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[INVALID] Noscript conflicts with malwarebytes: bug report

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 1:58 pm
by Bug reporter9999wyltbab
I wish to report a bug in Noscript, not a new way in which it could be exploited but rather a problem it has when runnign with certain other software. I have found that noscript seems to have some conflicts with the "malicious website protection" feature of malwarebytes pro. I have Noscript running in firefox on a computer running malwarebytes (pro version). Sometimes upon logging onto the computer malwarebytes reports that it's "malicious website protection" has been disabled, it refuses to turn it back on when i try and enable it through MBAM's interface. However when i disable Noscript and restart MBAM runs fine. This does not happen hugely often, maybe once in ten times i log on. I can find no way of explaining this other than that Noscript is having some kind of conflict with the "malicious website protection" element of MBAM pro. I consider Niscript very important for security but also malwarebytes is very important for security. I know you cannot respond to every "Noscript has problems/causes problems when running on a computer with program Y installed" but as MBAM is a pretty common security tool, especially amongst the often fairly skilled type of user who runs Noscript, I thought this conflict was significant enough to be worth reporting. The problem is particularly noticable on machines with Windows xp as the operating system, given XP is no longer supported by microsoft it is perhaps the operating system where the user has most to lose if MBAM nd Noscript cannot function together. I am not a programmer therefore i do not know how to give you more detailed information than this about the nature of the conflict,sorry.
Thank You

P.S. I have also sent an email of this same text to Giorgio Maone here (i assume that is the correct email for him) and to him here (I assume this gets straight to him and any other developers working on Noscript.).

Re: Noscript has conflicts with malwarebytes: bug report

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 3:26 pm
by barbaz
Bug reporter9999wyltbab wrote:I have Noscript running in firefox on a computer running malwarebytes (pro version). Sometimes upon logging onto the computer malwarebytes reports that it's "malicious website protection" has been disabled, it refuses to turn it back on when i try and enable it through MBAM's interface. However when i disable Noscript and restart MBAM runs fine.
So your Firefox opens at login? If not then I would think this can't be a conflict with NoScript, as NoScript doesn't affect anything other than your browser.
Bug reporter9999wyltbab wrote:This does not happen hugely often, maybe once in ten times i log on. I can find no way of explaining this other than that Noscript is having some kind of conflict with the "malicious website protection" element of MBAM pro.
Since it doesn't happen hugely often, when disabling NoScript have you ruled out coincidence?
Bug reporter9999wyltbab wrote:P.S. I have also sent an email of this same text to Giorgio Maone here (i assume that is the correct email for him) and to him here (I assume this gets straight to him and any other developers working on Noscript.).
Please don't do that again. One method of communication with Giorgio is enough. Sending him the same message x3 just wastes his time, the poor guy is busy enough as it is without having to read the same thing repeatedly...

Also Giorgio is the only developer of NoScript.

Re: Noscript has conflicts with malwarebytes: bug report

Posted: Mon Dec 29, 2014 9:37 pm
by Bug reporter9999wyltbab
No firefox does not open when I log onto the computer, but there has been a clear correlation of problems with MBAM's malicious website protection occuring since the installation of NoScript and there have been no other recent changes to the software on the computer. I was thinking that something from NoScript may be "left on the system" outside of firefox in some way and hence able to interfere with MBAM's malicious website protection function. I think I have ruled out coincidence, I have run Noscript without problems on a computer without malwarebytes pro installed and before I installed Noscript on the windows xp computer in question it had never experienced this problem before. At the same time as I installed NoScript on the machine the only other things that changed were that I installed firefox (before installing Noscript) and I also installed AdBlockPlus. Then the second time I restarted the machine after the day I made these three installations it reported the problem with MBAM. The first thing I did upon seeing that was trying disabling AdblockPlus, I restarted and the problem was still there, I then disabled Noscript as well and the problem with MBAM went away when I next restarted. I then re-enabled Noscript and it started fine this time, but a few days later I once again had MBAM pop-up a "the malicious website protection is not running" error mesage when i logged on. I restarted once and the error was still there, then I disabled NoScript and restarted again, this time MBAM did not have that error.

