We need a proper userscript manager for Pale Moon

[sinfulosd]

Inspired by viewtopic.php?f=46&t=31373 when we were able to create an extension that is better than Decentraleyes.

Now there is another extension that is arguably as important as intercepting CDNs and replacing them with local ones for privacy measures. I wanna talk about userscripts.

Nowadays, the internet is becoming more bloated and our control is being taken from us, each and every day. (Block adblock, URL shortening with ads and/or tracking implemented in them, Adware in downloads, count-down ads, restriction of right-clicking on some websites, etc...) One of the ways for us to take back our control is by using a userscript manager and browse through THOUSANDS of scripts that makes your browsing experience a lot better. As a matter of fact, some of these scripts could even replace some extensions that exists on Pale Moon.

Now I know that someone contributed to create a fork of Greasymonkey on Pale Moon, but this extension hasn't been updated for more than 6 years. It only supports GM3 API, while the majority of the scripts that is nowadays being uploaded are GM4-compatible. (GM4 scripts uses more privileges in the API, making them much more powerful and gives the user much more control)

The situation with Greasemonkey on Pale Moon is exactly like Justoff's uBlock Origin, except that Greasemonkey is much older. Even Greasemonkey's webextension itself rarely gets frequently updated.

I went ahead to do some research about the potential userscript managers to be added to Pale Moon. I made an issue on Violentmonkey's Github page to fork it there, but of course I got the answer of "It's not feasible". I've done the same on FireMonkey's Github page, but I got the exact same answer. (Firemonkey is known for being a very minimal of a userscript that focus on performance, while maintaining a good reputation of never violating the privacy policy)

It seems that the community has to take matters in their own hand in forking/creating this type of extension that is fully updated and compatible with Pale Moon's superior API.

I believe that, just as we were able to identify the issue with Decentraleyes and come up with a solution that is also much better, we could do the exact same approach with Greasemonkey and make a fork or create an extension that does the job, if not better than what we currently have.

I originally had the idea of a request to fork Firemonkey's userscript manager to Pale Moon, due to the extension being lightweight and not that hard to fork, as our current situation doesn't have the luxury to add some eye-candy appearances, before having the extension that works properly in the first place.

But right now, we gotta focus on one thing at a time. We must have a userscript manager that works and is compatible with Pale Moon's API, be it Violentmonkey, Firemonkey, or even make a pull request of Greasemonkey and update it on Pale Moon add-on site, while being the new maintainer of it.

[back2themoon]

Agreed, and thanks for your attempts to revive a userscript manager. I'll just note that your intro: "Pale Moon is based on Firefox version 52" probably isn't accurate any more, and is most probably not going to inspire anyone to create something new, for something that old (FF52).

...It only supports GM3 API, while the majority of the scripts that is nowadays being uploaded are GM4-compatible. (GM4 scripts uses more privileges in the API, making them much more powerful and gives the user much more control)

A question on this, without really knowing much about the subject: wasn't GM4 created to accommodate the change to WebExtensions? Since WebExtensions are less powerful and more restrictive, how could the new GM4 scripts be more powerful, or useful?

I haven't really tried any of these new GM4 userscripts. Just asking. Is the GM3 format abandoned, or still going strong with some important updates that are missing from the old Pale Moon GM version? Has the GM4 format really taken off, or the choice we're left with is between a powerful, but abandoned GM3 format and a useless, but "updated" GM4?

[sinfulosd]

A question on this, without really knowing much about the subject: wasn't GM4 created to accommodate the change to WebExtensions? Since WebExtensions are less powerful and more restrictive, how could the new GM4 scripts be more powerful, or useful?

It was indeed created for the WebExtension change and a lot of features were missing, but they were added back to the GM4 userscripts. GM4 is more powerful, because they introduced some more method in its API to enhance the script power.

Some of these methods are being used in popular userscripts now, even these popular scripts here, you'll find out that you can install about 40% of them.

