All settings gone - complete disaster

[desperation?]

Hello,

Earlier today I shut down Firefox, and a few hours later (just now) I started it again. I'm currently on FirefoxDeveloperEdition 58.0b4, always worked perfectly with NoScript throughout many years.

But now when I go to any site, I see there's a new NoScript version in my browser, and all my so preciously configured NoScript settings for the sites I visit seem to be completely gone. It doesn't matter what site I go to, there's seemingly no settings for it in NoScript, they all have the Default "profile".

How on earth could this happen, and foremost, what can I do to get my NoScript back to the configuration it had before this automatic update of it? I seriously had a ton of config for many many sites, and redoing it is just not going to happen :/

Please help.

PS: I love NoScript.

[Thrawn]

I'm not certain whether NoScript 10 is able to import your whitelist from NoScript 5, since they work <i>very</i> differently under the hood. Can you try downgrading to 5 and see if your whitelist is still there?

[barbaz]

https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/noscr ... ment-38212

[desperation?]

I'm not certain whether NoScript 10 is able to import your whitelist from NoScript 5, since they work <i>very</i> differently under the hood. Can you try downgrading to 5 and see if your whitelist is still there?

I would presume that they should be kept? Surely noone is insane enough to release an update that does not keep people's settings and does not have an import feature for the old ones? That would be complete insanity, lol.

How can I install NS5 to try your suggestion?

[desperation?]

https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/noscr ... ment-38212

Seems like the settings should be kept.

[desperation?]

Well, given the fact that the new version of NoScript completely lost my carefully tuned settings since many years back, and noone apparently cares, I'm jumping ship to uMatrix which I've used in other places and like very much as well.

Unfortunately the new UI of NoScript 10 is completely horrible - as many many other users have said as well. There's truly something to their opinions, the old UI was great and the new one is just completely pointless. This was, sad to say it, a prime example of fixing something that wasn't broken.

Perhaps if NoScript had implemented an export and import feature before deciding to screw up existing settings it would have been easier to recover. But at this point I'm better off using uMatrix.

Best of luck to everyone, thanks for these years.

[Peter 123]

Well, given the fact that the new version of NoScript completely lost my carefully tuned settings since many years back, and noone apparently cares, [...]

Don't you have an image of your hard disk, from some moment before the change to NoScript 10 took place? So you could revert to the old situation and your specific settings in order to save them.

[desperation?]

Hi,

I have backups, but restoring the Firefox profile to get the settings, restoring the Firefox version and/or NoScript addon, etc, seems like too much work if the future is what it looks like right now with the new UI.

Thanks for your reply Peter.

I'm simply very disappointed that NoScript doesn't take more care when being automatically updated. First of all, if shouldn't auto update right into such a MAJOR version, UI and usability change. Ask the user if they really want that new UI, for example. And second, persisting settings HAS to work, you can't make software that just screws it up like NoScript did it here. That's a big no-no.

It's free software so I really have NO right to complain, but I did get annoyed because I wasn't even asked if I was okay with my settings being lost, lol.

uMatrix is what I'll use from now on, because it has a good UI (NoScript doesn't, anymore), works well and fast, and it has export and import functionality (NoScript doesn't). I don't see any single reason why anyone would want to stay on NoScript as it is currently. If there is one, I'm curious to hear about it, just so know what I'm missing out on

Cheers!

[Pansa]

Well, given the fact that the new version of NoScript completely lost my carefully tuned settings since many years back, and noone apparently cares, I'm jumping ship to uMatrix which I've used in other places and like very much as well.

This was, sad to say it, a prime example of fixing something that wasn't broken.

Except it WAS broken, namely by Mozilla killing of that way of doing it.
Mozilla basically went "that is a nice extension you have there, why don't you code it all again, but in HTML this time, we don't like what you addonguys are doing any more"

I agree that at this point it has still some way to go to get back on par, but once you understand what is new, and how old translates to new, the CORE interface is fine.
For "2 weeks after basically doing it almost from scratch and cooking up an HTML document because you aren't allowed the "menu style" anymore", current state is fine.
It's a one man show...

[desperation?]

You are probably right Pansa. I may be exaggerating a bit, and I'm sure the *core* interface is fine, as you say.

Are you saying that there was practically no heads up from Mozilla? I would guess that addon developers have pretty ample time before an actual release of Firefox kills off the old addon architecture and require them to have their addon rewritten. That's what I get for using the developer edition though

[barbaz]

Are you saying that there was practically no heads up from Mozilla? I would guess that addon developers have pretty ample time before an actual release of Firefox kills off the old addon architecture and require them to have their addon rewritten. That's what I get for using the developer edition though

https://forums.informaction.com/viewtop ... 726#p91726

[Guest]

You are probably right Pansa. I may be exaggerating a bit, and I'm sure the *core* interface is fine, as you say.