PERHAPS MBAM runs something inside the browser as part of it's malicious website protection and having NoScript installed blocks this thing from functioning. Maybe MBAM detects this and reports it at startup even before the browser is open, if it does use some script within the browser, though that is pure speculation i don't know any details of how MBAM's website protection works.

I cannot locate any other possible cause for the problem than MBAM pro and Noscript having a conflict of some sort. It is strange that MBAM does not have the same failure every time log on but the fact that when it does hit the thing that fixes it is disabling Noscript and then restarting the pc suggests the conflict is between these two.

My apologies about posting this report in 3 places(this being one of those three). I'll stick to just one in future. I did do my best to include a note in each message saying that i had already posted it here and sent it to the other emaill adress so hopefully Giorgio should notice that two of them are exact repeats of the other.

Re: Noscript has conflicts with malwarebytes: bug report

Posted: Thu Jan 01, 2015 11:34 pm
by Thrawn
Bug reporter9999wyltbab wrote:No firefox does not open when I log onto the computer, but there has been a clear correlation of problems with MBAM's malicious website protection occuring since the installation of NoScript and there have been no other recent changes to the software on the computer.
Sorry, but "this started around the time I installed NoScript" isn't enough for us to be confident it's actually the cause. Have you tried disabling NoScript, then repeatedly (eg three times in a row) trying to trigger the problem?
I was thinking that something from NoScript may be "left on the system" outside of firefox in some way and hence able to interfere with MBAM's malicious website protection function.
Not really, no; it doesn't try to do anything outside the browser.
I then disabled Noscript as well and the problem with MBAM went away when I next restarted. I then re-enabled Noscript and it started fine this time, but a few days later I once again had MBAM pop-up a "the malicious website protection is not running" error mesage when i logged on. I restarted once and the error was still there, then I disabled NoScript and restarted again, this time MBAM did not have that error.
This sounds rather unpredictable. Can you reproduce it at least three times in a row with NoScript enabled, then three times in a row with it disabled?
PERHAPS MBAM runs something inside the browser as part of it's malicious website protection and having NoScript installed blocks this thing from functioning.
That is possible, and you could check whether there are any MBAM addons installed.
Maybe MBAM detects this and reports it at startup even before the browser is open, if it does use some script within the browser, though that is pure speculation i don't know any details of how MBAM's website protection works.
Very unlikely. NoScript doesn't do anything to actually remove JavaScript support from the browser, it just intercepts and blocks it as the browser runs.
My apologies about posting this report in 3 places(this being one of those three). I'll stick to just one in future. I did do my best to include a note in each message saying that i had already posted it here and sent it to the other emaill adress so hopefully Giorgio should notice that two of them are exact repeats of the other.
Generally this is the best place to come for support. Emailing Giorgio is best saved for things that only he can do, eg if you wanted permission to use his intellectual property, etc.

Re: Noscript has conflicts with malwarebytes: bug report

Posted: Mon Jan 05, 2015 6:33 pm
by Bug reporter9999wyltbab
My apologies, I have had Noscript disabled for a while now and the problem has randomly occured a few times since. I guess therefore that Noscript cannot be causing the conflict. I ceratinly had this occur more than three times when NoScript WAS enabled, but now i have also had it occur twice when NoScript was DISABLED. The timing (the Malwarebytes error of this kind had never occured before) pointed to NoScript, Adblockplus or firefox being the cause. I ruled out Adblockplus being the cause because disbaling it did not fix the problem when it first happened, I assumed firefox could not be the cause as amny thousands of people will run both it and Malwarebytes together, that left me to assume NoScript was having a conflict with Malwarebytes. But since Disabling NoScript the problem with malwarebytes had happened a few more times now, so that rules out NoScript as the cause. This problem must be down to some other system change I didn't notice that happened around the same time.
Sorry to have troubled you with this, But I thought at the time that it must have been NoScript causing it.

Re: [INVALID] Noscript conflicts with malwarebytes: bug repo

Posted: Tue Jan 06, 2015 5:17 am
by Thrawn
No worries; we're here to help. Sorry you haven't found the solution yet.

If you're running on Windows XP and security-aware enough to use NoScript, then you really should either upgrade or switch operating systems. Feel free to ask if you want any help with that.