You know, I'm looking at the lists in both of those links and thinking
that's a lot of work for this problem. Especially in this case where
I've changed little if anything (e.g. *could* I have done a Firefox
add-ins update, including NoScript, in the last few days--maybe. Have I
done a Windows Update in the last week or installed a new program--no). It
wasn't caused by the new Firefox 3.5 since I didn't upgrade to that until
*after* the NoScript icon vanished thinking it might be related (e.g.
latest update of NoScript).
I'm most puzzled as to why NoScript not only doesn't show an icon in the
status bar area, but doesn't even show one in the "Customize" area, as
thought the NoScript icon doesn't even exist. On other PCs (with older or
3.5 Firefoxes, on older or latest NoScript) the NoScript icon shows up in
the "Customize" area as well as the status bar. On a similar note, I've
noticed that the AdBlock Plus icon also comes and goes in the status
bar (when I have that extension enabled) so maybe that's a clue.
As I mentioned in my post, I've already un and reinstalled NoScript [1.9.5,
1.9.5.2beta), then Firefox, then rebooted the PC. Obvious next steps are to
completely uninstall Firefox (everything, including Prefs, bookmarks, etc.). And
other than installing the latest NoScript update (although with other FF
updates), I really hadn't done anything to that PC. I did try some
of the linked steps (deleting[renaming] assorted Firefox extensions.* files;
disabling all other Firefox extensions (not that many) and restarting FF-no diff.
As far as all the other list items (maybe it's malware [no mechanism to
get on my PC, run periodic SpySweeper just in case], maybe a virus [no
mechanism, have AntiVir software on just in case], maybe firewall [no SW
one; using a HW one], maybe plugin conflicts, full clean un/reinstall), those
are nice and vague enough to result in a huge amount of effort and number of
permutations to try. That would certainly make me go away and keep me busy for
a while, but I think it's a more effective of my time to just deinstall NoScript
and forget about it. Since there are plenty of other complaints (websearch
vs. just in this forum) about the missing icon, I'm sure somebody else
will eventually debug the actual source of the problem and the issue will
be corrected--or not.