Frustrations

General discussion about the NoScript extension for Firefox
Etaoin Shrdlu
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Frustrations

Post by Etaoin Shrdlu »

clivew wrote:Everything is so much more complicated than before.
After almost a week with NS10 I have to agree. Just spent half an hour trying to get a live stream to play on Youtube, but just cannot get it to work (other than by disabling NS, which is not a good solution). The problem is not that it's complicated - I can deal with complicated - the new UI is downright obtuse. The behaviour of the default/trusted/untrusted buttons is buggy and confusing; it seems to ignore that I've set a resource to trusted (temporarily or otherwise) - when I reload the page I find it is still on "default". Frustrating to the point where I'm about to give up :(
Last edited by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sat Nov 25, 2017 1:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
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barbaz
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Re: split from t=23713

Post by barbaz »

Split to keep the original thread limited to guides for NoScript 10.
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
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Etaoin Shrdlu
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Re: Frustrations

Post by Etaoin Shrdlu »

Another half an hour later, and now I've managed to get the permissions to stick somehow. Don't ask me what I did - I haven't the faintest idea; I just repeatedly clicked the "trusted" button and reloaded the page, restarting FF a few times in between. Still no live video playback though:

Image
Last edited by Etaoin Shrdlu on Sat Nov 25, 2017 12:30 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Etaoin Shrdlu
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Re: Frustrations

Post by Etaoin Shrdlu »

Similarly, the Google News redirect refuses to work; on clicking a headline a blank tab opens as the resource is blocked by NS:

Image

I then click to allow "...google.com" (whatever that URL represents) temporarily:

Image

But upon reloading the page (I have to trigger this manually; clicking outside the NS popup does not automatically reload the page like it used to with the old version of NS), "...google.com" remains blocked and the redirect does not proceed:

Image

However, if I click "Temporarily allow all this page" the page is immediately reloaded and I am redirected to the article.
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barbaz
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Re: Frustrations

Post by barbaz »

*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
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bo elam
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Re: Frustrations

Post by bo elam »

Hi Etaoin Shrdlu, I watch a lot of videos in YouTube. I am allowing same scripts with NoScript 10 as before with version 5. Same experience. If I may suggest, turn all scripts in YouTube to Default, and afterward, Trust youtube.com and googlevideo.com. Thats all you need for watching videos.

Image

Bo
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SyberCorp
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Re: Frustrations

Post by SyberCorp »

Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
clivew wrote:Everything is so much more complicated than before.
After almost a week with NS10 I have to agree. Just spent half an hour trying to get a live stream to play on Youtube, but just cannot get it to work (other than by disabling NS, which is not a good solution). The problem is not that it's complicated - I can deal with complicated - the new UI is downright obtuse. The behaviour of the default/trusted/untrusted buttons is buggy and confusing; it seems to ignore that I've set a resource to trusted (temporarily or otherwise) - when I reload the page I find it is still on "default". Frustrating to the point where I'm about to give up :(

I wholeheartedly agree. I HATE the new UI and posted that as soon as we were shown the first teaser screenshots. I got so fed up with trying to do things with the new UI that I already did give up, and switched to uMatrix (probably permanently) because this iteration of NoScript is unusable (imo). No options to whitelist/blacklist an entire root domain (at least, not yet), the icons are very confusing, the options page is garbage (especially when you have a huge whitelist/blacklist, it take WAY too long to load), most of the features aren't available in the new UI yet, etc. So far, I have had next to no issues with uMatrix (aside from the initial learning curve that comes with switching to an entirely new app). I suggest switching until NoScript 10 has matured MUCH more, and maybe even just giving up forever.
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Pansa
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Re: Frustrations

Post by Pansa »

SyberCorp wrote:
Etaoin Shrdlu wrote:
clivew wrote:Everything is so much more complicated than before.
After almost a week with NS10 I have to agree. Just spent half an hour trying to get a live stream to play on Youtube, but just cannot get it to work (other than by disabling NS, which is not a good solution). The problem is not that it's complicated - I can deal with complicated - the new UI is downright obtuse. The behaviour of the default/trusted/untrusted buttons is buggy and confusing; it seems to ignore that I've set a resource to trusted (temporarily or otherwise) - when I reload the page I find it is still on "default". Frustrating to the point where I'm about to give up :(

