.
BTW, no WebExtension can toggle JS globally since access to internal settings of the browser has been prohibited for extension writers.

Mainstream browsers are designed with the content delivery industry in mind. That's where the big money comes from. The user is just a commodity, an annoying expedient at best. No wonder that Google's Chrome is praised by the content delivery industry as the best and most secure [sic!] browser of our galaxy.

[Moonchild]

I'm still surprised that people find it so astonishing that disabling JS gives them better performance. This really should not be a surprise in any way, shape or form, because you are disabling the use of 1/3rd of the web technologies involved in delivering content to you, and that 1/3rd actually being the most processor-intensive by a long way, with its JIT compilation and complex interpretation and threadable running.

The problem in general I see with people disabling JS is that it is not understood that just because a website is still usable in a limited fashion but enough for the non-JS user's experience, that that does not mean that the JS on that site is superfluous or unnecessary. It is only by the grace of web designers who take you into account because it is considered best practice to have a non-scripted fallback, that sites are still usable. That does not, however, mean that you are getting in any way the experience which is intended.

[gepus]

The problem in general I see with people disabling JS is that it is not understood that just because a website is still usable in a limited fashion but enough for the non-JS user's experience, that that does not mean that the JS on that site is superfluous or unnecessary.

What it means is that 90% of the junk that popular content filters like uBlock Origin are blocking, are served through JS.
Wonder if that junk counts also as an indispensable user experience, no matter how modern ones hardware is.
However it's (and always should be!) up to the user to decide for himself the benefits or disadvantages of the trade-off.

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

That does not, however, mean that you are getting in any way the experience which is intended.

Right. No offense intended, you're doing a fine job, but if I crack open a mugger's skull and leave him twitching on the sidewalk, I'm not getting the experience he intended either. I can do without the experience of having to sic xkill on my browser 3 or 4 times a day.

[Thehandyman1957]

It is only by the grace of web designers who take you into account because it is considered best practice to have a non-scripted fallback, that sites are still usable.

And thank God they do or I would just lose my mind with some of the web
pages out there. Heck, even Amazon, limited down to the basics needed to
use the site still lags like a bugger. And even though I have a great internet
connection, it takes pages forever to load all the crap needed to use it.

Or another "bloated" site is Zero Hedge. Turn on scripts and it's almost un-usable.

Not to mention the benefit of the amount of data saved from all that crap.
I'm metered to 20 gigs a month on Verizon and blocking all that stuff really helps.

That does not, however, mean that you are getting in any way the experience which is intended.

I'm ok with that!

[Lew Rockwell Fan]

. . . Amazon, limited down to the basics needed to use the site still lags like a bugger.

https://www.abebooks.com/
or ebay. I only buy from Amazon when there really is NO alternative.

[Thehandyman1957]

Off-topic:
I agree completely about Amazon, but sadly, there is no other place I can
go to read the reviews on items I might be interested in, even if I'm buying
from Ebay. That and they gave me a free month of Prime so I figured I might
as well use it. Speaking of 2 day shipping, I just ordered something on Sunday
and they over night air mailed it. Shoot, the shipping alone was
probably more than my order, but if they are willing to do it I'm not going to complain.

[Twin_Six]

Posted in this thread on the likelihood that it may be NS related. Posted in this forum nonetheless on the chance that it may not be. (Windows 7 and PM both, the latest.)

I have sessions saved that include tabs with sites which occasionally embed a video; NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day, for instance. Whenever the newest update of the page frames [what ought to be] a new video, a video previously featured there (normally the last one) appears, even from several updates back. Refreshing the tab doesn't fix it so that the video matches the current caption, but copying the URL of the tab and pasting that into a blank tab brings the correct video there. Even then, the old tab persists in the error.

It doesn't only happen when I load a named session, but also when I restore the previous session. The part which makes me suspect that I might need to change something in NS is - where I have the same tab present in two sessions, which were saved at different times, different old videos can reappear in the new spot.

[Pallid Planetoid]

^ Have you tried disabling NS to see if this makes a difference? Also have you tested for this problem using Pale Moon in Safe-Mode to determine if any other add-ons might be involved? If the problem persists using Pale Moon in Safe-Mode then try creating an alternate "fresh" Pale Moon Profile to test out this issue.

What version of NS are you using? (the most current legacy version that works with Pale Moon is NSv5.1.9.)