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NoScript Anywhere In Development For Android

Posted by Soulskill on from the now-if-only-it-worked-on-my-tv dept.

CaffeineAddiction writes "NoScript Anywhere (NSA) is the nickname for the next major iteration of the NoScript security add-on (NoScript 3), whose guts are being turned upside down in order to match Mozilla's Electrolysis multiprocessing architecture and implement a porting for Firefox 4 Mobile, available on Android and Maemo smartphones and tablets."

57 comments

  1. I think that acronym is taken. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Might want to choose a different name.

    1. Re:I think that acronym is taken. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Mobile Enabled NoScript Anywhere

  2. NoScript and VideoDownloadHelper on OPERA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Why can't Opera get into any of this? And none of the cheap hacks: Opera needs to get on the bandwaggon, maybe with a cross-over tool so it can use Firefox Add-ons because everything in the Opera community just has a "cheapened" feeling to it when someone makes something they say has equivalent function of a Firefox plugin or Add-on.

    1. Re:NoScript and VideoDownloadHelper on OPERA? by toastar · · Score: 0

      Better question... Will it work with dolphin?

    2. Re:NoScript and VideoDownloadHelper on OPERA? by clang_jangle · · Score: 1, Offtopic

      What are you talking about? Opera has NotScripts. In fact, opera has almost everything, including a lot of powerful config options only available in Firefox via addons -- the one critical missing element (for me) is pentadactyl. If it had that I'd switch back to opera in a heartbeat (pentadactyl is why I switched to firefox, now I'm totally spoiled).

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    3. Re:NoScript and VideoDownloadHelper on OPERA? by clang_jangle · · Score: 1

      Oh wait, nevermind -- I was distracted and failed to realize this discussion is about *mobile*.

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
    4. Re:NoScript and VideoDownloadHelper on OPERA? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is pentadactyl something like vimperator?
      There is Vimpoperator (haven't used it).

    5. Re:NoScript and VideoDownloadHelper on OPERA? by clang_jangle · · Score: 1

      Vimperoperator is basically a set of keybindings, not the complete UI makeover pentadactyl is.

      --
      Caveat Utilitor
  3. Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by blair1q · · Score: 5, Interesting

    NoScript is probably the most useful thing on my computer aside from the browser itself. And without it, I'd think the internet and by extension the browser were awful, so the probability is approaching unity.

    Time to donate to the cause.

    1. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by twilightzero · · Score: 0

      +1000 insightful on this.

      I will not use Chrome or Opera (or IE for that matter) simply for their lack of anything even remotely approaching NoScript.

      --

      "Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
    2. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      chrome has a version of noscript... it may lack some features firefox gets, but it clearly approaches the same functionality. Maybe you could tone down the hyperbolic rhetoric just a little?

    3. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      All the browsers need the combination of noscript, cookie monster, and better privacy. (it sounds like the latest browsers with the latest flash plugin (non-linux) will finally allow wiping flash cookies.)

    4. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by LurkerXXX · · Score: 5, Informative

      Don't forget the shady stuff the maker of NoScript tried just 2 years ago. He silently killed part of AdBlock on comuters it was installed on, and obfuscated what he was doing. The shit really hit the fan before he started backpedaling and reversed his position. I don't trust the guy.

      http://www.techjaws.com/the-noscript-controversy/
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoScript
      http://www.informationweek.com/news/security/app-security/217201461

    5. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by blair1q · · Score: 1

      That reminds me I owe the Adblock Plus project a few ducats as well.

    6. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      true, but you have to realise that the chrome version, 'NotScripts', is vastly inferior and more difficult to use than the firefox equivalent.
      While this remains true I will be sticking with firefox.

    7. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Pff, I think NoCSS and NoGUI are more useful! Also, I can't wait until NoASCII works with Firefox 4, and I can finally surf by just looking at my trusty oscilloscope, without all that useless bloat!

    8. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by manaway · · Score: 0

      Yeah that was a pretty big deal at the time. And whether fixing NoScript so it played better with AdBlock was for technical or philosophical reasons or both, I'm still grateful daily for both add-ons. In fact I just today surfed the Internet on a browser that had neither, and the huge bright banner ads and flashing side-ads were distracting to the point of repulsive. Parent is right, it's past time to donate, to both.

    9. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He's still messing with Adblock Plus https://adblockplus.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=7356

    10. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      chrome has a version of noscript... it may lack some features firefox gets, but it clearly approaches the same functionality. Maybe you could tone down the hyperbolic rhetoric just a little?