I wholeheartedly agree. I HATE the new UI and posted that as soon as we were shown the first teaser screenshots. I got so fed up with trying to do things with the new UI that I already did give up, and switched to uMatrix (probably permanently) because this iteration of NoScript is unusable (imo). No options to whitelist/blacklist an entire root domain (at least, not yet), the icons are very confusing, the options page is garbage (especially when you have a huge whitelist/blacklist, it take WAY too long to load), most of the features aren't available in the new UI yet, etc. So far, I have had next to no issues with uMatrix (aside from the initial learning curve that comes with switching to an entirely new app). I suggest switching until NoScript 10 has matured MUCH more, and maybe even just giving up forever.
Until the release of 1.3c1 you could ONLY trust the root domain and everything below it in one go. 1.3c1 finally brought back subdomain control.

Most of the issues I repeatedly see is that people consistently create rules that explicitly only match https://*.page (which the interface shows as "...page" in black, and the debug-log calls §:page), and then the system reacts to the http: variant with treating it as "default", because it has no page to match. The solution to non https domains is simply to enable the red lock (match both), the ui shows a red rule for "...page", and the log uses just page (without the §: in front of it) That is if you really want root domain allowances (*shudder). If you want actual fine grain control (which I would advice in cases like google....) 1.3c1 brings back proper url filtering, and there you just make https and http rules separately.

The second most common issue is due to one update problem or other the rules for the main presets "default, trusted and untrusted" having either changed (and users not checking) or having desynced from the ui. (I had a "capability"["script"] in my untrusted setting, which the UI didn't show, someone else had a {"script"} missing from their trusted setting and most commonly "default" not being empty (as it should be).
In rare cases a config from 5.x borking up almost everything. I would agree that an actual "clear everything and start fresh" functionality would be needed.

As for users with giant white and blacklists, while it is not nice that the UI can't handle it (that's why that stuff is in a database, so large sets aren'T a total disaster), the problem stems from a fundamentally flawed perspective on how any systems like that should work. Whether it's firewalls or script filtering, having exceptionally large match sets is ALWAYS a resource/time drain. Just sorting every little thing into white and black instead of properly using "default" behaviour isn't GOOD. Every page load basically has to go to the set to find out if it HAS a match or partial match in either list for every candidate on every load, if i wanted to waste resources, I could just allow all the pages running all their scripts to begin with.

And the confusing icons all have mouseover.
people act like the (grantedly nicer looking) menu structure and Noscript as a whole were intuitive, but understanding what you were actually doing and what scripts you wanted and which you didn't was FAR from intuitive and took quite a while to figure out. Just because that is "way back" for most of us, or some just wielding the bluntest tools(always "temp allow all" or pure root matching) that NS had to offer to the point of "why are you using it at all" doesn't make it fair to compare the "I already have worked with this" state with "this is new". And it also isn't really fair to not even consider that something might have gone horribly wrong with the migration of settings, and just assume that the app is broken fundamentally, or skipping reading a tooltip once in a while (although certain bugs, like the currently in 1.3c1 missing "temp custom" functionality are not fun :D)

I looked into umatrix, and that imho is something entirely different. And I'm glad fine specific domain control is properly back.
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jambon
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Re: Frustrations

Post by jambon »

I've got to agree with the original poster about this....

I've been using noscript since the beginning and I'm talking version 1.0 days here. Over the years I've donated a few times to help developments of this software which I feel should just be a standard feature of firefox (and EVERY browser). I've loved using it over the years but with this most recent update it feels like we've taken about 10 steps backward in the name of "progress". In it's current state I'm finding this software that used to be the biggest improvement to my browsing experience is now just a large hindrance.

It's absolutely devastating because this has been an essential part of my web browsing life for many years now and I'm not looking forward to the notion of finding an alternative or stopping use of this software altogether.

I'm experiencing the same problems/frustrations as other people...

1. I can't login to Stripe. It keeps saying that Javascript is disabled even when I have allowed everything globally. My whitelist carried over when I upgraded and I could access the site fine previously. Now with the new version though I can't.

2. Even with scripts allowed globally Noscript still shows numbers signifying that scripts have been blocked but nothing is shown in the dropdown.

3. The interface is not intuitive and it required more interaction than previously. It used to be 1 click to open the menu, 1 click to temporarily allow. (2 clicks total). Now it's 1 click to open the menu, 1 click to whitelist, 1 click to select temporary whitelist (in SUPER tiny icon), then 1 click to disable the https match thing. (4 clicks)

4. That https match setting doesn't seem to work properly. I have to disable it on every https site or else the site won't even load properly. I'm not even sure why that's a thing, generally a site is either https or http sitewide and whether it is or isn't has no weight on my decision to enable or block scripts.

