How popular is NoScript?

[dhouwn]

What I just read in the comments section of an IE blog post:

Mitch: While your strategy seems reasonable, you shouldn't believe the hype... NoScript is not "VERY popular". A single digit percentage of firefox users actually have it (and a smaller portion have it turned on correctly). Giorgio would have you believe otherwise and presents misleading stats. For instance, he counts every update as a "download" but he updates the thing nearly every other day, meaning the download count is hundreds or thousands of times higher than the user count.

Not that I believe it is a very important question, but still I'd be interested in knowing how popular NoScript really is (and maybe even details on what the average NS user is).

[therube]

My thoughts ...

Given the number of AMO downloads, it is one of the most popular extensions.
We all know that Giorgio attempts to limit the number of release updates because of the "flack" (some) people make about updates in general. So that is not an issue.

Who uses it?

Techies or wannabe techies.
They'll have a fairly good understanding, or at least a good basic understanding of what NoScript does, its functions, & how it works.

The Nonots.
They know not what NoScript is, but the techies say NoScript is good & so they install it.

How is it used?

Techies have a feel of what needs to be done as far as Allowing sites or not.
Nonots are much more liberal, possibly Allowing everything or most that comes their way.

For some (say, IE users), they just want things to work, & in that respect NoScript blocks things from working & so they would not be happy with it. They don't care about safety or virus or much of anything. Simply want to be able to get onto Facebook & install that movie player that it says they need.

Actual numbers? Wouldn't have a clue?

[Giorgio Maone]

Just for the records, AMO "download counts" do NOT include updates (they're "initial install/downloads" only), so what this "Matt" says is plain wrong.
Not to talk about the "Giorgio would have you believe otherwise" piece, which is obviously pure slander since you won't find any "misleading stats" (nor any stats, for the matter) presented by me anywhere, not in these forums nor on http://hackademix.net

That said, NoScript has a relatively bad "retention rate", i.e. many of the downloaders tend to uninstall it after few days or hours because they're not patient enough to go through the initial training stage.

Notwithstanding, NoScript users are surely to be estimated in the millions, even though this number is actually a small percentage of Firefox users (which can be said of any extension).

[Davezilla]

Well, I find NoScript pretty easy to use & I'm virtually an idiot! It updated without any hitches at all for me. I feel a lot safer online using it anyway. I have WOT & ABP on SeaMonkey as well, & along with SpywareBlaster I think that's a fairly good security package. NoScript's a cool extension I reckon.

[Jim Too]

Allowing sites is very easy. Do an "Allow all this page" on a site that seems broken usually fixes it (this might not be the best choice but is usually effective). What does turn people off (particularly people that don't know that they can get help here), is when they allow everything and a site still doesn't work (i.e. either an ABE or XSS issue).

If there was a "This site isn't working" selection that would take the user to a page that says something like: "There are some settings that need to be changed for this site and if you click HERE the changes will be made". The the process of making the necessary changes to the NOSCRIPT controlling data could be more automated. There are many examples here in the forums of this type of knowledge. Making it easier to find and install them might keep users from uninstalling at the first sign of trouble.

Maybe a Web site isn't the right answer. Perhaps an "Allow what is needed for this page" selection (both permanent and temporary) could access some form of knowledge base and make the changes needed.

Including a large "whitelist" with the installation is not the right answer. If I don't normally access a site at all then allowing scripts to run from that site would unnecessarily increase my exposure. There are too many examples of sites that should be safe that get hacked.

[Davezilla]

I'm figuring it out slowly...

[Logos]

all I can tell is NoScript is quite popular on most security software forums, and is more and more considered as a security solution of its own, almost on par with anti-virus and firewalls The level of security reached in Firefox when NS is installed has just no equivalent.