[back2themoon]

Thanks, interesting info. 40% is quite a lot.

[Shadow]

This seems like maybe one step too far.

Isn't there an older version of VMonkey (never liked the stupid name or icon) that works with UXP browsers? Remember reading somewhere somebody using it. Perhaps that could be forked and tweaked.

Another thing we could do is have our own collaborated curated list of scripts that do work with what we have already.

Embarrassingly I have some scripts from greasyfork and elsewhere installed without actually knowing if they doing what they are supposed to.

Like this one for example:
https://www.elitereloaded.io/disable-page-visibility-api-with-tampermonkey-and-greasemonkey/

[sinfulosd]

Thanks, interesting info. 40% is quite a lot.

You may think it is indeed quite a lot of scripts that could be installed, until you realize that the majority of them are on a continuous updates and they inevitably will include some method in the GM4 API, sooner or later. Today's 40% could be like 12% next year and these 12% over half of them would be outdated for the current browsing use anyways. (Like Block blockadblock that received its last update on 2016 and the list is completely useless in 2025)

Isn't there an older version of VMonkey (never liked the stupid name or icon) that works with UXP browsers? Remember reading somewhere somebody using it. Perhaps that could be forked and tweaked.

Another thing we could do is have our own collaborated curated list of scripts that do work with what we have already.

In my research, I did not find any version of ViolentMonkey that works with UXP. The only one that I found was someone developing Greasemonkey for Seamonkey browser, and I already commented on their post to fork/tweak it to Pale Moon browser. Maybe this could be a start for us, the community, to tweak and publish the Pale Moon version of it here. (If you could locate the UXP version of Violentmonkey somewhere, you could send a link here)

Doing our own collaborated curated list of scripts is a very counter-intuitive approach, because the internet is changing every quite often. (Check how many times YouTube alone changed in 2024) The best approach is to utilize the fact that UXP engine doesn't require a continuous maintenance of an extension development and just create a userscript manager that is compatible with both GM3 and GM4 and maybe after a year or two years, it could be updated with newer features. (Exactly like Greasemonkey that keeps being updated only 2-3 times a year)

[moonbat]

Greasemonkey was the first and only XUL compatible userscript manager (the Pale Moon fork mentioned is the only one that works with it). All the others -Violet/Tamper etc were introduced either first on Chrome or long after Firefox moved to Web Extensions and thus never had any XUL compatible version.

[Michaell]

You may not like it [no GUI] but there is Guerilla Scripting.

[Shadow]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/violentmonkey/versions/

Version 2.14.0 from 2023 claims to work with firefox 52.0 and later so from my perspective, that sounds promising, but alas, it's just words on a page that sound good lol.

What I ultimately read was someone using VM with roytam's Serpent browser over at the msfn board.

[Nuck-TH]

Imho, there is little poin in digging around searching what script managers had XUL version, nor take bite in "lightweightness", because, ultimately, manager... manages scripts and provides GM_ api, which at lest at glance is pretty directly maps to Jetpack(at least in Janek's Greasemonkey).
It shouldn't be _that_ difficult to just implement newer API functions using that GM(Janek's) as starting point, because it is already latest XUL version with some further developments.

WebExtension versions can be used only as reference, because extension API and, most importantly, "security" model there is completely different from XUL.

[sinfulosd]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/violentmonkey/versions/

Version 2.14.0 from 2023 claims to work with firefox 52.0 and later...

You go to that specific version of Violentmonkey and you get an error from Pale Moon, saying that it does not support Webextensions. Firefox started supporting Webextensions since 48.0. An extension that still serves 52.0 as its minimum version of Firefox is not an indication that the extension itself is built with XUL.

It shouldn't be _that_ difficult to just implement newer API functions using that GM(Janek's) as starting point, because it is already latest XUL version with some further developments.

I don't mind if someone decided to do a pull request on Greasemonkey Github page and be its official maintainer for Pale Moon and add all the missing API functions.