5. Where did all the other options go? How come there is no option to export/import whitelists anymore? Why does the whitelist have to load on the main options page in it's entirety. My whitelist is huge and takes forever to load up on the screen.

6. I've got to ask - what was wrong with the old layout and functionality that we all were familiar with for the last I don't know how many years? Can't we just have that back?

I'll just never understand peoples obsession to fix and redesign stuff that isn't broken. I think trying to do a full redesign at the same time as porting over to FF57 was a bad idea. Would have been better to just get a verbatim copy working on 57 then look to do updates/redesigns and enhancements.
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barbaz
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Re: Frustrations

Post by barbaz »

jambon wrote:5. Where did all the other options go? How come there is no option to export/import whitelists anymore? Why does the whitelist have to load on the main options page in it's entirety. My whitelist is huge and takes forever to load up on the screen.

6. I've got to ask - what was wrong with the old layout and functionality that we all were familiar with for the last I don't know how many years? Can't we just have that back?
NoScript 10 is a pure WebExtension, basically a complete rewrite of previous NoScript versions. WebExtensions are far more limited than "legacy" extensions (which is what prior versions of NoScript are). Mozilla forced all addons to be full WebExtension in Firefox 57.

So, with this in mind -

5) The missing options are not implemented yet.

6) Unfortunately the old layout is not technically possible in WebExtensions.
https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/top-i ... ment-38469
jambon wrote:I'll just never understand peoples obsession to fix and redesign stuff that isn't broken. I think trying to do a full redesign at the same time as porting over to FF57 was a bad idea. Would have been better to just get a verbatim copy working on 57 then look to do updates/redesigns and enhancements.
Again, it isn't technically possible in WebExtensions. This was forced on Giorgio.
*Always* check the changelogs BEFORE updating that important software!
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bo elam
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Re: Frustrations

Post by bo elam »

Pansa wrote: The second most common issue is due to one update problem or other the rules for the main presets "default, trusted and untrusted" having either changed (and users not checking) or having desynced from the ui. (I had a "capability"["script"] in my untrusted setting, which the UI didn't show
I did have that same issue as you in one of my 2 computers, with the Untrusted setting. Identical issue. I tried to fix it by deleting the ["script"] line in Debug but couldnt do it. So, all my Untrusted domains were running scripts. I scratched my head for a few hours, and couldnt understand why domains labeled Default (no boxes checked) or Custom (no boxes checked) were showing a more restricted behavior than the ones in my Untrusted list. I solved my issue by copying the not corrupted storage-sync.sqlite file from my W7 and pasting it in my W10 (the computer with the issue).
Pansa wrote: people act like the (grantedly nicer looking) menu structure and Noscript as a whole were intuitive, but understanding what you were actually doing and what scripts you wanted and which you didn't was FAR from intuitive and took quite a while to figure out. Just because that is "way back" for most of us, or some just wielding the bluntest tools(always "temp allow all" or pure root matching) that NS had to offer to the point of "why are you using it at all" doesn't make it fair to compare the "I already have worked with this" state with "this is new".
I agree, pansa. In my case, it took me at least a year or year and a half before NoScript started to click when I first started using it. At first, I took a no nonsense approach to it and went along with it until one day all things started making sense. It took a whie.

On the other hand, for me, the new version has been easy, I looked at the new UI and tried to use the new version same as version 5, and the options are there, so all made sense, I like what I seen so far, is a new toy, but I can understand people who have not moved away from depending on temporarily allowing all for most of the time, the new UI can be confusing (this is because is like a new start), and the now available settings that we can change to our liking for Default, that I think messed people a bit after they changed settings without realizing what they were changing. For me personally, I love that new setting. Default can set more restricted than before, I like it a lot.

I think users having a problem with the new UI, should remember how it was when they first started using NoScript. There is a learning curve. In a way, is like starting over, and need to be patient a bit.

