InformAction Forums

I recently updated my version of Firefox. Once I did, my extensions are firing in a completely different order. Can I change it so that NoScript and the rest run in the order that they should (used to) be executed so that way blocked ads don't appear in noscript or requestpolicy and that blocked destinations in RP don't run even if temporarily allowed in NoScript? (I think the order for that is ABP 1st, RP 2nd and NS 3rd).

NoScript is designed to ALWAYS run and trigger last, unless you intentionally change this behavior in about:config. SO as far as other addons, its something you need to take up with them. Not all addons are written as well as NoScript, that's the fundamental problem with Fx and its support of addons, anyone can write one and there is no consistency or validation to make sure they are done right. In my opinion Fx has become an extremely unmanaged, messy and directionless beast that will be its own undoing.

Thanks for your reply. It intrigued me that you said NS always goes last unless changed. I dug through the about:config entries for all the user set ones and googling them. What do you know, noscript.cp.last set to false. I changed that (and my son confessed to changing it because "some website told [him] to") and now Noscript is running last like it is supposed to. Its too bad there is no other way to control the order for the other addons. Which raises two questions: how does noscript make sure it is actually the last one to go and how does Firefox choose which goes when? Anyway, if that is beyond the scope of this forum I appreciate the help. Getting NS in the right place fixes a surprising large number of problems.

Thank you for confirming my suspicion that NS's built-in go last setting was changed. Now set to true, you should not have issues at least from NoScript. See when NoScript first came to the scene as a good developer and a professional it respected that others handling content came before it and to ensure it was playing nice with them, it ensured that it allowed them to modify, inject, and do all the manipulations they need to do, THEN, come in and catch any baddies, stop, modify and sanitize them and voila all was well.

Unfortunately, there is NO WAY built into firefox to manage the order in which addons are triggered, its sort of anyone for themselves and whoever invokes first and grabs the resource first kind of thing. This is frankly a HUGE fundamental mistake by Mozilla but they seem content to just let it be. This is why using a very low level hook (CAPS) and other techniques, NoScript is able to be so effective, it knows who is doing what and therefore when set to do so, will run last and allow others to do their thing before stepping in and without sacrificing function or security. There is a way to ensure you run last but no way to ensure a certain order of running, so NS took the most elegant option and runs last by default.

Now if you tell it NOT to do that, aka, setting that option to false, then just like any other addon, it will trigger as soon as it can and if something or someone is trying to modify or grab something after it, then it might cause problems. Hope this helps clear it up a bit. A lot of the newer addons are NOT as respectful as NS and don't pay the same consideration to the addons that came before them and behave in a greedy and frankly piss poor unprofessional manner when it comes to invoking, which often causes problems with others. Even some as long established as NoScript, because they are all at the mercy of chrome:// level infrastructure.