Do surrogates work for all websites?

[Al1949]

Hi all, hope you can assist.

Noscript version 2.6.8.19, Firefox 28.0, Linux PC.

I've come across a website - gridreferencefinder.com - that refuses to work fully unless I allow Google Adsense (googlesyndication.com). The website should show maps from Bing (virtualearth.net), but with googlesyndication blocked, there is just a blank space where the map should appear.

To exclude any interaction with other extensions, eg. Adblock Plus, Ghostery, RequestPolicy, I tried setting up a brand new Firefox profile with just Noscript, but this didn't help: still need to allow googlesyndication.

Perhaps I've overlooked something obvious (won't be the first time).

On the subject of other extensions, I can't work out whether Ghostery is required when using both Noscript and RequestPolicy.

Regards,
Al

[barbaz]

Weird. Very weird.
Went there in Fx 17esr, initially got what you described. Then it worked regardless of whether googlesyndication was allowed.
Went there again in SeaMonkey 2.26a2, and it worked allowing googlesyndication.com but leaving it blocked in ABP. Did not work with googlesyndication forbidden.
IOW, the site doesn't actually require the googlesyndication script (show_ads.js only) in order to work properly, so whatever's going on here seems to be a NS problem.

On the subject of other extensions, I can't work out whether Ghostery is required when using both Noscript and RequestPolicy.

It's mostly redundant, but if its blacklist is easily searchable, then that could be useful when trying to decide what to allow in NS/RP.

[Hecuba's daughter]

nvm

[Al1949]

Thanks for your replies, barbaz and Hecuba's daughter.

I've been using that website for some time, and it is only relatively recently that the problem has arisen. I also find that it is necessary to allow googlesyndication in Adblock and Ghostery (but not in RequestPolicy) in order for the site to work (again only recently). Perhaps the people who run the site (or virtualearth) are doing their best to defeat any ad-blocking attempts.

Yes, I've noticed that the site's behaviour is somewhat erratic: for example, setting an ABE rule to allow googlesyndication sometimes works, sometimes not.

Thanks again.

Regards,
Al1949

[Thrawn]

Yes, I've noticed that the site's behaviour is somewhat erratic: for example, setting an ABE rule to allow googlesyndication sometimes works, sometimes not.

You can't *allow* content via an ABE rule. Can you show us what you've written?

[Al1949]

Thanks for your reply, Thrawn.

You can't *allow* content via an ABE rule. Can you show us what you've written?

Code: Select all

Site .googlesyndication.com
Accept from .gridreferencefinder.com .virtualearth.net
Deny

This does seem to work instead instead of an 'allow' or 'temporary allow', but as mentioned, erratically.

I did think that using an ABE rule was equivalent to restricting an 'allow' to just a few websites rather than all. Noscript is quite complicated for the average user, so I've probably misunderstood the purpose of ABE.

Regards,
Al

[Thrawn]

This does seem to work instead instead of an 'allow' or 'temporary allow', but as mentioned, erratically.

Almost. What you need to do is put that rule in place, then permanently allow googlesyndication.com. The ABE rule will ensure that although Google Syndication is allowed, no other sites are allowed to use it.

I did think that using an ABE rule was equivalent to restricting an 'allow' to just a few websites rather than all.

No, you still have to Allow things separately. However, ABE then lets you control the boundaries of what 'Allow' means.

Noscript is quite complicated for the average user, so I've probably misunderstood the purpose of ABE.

Actually, ABE was primarily designed not to restrict undesirable websites (like ads), but to protect sensitive websites (like your bank). The canonical example is something like this:

Code: Select all

Site .bank.com
Accept from SELF
Deny

to ensure that no other site can send fraudulent requests to your bank using your saved cookies.

However, the flexibility of ABE means that it can be used for other purposes too.

[Al1949]

Thanks, Thrawn, for your most helpful reply. I now have a much better idea how to use ABE.

Going back to my original query about Surrogates, I've found that the website will also work OK if I allow google-analytics.com instead of googlesyndication.com. So it looks like that the GA surrogate isn't working either for this particular website.

Looking at the Surrogate Quick Reference page http://hackademix.net/2011/09/29/script ... -reference , it states ' runs only if page is script allowed', which I interpret as meaning that 'gridreferencefinder.com' must be allowed: which it is (as is 'virtualearth.net'). There are no other websites listed in the drop-down menu as needing to be 'allowed'. Is my interpretation correct, or am I missing something?

Also it seems that I now don't need to allow either GA or Gs in Adblock, just as reported by Barbaz. Weird - I wonder what will happen when I next use the site.

Regards,
Al

[barbaz]

Going back to my original query about Surrogates, I've found that the website will also work OK if I allow google-analytics.com instead of googlesyndication.com. So it looks like that the GA surrogate isn't working either for this particular website.

It's not a surrogate problem because I had issues even after setting about:config -> noscript.surrogate.enabled;false .

Looking at the Surrogate Quick Reference page http://hackademix.net/2011/09/29/script ... -reference , it states ' runs only if page is script allowed', which I interpret as meaning that 'gridreferencefinder.com' must be allowed: which it is (as is 'virtualearth.net'). There are no other websites listed in the drop-down menu as needing to be 'allowed'. Is my interpretation correct,

Yes, because the surrogate is taking the place of the blocked script (which wouldn't run anyway if JS is disabled).

[Al1949]

Thanks for the additional info, barbaz.

It's not a surrogate problem because I had issues even after setting about:config -> noscript.surrogate.enabled;false .

I must admit that it never occurred to me to test what would happen if 'surrogates' was disabled.

So it looks like the best way for now is to use an 'allow' for either GS or GA, together with a suitable ABE rule. Perhaps a future version of Noscript will provide a better solution to the problem.

Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to reply to this thread. I'll look out for any further contributions to it.

Regards,
Al