Bo
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Pansa
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Re: Frustrations

Post by Pansa »

jambon wrote: 4. That https match setting doesn't seem to work properly. I have to disable it on every https site or else the site won't even load properly. I'm not even sure why that's a thing, generally a site is either https or http sitewide and whether it is or isn't has no weight on my decision to enable or block scripts.
That is decidedly not the case. Many sites are a hodgepodge of the main site either http OR https (or providing BOTH) and all the embedded scripts being "whatever" at any given point. That's basically why the option is "only https" or "both" for root matching (which basically the ...site rules are)
"Https only" is an option, because a user might (should!) want to be stopped when they accidentally or via a bad link land on the unencrypted site without having explicitly chosen so. Instead of the https counterpart they usually go to. Just setting aside malfeasance and resulting man in the middle attacks.

This is also not an issue for specific domain matching (back in 1.3c1) which just outright shows you what you are allowing either way.
1. I can't login to Stripe. It keeps saying that Javascript is disabled even when I have allowed everything globally. My whitelist carried over when I upgraded and I could access the site fine previously. Now with the new version though I can't.
Then feel welcome to visit the support forum. We spend quite a lot of time troubleshooting what is specifically wrong. And finding out whether you misconfigured something due to a misunderstanding, or whether the config got borked and whether it can be fixed without reseting the config.
2. Even with scripts allowed globally Noscript still shows numbers signifying that scripts have been blocked but nothing is shown in the dropdown.
See 1. Check the explicit rules in the debug log (in the options), a good first test is also just to create a secondary profile (firefox -p) to check whether it is a borked config or an actual bug (I know, bugs a week after a forced full rewrite!)
3. The interface is not intuitive and it required more interaction than previously. It used to be 1 click to open the menu, 1 click to temporarily allow. (2 clicks total). Now it's 1 click to open the menu, 1 click to whitelist, 1 click to select temporary whitelist (in SUPER tiny icon), then 1 click to disable the https match thing. (4 clicks)

I'll just never understand peoples obsession to fix and redesign stuff that isn't broken. I think trying to do a full redesign at the same time as porting over to FF57 was a bad idea. Would have been better to just get a verbatim copy working on 57 then look to do updates/redesigns and enhancements.
[/quote]

On the other hand you gain a lot of specific fine graining concerning WHAT you actually allow at any given time (especially with sub domain filtering being back in 1.3c1, (although temp custom rule is currently bugged, which throws a bit of a wrench in some of the customizing))
And the interface isn't less intuitive really, because Noscript was not very intuitive for the layman either. Don't confuse years of convention with the initial deep end you have deleted from memory.

for the last bit, the operative phrase being "that isn't broken". Except it was broken. It not being available from the browser IS being broken.
It wasn't a bad idea, it was a "no choice" scenario. Which also explains the missing feature. You can't implement features that the API you need isn't done yet by the provider.

But again "welcome to the support forum, where we distinguish "what you don't like" from "what is actually broken"".
The more actual info you give us, the quicker we find what actually ails you.
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jambon
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Re: Frustrations

Post by jambon »

Thanks to barbaz and Pansa for the fast reply.

I suppose you are right, there was a learning curve to the original version that I've probably forgotten. I'm sure in time I will come to like the new layout once things are working to their full potential. I suppose part of my frustration is partially brought on by the new version of Firefox to begin with. I suppose this change over for addons will have benefits going forward but there is a lot of heartache across the board that the move has caused. Either devs are scrambling to update things which in many cases requires full rewrites or the addons simply go dead because the devs walked away years ago.

Anyways, thanks again for the response I look forward to future updates and I will do what I can to get by for now.
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SyberCorp
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Re: Frustrations

Post by SyberCorp »

barbaz wrote:6) Unfortunately the old layout is not technically possible in WebExtensions.
https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/top-i ... ment-38469
I don't agree entirely. I have many add-ons that are NOT legacy, that STILL have their same menu-based layout that they did prior to FF57 (one example is 1Password).
barbaz wrote:Again, it isn't technically possible in WebExtensions. This was forced on Giorgio.
Again, I don't agree. I think this was mostly just a choice Giorgio made to redesign the interface, not that he HAD to go the route he went.
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SyberCorp
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Re: Frustrations

Post by SyberCorp »

Pansa wrote:I looked into umatrix, and that imho is something entirely different. And I'm glad fine specific domain control is properly back.
My initial question is in response to your last statement, about uMatrix being "something entirely different". What do you mean? Both NoScript and uMatrix do exactly the same things - just different looking interfaces (in my opinion, uMatrix is ostensibly more confusing but is actually much more logical and friendly once you spend a few minutes with it).
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