InformAction Forums

General Troubleshooting Instructions #1 should mention Blur and Ghostery.. but those two extensions actually serve a useful purpose, unlike the extensions currently mentioned there.

What do you all think of editing point #1 something like this?

1) a) If you have any Firefox extensions called HP Smart Web Printing, Skype, .NET Framework Assistant, or McAfee Site Advisor, then uninstall or disable them. They're buggy and known to cause problems with the status bar icon.
b) If you have any Firefox extensions called Ghostery or Blur, try temporarily disabling them then restarting the browser. Those extensions are notorious for causing all sorts of odd conflicts with NoScript.

(Also, IIRC Disconnect, Flash Control, and WOT were known to cause weird issues... but since there haven't been much if any recent reports of incompatibilities there, I say let's not mention them for now.)



While we're at it, should we mention that Linux users try the official Mozilla build of Firefox if all else fails in troubleshooting a particularly weird issue?

Technically it's helpful advice, but politically it's dangerous, especially given previous conflicts with Ghostery especially on noscript.net.

Thrawn wrote:politically it's dangerous, especially given previous conflicts with Ghostery especially on noscript.net.

Hmm, I'd forgot about that one. Thing is, the noscript.net is entirely controlled by Giorgio, and General Troubleshooting Instructions is currently maintained by us Mods. If that sort of incident happens again, I for one wouldn't hesitate to tell Giorgio just how wrong something like that is

So how would you suggest we post the advice? Should one of us (likely me) reply to General Troubleshooting Instructions post instead of editing it?

barbaz wrote:Hmm, I'd forgot about that one.

Yeah, but Wikipedia remembers it...actually that's the only reason I knew about it.

If that sort of incident happens again, I for one wouldn't hesitate to tell Giorgio just how wrong something like that is

I trust you, but we're talking about the general public here.

Should one of us (likely me) reply to General Troubleshooting Instructions post instead of editing it?

That might work. Makes it less of an official pronouncement, and more like good advice from someone who would know.

As for the official Mozilla build - I'm a big fan of using the package manager for everything, and only downloading things manually from the wild wild web when there are no alternatives. Personally, I haven't encountered any problems as a result. If you have, then fair enough in specific cases, but I probably wouldn't suggest it as a general troubleshooting rule. I think it should normally be far down the list of things to suspect.

Thrawn wrote:As for the official Mozilla build - I'm a big fan of using the package manager for everything, and only downloading things manually from the wild wild web when there are no alternatives. Personally, I haven't encountered any problems as a result. If you have, then fair enough in specific cases, but I probably wouldn't suggest it as a general troubleshooting rule. I think it should normally be far down the list of things to suspect.

It's the first thing to suspect on Linux when problem occurs in a new profile and is not a NoScript bug... but yeah, user won't always be able to judge whether something is NoScript bug. Fair enough to leave that out.

Thrawn wrote:

Should one of us (likely me) reply to General Troubleshooting Instructions post instead of editing it?

That might work.

OK then that's what I'll do. How's this?

[ draft deleted; the content is now at viewtopic.php?p=82212#p82212 ]

I'm trying to:
- Make it clear that these addons serve a useful purpose, and are NOT crapware
- Not over-state how bad it really is, nor give useless criticism
- Lead people to be sure it's my idea to give this advice, and not Giorgio's idea
- Show the addons as a list so that adding more, if needed, is very simple
- Providing AMO links to these add-ons so that people can find their support faster and to avoid potential ambiguity

Go ahead.