InformAction Forums

Hi,

I wanted to know how NoScript compares with other ''blockers'' like Adblock Plus, Ghostery or BluHell Firewall in terms of memory usage and size.

Is NoScript considered ligthweight? I ask this because I intend to run this addon on a system with limited ressources (Pentium 4, 2GB RAM). Does a growing whitelist slows it down at some point?

I know Adblock Plus is a memory hog, which is why I stopped using it. NoScript seems to do a fine job of blocking the annoyances from what I read and I don't really mind seeing embedded DOM ads. I am not against advertising per see. But I do want something easier on ressources.

Thanks.

Tar_Ni wrote:I wanted to know how NoScript compares with other ''blockers'' like Adblock Plus, Ghostery or BluHell Firewall in terms of memory usage and size.

I do not know what you mean by "size", but I can tell you that no one can answer the question of memory usage for you. It just varies too much all over the place between installations/profiles.
You'll have to try it yourself, and watch the metric you want to keep an eye on...

about:addons-memory might help you.

Tar_Ni wrote:I intend to run this addon on a system with limited ressources (Pentium 4, 2GB RAM).

I have run it on a system with limited resources (Pentium 4, 1 GB RAM) (alongside ABP FWIW) and this actually lightened the load a LOT, making that machine last a few years longer than it otherwise would have. I would think that any resources NoScript takes up in exchange would be worth it, but as said above, YMMV...

Thanks for your answer.

Well, after using it for some time now it is definitly lighter than Adblock Plus. Doesn't slow Firefox start up (maybe ~1.5 second) so it's great.

NoScript doesn't need to rewritte webpages in RAM to remove the ads like Adblocks. It's juts block all scripts. Period. It's a drastic approach, yet quite effective.

Tar_Ni wrote:NoScript doesn't need to rewritte webpages in RAM to remove the ads like Adblocks.

That's because it blocks at the request level. The resource never gets downloaded. And that's easy enough for NoScript to do, because it only cares about the domain a resource comes from, not the structure of the page.