Are you saying that there was practically no heads up from Mozilla? I would guess that add-on developers have pretty ample time before an actual release of Firefox kills off the old add-on architecture and require them to have their add-on rewritten. That's what I get for using the developer edition though

I wouldn't say you are exaggerating; It's more like a page full of whines. I actually wasted my time reading a few sentences then had enough of your garbage, to say the least. It's your responsibility to keep a backup FF profile as well as being aware of what can happen when FF and plugins update to a completely new version. Things change and the world doesn't ever stay the same. This is a fact, and the sooner you realize this, and that the world does not revolve around you, the more clear things will become.

People need to start taking responsibility for their actions which means being aware of how they had a 2-year warning until FF WebExtensions would be implemented. If it's so complicated for people to understand the new NoScript UI which could use some improvements (but I understood exactly how to use it practically immediately without ever consulting the forum), then the thing to do is make constructive criticism in support of the software. People throwing a bitch fit and saying they are going to use uMatrix which doesn't even have Anti-XSS protection and is a totally different concept in terms of how it achieves a lot of the same things as NoScript is funny because it's not for the timid and the UI is not for novices. In fact, the dev of uMatrix shut down the ability of users to create issues on GitHub because practically every comment was for an issue that was in relation to the software being too advanced for them, they didn't read the documentation on how to use it, and they were opening up issues left and right for non-bugs, i.e., user error.

I have been involved in multiple FOSS projects, and recently the chairman in one had to step in on a mailing list and shut a few people down who were pretty much toxic to the rest of the group and had some extremely bad opinions that they were spamming about, how things should be going their direction in terms of design. It actually resulted in some bans, then the project kept moving along happily without a bunch of whack job obstructionists slowing down progress for everybody else.

When you see vocal people complaining, yet not being constructive, you are actually usually seeing a minority of users that are voicing their grievance. On the other hand, you have 100 happy users for every 1 complainer, and if you have a few whiners, just a small amount of them can actually destroy a project. Like I said, I've seen similar circumstances in other projects before, and these people had to be removed to allow the project to continue moving forward. FOSS is not closed-source, and people need to realize this. It comes with no warranty, and no guarantees. The development effort is a best effort, and since both FF and NoScript 10 are major rewrites of existing software, of course the ride is going to be a little bit bumpy for a while. That is how FOSS works. We are the beta testers. If you don't like that, then you should have stayed on an older version of FF using the old version of NoScript.

Instead of whining about NoScript 10 being rough around the edges, my suggestion is to stop acting like you are important and are owed everything served to you on a silver platter, and instead go on over to https://noscript.net/ and make a donation for the largest amount you can afford. That way the developer can get paid to implement features and functionality which make the software better.

[Pansa]

You are probably right Pansa. I may be exaggerating a bit, and I'm sure the *core* interface is fine, as you say.

Are you saying that there was practically no heads up from Mozilla? I would guess that add-on developers have pretty ample time before an actual release of Firefox kills off the old add-on architecture and require them to have their add-on rewritten. That's what I get for using the developer edition though

I wouldn't say you are exaggerating; It's more like a page full of whines. I actually wasted my time reading a few sentences then had enough of your garbage, to say the least. It's your responsibility to keep a backup FF profile as well as being aware of what can happen when FF and plugins update to a completely new version. Things change and the world doesn't ever stay the same. This is a fact, and the sooner you realize this, and that the world does not revolve around you, the more clear things will become.

People need to start taking responsibility for their actions which means being aware of how they had a 2-year warning until FF WebExtensions would be implemented. If it's so complicated for people to understand the new NoScript UI which could use some improvements (but I understood exactly how to use it practically immediately without ever consulting the forum), then the thing to do is make constructive criticism in support of the software. People throwing a bitch fit and saying they are going to use uMatrix which doesn't even have Anti-XSS protection and is a totally different concept in terms of how it achieves a lot of the same things as NoScript is funny because it's not for the timid and the UI is not for novices. In fact, the dev of uMatrix shut down the ability of users to create issues on GitHub because practically every comment was for an issue that was in relation to the software being too advanced for them, they didn't read the documentation on how to use it, and they were opening up issues left and right for non-bugs, i.e., user error.

I have been involved in multiple FOSS projects, and recently the chairman in one had to step in on a mailing list and shut a few people down who were pretty much toxic to the rest of the group and had some extremely bad opinions that they were spamming about, how things should be going their direction in terms of design. It actually resulted in some bans, then the project kept moving along happily without a bunch of whack job obstructionists slowing down progress for everybody else.