      Approaches the same functionality? Application Boundary Enforcement? Clickjacking Protection? XSS Protection? Forcing SSL/TLS on websites and cookies? Even inline javascript and java plugins are not blocked by the chrome version. (http://optimalcycling.com/other-projects/notscripts/limitations/) Can you maybe tone down the chrome rhetoric just a little?

    11. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and for the Linux users, just write-protect ~/.macromedia/ and all subdirectories.

    12. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by twilightzero · · Score: 1

      As noted above, it doesn't even approach the same functionality so I don't count it. Hyperbolic rhetoric still pumped. Flame on!

      --

      "Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
    13. Re:Reminds me. I owe that guy money. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Bah. Who cares if Maone designs his site so that his ads are shown through adblock? The purpose of adblock is not to block every ad everywhere anyway. Let him have his ad revenue, he certainly deserves it.

      The adblock people acted very immaturely when they started the whole debacle and I lost all faith in them. That is why I now only use noscript (most annoying ads are flash or js anyway).

      If you want the other side of the story, read http://hackademix.net/2009/05/04/dear-adblock-plus-and-noscript-users-dear-mozilla-community/

  4. Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by ronocdh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    In my experience, mobile Firefox is beautiful in its replete feature set, but I find it deplorably slow—much like how Firefox 3.x was on the desktop. I haven't played around much with add-ons for fear of even longer browser startup times on my phone. NoScript is a wonderful project, but I'd like to see a lot more speed improvement on mobile Firefox before I go signing up.

    1. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by idontgno · · Score: 2

      Well, as in all things, YMMV, but I've never had cause to complain about FF4's performance on my modded (CM7.0.3) HTC Desire CDMA. Fairly snappy, although admittedly a tiny but noticeable bit slower than Android's native browser, Whatchamacallit*. OTOH, FF4 doesn't make a horrible unusable hash of some of the websites I visit like Whatchamacallit does.

      Add NoScript and it becomes head and shoulders better than the built-in one.

      *Does it even have a distinct product name? I don't recall ever seeing it.

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    2. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by Gaygirlie · · Score: 0

      I feel the same. I have Firefox installed on my N900 (Maemo as the OS) and, well, Firefox is just painful to use. It is incredibly slow and sluggish. No matter how many times I try it or whether or not I disable all the addons I have it's still just as slow as ever.

      I'm sorry Firefox devs, but... Firefox is downright unusable on N900. Opera mobile works so, SO much better.

    3. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by CAFED00D · · Score: 1

      Firefox Mobile already has a highly-optimized, built-in flash blocker. So that's one less piece they'll have to port!

    4. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by hierophanta · · Score: 1

      on a mobile? i think i can hear the whooosh the thread made as it went over your head

    5. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by afidel · · Score: 0

      Personally I find Fenec's mobile user experience to lag behind both the Froyo Internet browser and significantly behind Opera Mobile. Opera has a much lower footprint as well. Fenec's best attribute for me right now is adblock and user agent switcher, some sites really piss me off by forcing me to their mobile site that's basically just a link to their app.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    6. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Time to root and overclock your phone!

      I have my "800mhz" Motorola Defy running at 1200mhz peak, with CPU scaling to conserve battery power. Thanks to a handy app called "SetVSEL", I no longer have to write my own setscaling.sh every time I want to change it. Currently, I have it set to 300mhz when the screen is off and when the phone is idle, limited to 600mhz when the battery is below 50%, and 1200mhz otherwise.

      Back on Topic, Firefox 4 runs very smoothly on Froyo with these settings, even with addons. Much, much better interface than the default browser, especially for tabbed browsing.

    7. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by Microlith · · Score: 1

      It's slow on the N900 due to the dearth of RAM. 256MB total, with notably less free on boot. You're instantly in a paging situation once the browser is up and running due to its memory usage.

      With 512MB of RAM it's quite nice, and does so well on the Nook Color I'm currently attempting to shove MeeGo 1.2 on.

    8. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by Beyond_GoodandEvil · · Score: 3, Informative

      Opera has a much lower footprint as well. Fenec's best attribute for me right now is adblock and user agent switcher, some sites really piss me off by forcing me to their mobile site that's basically just a link to their app.
      This 1000x, wtf is with everybody deciding my mobile browser needs to be redirected to m.url if I wanted to do that I would have typed in that url. Btw use about:debug on the stock android browser then select settings -> more to get to the user agent switch

      --
      I laughed at the weak who considered themselves good because they lacked claws.
    9. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Perhaps the speed boost from not loading a bunch of advertisements, plugins and JavaScript could be used to offset the cost of running NoScript?

