"Temporarily allow", then revoke - and then site still works

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idf
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2013 9:48 am

"Temporarily allow", then revoke - and then site still works

Post by idf »

Similar things have happened at a few sites, with slightly different symptoms. They may warn they detect an ad blocker, but allow me to dismiss the warning and continue. Or the site may put up a page that says something, probably an ad blocker, is preventing the site from operating. I disable Add Block Plus in such cases, but it doesn't help, so I start allowing scripts to see which may be causing trouble. This is exhausting and fruitless, because I've found that sites that cause a lot of problems sometimes load a virtually unending number of scripts. Allow one, and 5 new blocked ones show up.

Finally, I temporarily allow all scripts. The site works. I then revoke all temporary permissions - and the site continues to work!

So, any thoughts about what is happening? I could speculate that one of the temporarily permitted scripts drops a cookie that is read by some scripts I always allow, so the cookie remains even after I stop permitting the script that wrote the cookie. That seems far fetched, though.

Thanks for any ideas.
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barbaz
Senior Member
Posts: 10841
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:45 pm

Re: "Temporarily allow", then revoke - and then site still w

Post by barbaz »

Impossible to answer this without any links to these sites.
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
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idf
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2013 9:48 am

Re: "Temporarily allow", then revoke - and then site still w

Post by idf »

Ooops! I must have deleted a line, as I thought I had included a URL. Sorry!

One site is http://www.salon.com

I was away for most of the day and just found it reverted back to blocked condition... So I once again allowed all temporarily; the page refreshed and all was fine. Then I revoked temporary permissions, and page refreshed and is still fine. Then I exited FF, and restarted it - the page is still fine.

So whatever it is in my sequence that clears the problem, it outlives a browser session, but doesn't "live" forever. So it's not a temporary cookie that is deleted on browser exit, but may be a cookie with a short time spam.

At least I know this workaround to clear the problem up when it recurs, but remain in the dark about what is going on.

Thanks for any help.
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barbaz
Senior Member
Posts: 10841
Joined: Sat Aug 03, 2013 5:45 pm

Re: "Temporarily allow", then revoke - and then site still w

Post by barbaz »

Visited salon.com with adblocker disabled, and I'm not seeing what you're describing.

What I see is, they mistake NoScript for an adblocker when only salon.com is Allowed. With scripts completely blocked the site can't do adblock detection. And when I "Temporarily allow all this page", they correctly detect that my adblocker is disabled.

This behavior is consistent for me, whether I have previously Temp-Allowed all needed scripts or not.

Do you have salon.com in your permanent whitelist?
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
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idf
Posts: 16
Joined: Tue Feb 05, 2013 9:48 am

Re: "Temporarily allow", then revoke - and then site still w

Post by idf »

salon.com is in my whitelist.

I did assume they were confusing noscript with an ad blocker.

The behavior I'm seeing is definitely weird. Some kind of timing glitch. I left my browser running, left the computer for a couple of hours, came back and salon.com again won't load. Temporarily allowed all; revoked them - and once again, the site is working. I have no doubt it will eventually stop working again if I walk away for a while and leave the browser running.

This site is one of those that ultimately runs a nearly infinite number of scripts from a nearly infinite number of domains, so I'm not likely to ever find an answer to this. And of course - it will change. I only started having trouble with salon.com in the last few days, so they changed something, and over the years I've had other kinds of problems, which then I either solved, or they cleared up. They re-code stuff, or the scripts they are linking get re-coded, and I have to react to the new set of challenges. As do we all.

Anyway, thanks for trying to help figure this out!
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