When you see vocal people complaining, yet not being constructive, you are actually usually seeing a minority of users that are voicing their grievance. On the other hand, you have 100 happy users for every 1 complainer, and if you have a few whiners, just a small amount of them can actually destroy a project. Like I said, I've seen similar circumstances in other projects before, and these people had to be removed to allow the project to continue moving forward. FOSS is not closed-source, and people need to realize this. It comes with no warranty, and no guarantees. The development effort is a best effort, and since both FF and NoScript 10 are major rewrites of existing software, of course the ride is going to be a little bit bumpy for a while. That is how FOSS works. We are the beta testers. If you don't like that, then you should have stayed on an older version of FF using the old version of NoScript.

Instead of whining about NoScript 10 being rough around the edges, my suggestion is to stop acting like you are important and are owed everything served to you on a silver platter, and instead go on over to https://noscript.net/ and make a donation for the largest amount you can afford. That way the developer can get paid to implement features and functionality which make the software better.

To be fair, most of what you just wrote could have been solved by calling it a beta release more prominently.

What I found out trying to help people here, is that many users didn't understand what they were actually doing in 5.x either, which makes addapting to a new interface doubly problematic.
Combined with a tendency to go with "a first guess" without reading mouseover text or fidgeting with the settings, it is easy to just go "what I did before just doesn't work anymore"
Combine that with some very weird "actually unexpected" behaviour (like untrusted by default only blocking https on occasions despite the lack of the lock button).
And unless you are up for digging around and trying things just for confirmations sake it IS often not doing what a "just user" would want.

[desperation?]

You are probably right Pansa. I may be exaggerating a bit, and I'm sure the *core* interface is fine, as you say.

Are you saying that there was practically no heads up from Mozilla? I would guess that add-on developers have pretty ample time before an actual release of Firefox kills off the old add-on architecture and require them to have their add-on rewritten. That's what I get for using the developer edition though

I wouldn't say you are exaggerating; It's more like a page full of whines. I actually wasted my time reading a few sentences then had enough of your garbage, to say the least. It's your responsibility to keep a backup FF profile as well as being aware of what can happen when FF and plugins update to a completely new version. Things change and the world doesn't ever stay the same. This is a fact, and the sooner you realize this, and that the world does not revolve around you, the more clear things will become.

People need to start taking responsibility for their actions which means being aware of how they had a 2-year warning until FF WebExtensions would be implemented. If it's so complicated for people to understand the new NoScript UI which could use some improvements (but I understood exactly how to use it practically immediately without ever consulting the forum), then the thing to do is make constructive criticism in support of the software. People throwing a bitch fit and saying they are going to use uMatrix which doesn't even have Anti-XSS protection and is a totally different concept in terms of how it achieves a lot of the same things as NoScript is funny because it's not for the timid and the UI is not for novices. In fact, the dev of uMatrix shut down the ability of users to create issues on GitHub because practically every comment was for an issue that was in relation to the software being too advanced for them, they didn't read the documentation on how to use it, and they were opening up issues left and right for non-bugs, i.e., user error.

I have been involved in multiple FOSS projects, and recently the chairman in one had to step in on a mailing list and shut a few people down who were pretty much toxic to the rest of the group and had some extremely bad opinions that they were spamming about, how things should be going their direction in terms of design. It actually resulted in some bans, then the project kept moving along happily without a bunch of whack job obstructionists slowing down progress for everybody else.

When you see vocal people complaining, yet not being constructive, you are actually usually seeing a minority of users that are voicing their grievance. On the other hand, you have 100 happy users for every 1 complainer, and if you have a few whiners, just a small amount of them can actually destroy a project. Like I said, I've seen similar circumstances in other projects before, and these people had to be removed to allow the project to continue moving forward. FOSS is not closed-source, and people need to realize this. It comes with no warranty, and no guarantees. The development effort is a best effort, and since both FF and NoScript 10 are major rewrites of existing software, of course the ride is going to be a little bit bumpy for a while. That is how FOSS works. We are the beta testers. If you don't like that, then you should have stayed on an older version of FF using the old version of NoScript.

Instead of whining about NoScript 10 being rough around the edges, my suggestion is to stop acting like you are important and are owed everything served to you on a silver platter, and instead go on over to https://noscript.net/ and make a donation for the largest amount you can afford. That way the developer can get paid to implement features and functionality which make the software better.

I could address each and every line in that wall of text, but I'd severely be wasting my time. Honestly, you're missing some fundamental pieces of understanding about the relationship between users, software and developers.

I'm quite sure you wrote all that text with good intentions and nothing else, but it's full of incorrect assumptions about me and more general things, and it smells more of support burnout (for which there's an article on/from Freenode, BTW) than anything else - there's a lot of signs of that in every paragraph in your text.

Thanks for chiming in though. Your reply speaks for itself, but there are a few points in it that should be considered, even if you're in part just reiterating what I already said myself.

Have a nice day, I shan't disturb you more