    10. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by Miseph · · Score: 1

      Dearth of RAM... a mere 256. In a fracking *cell phone*.

      I feel so old...

      --
      Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
    11. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by pspahn · · Score: 2

      wtf is with everybody deciding my mobile browser needs to be redirected to m.url

      This is due to a majority of mobile users preferring to use a site that is designed with their smaller screen size in mind.

      I would guess that in nearly every case, the owner of the web site knows more about their web site than random /. guy. Providing a scaled down version of the full page is a courtesy web site owners give to their users.

      You might find that constructing a large fence in your front yard does indeed keep people off your lawn, but it also partitions you off into your own little reality.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    12. Re:Add-ons in mobile FF? Yeah, right. by Microlith · · Score: 1

      The N900, and most modern smartphones, are much more than just cellphones.

      You can still get cellphones with less than 32MB of RAM, they just don't do much.

  5. site-specific permissioning by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I nice feature in NS would be to have site-specific permissions for individual sites. For example, deny googleapis globally but allow js from googleapis when at

    1. Re:site-specific permissioning by MachDelta · · Score: 4, Informative

      Applications Boundaries Enforcer. (Options -> Advanced -> ABE)

      Site *.googleapis.*
      Accept from *.whateveryoursiteis.com
      Deny

    2. Re:site-specific permissioning by Coopjust · · Score: 1

      RequestPolicy works great in conjunction with NoScript. Don't know if it works with Firefox mobile (doubt it), but it's great for site specific permissions on the desktop.

  6. What?! by creat3d · · Score: 0

    STILL no post about how [x] is so much better than NoScript? Slashdot, I'm impressed!

    --
    Grammar nazis are to this community what excrements are to gold.
  7. Switching User Agent is nice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I agree that FF mobile is slow to load. The only reason that I keep it around is that some sites don't display correctly on other browsers. I also like to be able to spoof the user agent so that I can see the full site.

    1. Re:Switching User Agent is nice by Crasoose · · Score: 1

      I agree that FF mobile is slow to load. The only reason that I keep it around is that some sites don't display correctly on other browsers. I also like to be able to spoof the user agent so that I can see the full site.

      You can type about:debug in the standard android browser to enable more setting when you go to Menu > Settings, including a user agent changer.

  8. Good English there ... by Bassman59 · · Score: 1

    "Implement a porting?"

    Sheesh.

    1. Re:Good English there ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Implement a porting?"

      Sheesh.

      hm...
      Furrfu!

  9. Overrated by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I the only one who thinks NoScript is the most overrated and inconvenient Firefox extension in common use? It basically breaks every new website you visit, and then figuring out the minimal set of domains on which to enable JavaScript can be a very complicated problem.

    1. Re:Overrated by MachDelta · · Score: 2

      Funny, I love it for that reason. When I go to a new site and see it has twenty different domains trying to load in ads, tracking, social garbage, and the like, that's generally a big clue that I want nothing to do with that place.

  10. Untrustworthy developer. by Crasoose · · Score: 2

    I love Noscript, I don't like the developer. Because of this I've dropped Noscript from my extensions long ago. It seems everyone soon forgets about a developer who thinks he can mess with your other extensions without your permission. http://adblockplus.org/blog/attention-noscript-users

    1. Re:Untrustworthy developer. by Compaqt · · Score: 1

      But what do you use in its place?

      (I just use a separate browser with JS turned off.)

      --
      I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
  11. Short memories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So NoScript author is forgiven now?

    1. Re:Short memories by MachDelta · · Score: 1

      Well, he did apologize.
      That's more than we usually get when this sort of thing happens.

  12. If only by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If only I could export it and then import it to a firewall... Adblock Plus too.

  13. You only answered half my question. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    These add-ons for Opera don't behave like they do in Firefox.

    And where is the equivalent of VideoDownload Helper for Opera, do you know of any?

    Opera is the fastest and most resource-efficient browser that I know of, and it has a great compile base for either Static or Dynamic executables on variouis *nix environments, and even goes back to Windows 98 as far as Microsoft operating systems are concerned.

  14. not yet available? by catherine.iliana · · Score: 1

    privoxy the requests can be a more central approach to filter commercials. i am surprised: this long we see tablets but still no ad filter has been established