Is there any point using Ghostery et al?

[StandingWave]

Hi All,

Just reading about AdBlockPlus (ABP) and the possible self-interest within their white list. I also noticed that on occasions Ghostery will also allow stuff to run for a site and not one that I have previously permitted. I am not sure if it needs the Ghostery white list updated or if there may be a self interest in their white list.

I have now removed AdBlockPlus and NoScript seems to be taking care of most ads. I would also like to remove Ghostery if NoScript is able to handle those chores too.

I tried RequestPolicy and while it is excellent in concept, it still has a lot of kinks (bugs) to work out so I removed that in favor of Ghostery.

Since these add-ins essentially are blocking Javascript, I am now wondering if I need anything more than NoScript, although, Ghostery shows scripts blocked that are not on the NoScript menu.

Soooo, finally to the questions, just how much can NoScript block and can I do away with ABP and Ghostery? I have "Keep cookies until I close Firefox," set so it seems that Ghostery is only useful during each single browser session. I'd rather have fewer add-ins running than more.

Thanks

[Thrawn]

Soooo, finally to the questions, just how much can NoScript block and can I do away with ABP and Ghostery? I have "Keep cookies until I close Firefox," set so it seems that Ghostery is only useful during each single browser session. I'd rather have fewer add-ins running than more.

Well, the ABE module can completely replace ABP and Ghostery, but you have to write the rules yourself, and it is a lot of work. If you describe what you want, we can try to help you write generic rules to do it, but be prepared for lots of silent page breakages.

What is wrong with RequestPolicy? I'm a big fan.

You could re-install ABP, but not use EasyList, just write your own blocking rules. ABP is easier to configure than ABE is.

Ghostery is useful, but kind of redundant if you have ABP, RP, or aggressive ABE rules.

Despite your desire to have less addons, if you want to aggressively delete cookies, you could also take a look at the Self-Destructing Cookies addon, which clears cookies once they're no longer associated with any open tabs. I personally think that that's the way cookies should always have been.

[StandingWave]

Thanks for the reply. It was after reading another of your posts a week or so back that I first learned of RequestPolicy (RP) and decided to give it a try. I tend to think Ghostery maybe doing the "pay us and we will white-list" thing that ABP is being accused of so was happy to find an alternative.

The stable version of RP seems to work as intended, but as suggested I tried the Beta version. I really liked the "per website" approach to the white list and if you leave it do it's stuff without checking on it, it appears to be working fine. However being a new add-in for me, I wanted to make sure I understood what it was doing, so I checked the RP list after every reload of a page.

Often it would list several items to selectively block and I would block one and then reload the page and it would show no items to block. I checked that there were no inter-dependencies on the site I blocked by unblocking it and blocking something else. Sometimes the remaining sites would show up and sometimes not. Even when I changed nothing, a page refresh would often show a changed RP list. The Beta is not yet ready for Prime Time and the stable version was less-useful than Ghostery even with any faults.

The Cookie manage add-in showed the existence of cookies for the missing listed-sites, so I figured it was a bug and dropped it. I'd give it another try RP comes out of Beta.

I'll give Self-Destructing Cookies a try, as like you, that sounds more like what I think should be happening anyway. I am not overly paranoid about cookies per se, and have been fairly happy with the "Clear on closing Firefox," approach. It was not until I read about Ghostery that I decided to give a more aggressive approach a try. Now Pandora's box is open and I want the keenest knife in the draw to be at my side.

[StandingWave]

you could also take a look at the Self-Destructing Cookies addon, which clears cookies once they're no longer associated with any open tabs.

Thanks, it kinda works. It needs a tweak to the "no longer associated with any open tabs" instead to "no longer associated with any open website."

If you open another website in the same Tab, (I have Bookmarks set to open in the same Tab) then the Cookies stay alive. To get it work as I think it was intended, you MUST close each Tab as you move to another website UNLESS you intentionally want to keep that website open.

Re-using an open Tab for new websites still gives the tracking Cookies work to do. In which case, for some users, like myself, it is no better than "Clear cookies on closing Firefox."

Even using "about:blank" to clear the last open Tab will not force a cookie purge.

Uninstalled it.