[Computer Tips] [Part 2] Be an Advanced user with Web Browser
Part 1 is here: Part 1
Once you have a clean web browser with useful addons, you’re probably wondering: “is there anything else nice?”
The add-on development community for Firefox and Chrome is enormous, and you’ll find quite a few add-ons that fit you.
This post shows how to use a few other quirky addons that make your browsing experience even better
Using these Addons incorrectly will make web pages fail to render, or lose features.
Some add-ons only exist for Firefox, and vice versa
The advanced addons
NoScript – Firefox only
A website rendered on your screen rests on 3 things: HTML, CSS and JavaScript. HTML holds the content, CSS formats that content (margins, colors, sizes) and JavaScript takes care of computation, effects, and absolutely everything else. The problem is that when a website loads, not every Script is necessary for the site to work — some Scripts are completely unrelated, like user behavior tracking, ad loading, or data analysis for search engines. That is why NoScript was born. By default NoScript blocks everything and only allows through the Scripts you let it run. Download it here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/noscript/ After installing, this is what you get when you open any web page — pretty annoying, right?
Setup
To configure NoScript, click it and pick Option
Pick the Notification tab to get rid of the notification bar that shows up at the bottom of the browser. Uncheck the rows marked with arrows
That’s the setup done
Usage
Go back to google: this time you no longer see the bar saying scripts were blocked. Search for some keyword and you’ll notice several odd things compared with the usual google. First, google falls back to that ancient old interface
Instant Search is gone too. What’s going on? Simply put, you are blocking all of google’s JavaScript, and this is everything Google can do without JavaScript. To let google’s JavaScript run, hover over the NoScript icon
And pick Allow google.com. Google reloads automatically and the familiar interface is back
The NoScript icon has now turned into an S, but there is still a small red block mark underneath. That’s because some Scripts are still blocked; you should hover over it to check
There is still 1 Script, gstatic.com, being blocked. Whether you allow it is up to you. Remember, some Scripts must be allowed for the website to do what it was built to do. Another example: the page http://news.zing.vn/ At first this page behaves like google, but when you hover over the noscript icon you’ll notice a difference
What Script is this? What is Adtimaserver.vn? First, allow zing.vn. The news.zing.vn page shows up nicely, but it looks a bit empty. You wonder what those empty spots are?
Now go ahead and allow adtimaserverv.vn and feel the difference
It starts lagging, ads flood everywhere. And that is exactly what that Script does. If you look closely, besides the original 2 scripts, plenty of other scripts got wedged in. That’s no surprise: one piece of JavaScript can pull in many other pieces of JavaScript to support it. So deciding which Script runs and which doesn’t is up to you.
Blacklisting a Script
Once you’re sure some script is only for ads, or only used to track users, you can blacklist it right away so that from then on NoScript blocks it without asking you. Hover over the NoScript Icon, pick Untrusted > pick the script you want to blacklist
Be careful not to blacklist important scripts by mistake. Finally, once every script on a page has been handled (allowed or blacklisted), the NoScript icon looks like this
Tips and Tricks
To temporarily allow all scripts on a page, you can pick Temporarily allow all on this page
In some cases the web page redirects (aka: moves to another page) too fast before you can “Allow” one of its scripts; you can use the “Recently Blocked Script” feature to allow the recently blocked scripts.
You can Export / Import all of NoScript’s settings from its options
Some websites stop you from blacklisting their JavaScript with a sneaky trick — stealing focus — so you can never click Untrust. Press F12, pick the Debugging tab > click the pause button (the one with 2 bars like this || ) and you can untrust their scripts
Type about:config in the browser and look for noscript.untrusted to see every blacklisted script. You can copy this list and paste it for your friends. Mine is
"admicro.vn adtimaserver.vn doubleclick.net google-analytics.com googlesyndication.com googletagmanager.com googletagservices.com microad.net scorecardresearch.com http://admicro.vn http://adtimaserver.vn http://doubleclick.net http://google-analytics.com http://googlesyndication.com http://googletagmanager.com http://googletagservices.com http://microad.net http://scorecardresearch.com https://admicro.vn https://adtimaserver.vn https://doubleclick.net https://google-analytics.com https://googlesyndication.com https://googletagmanager.com https://googletagservices.com https://microad.net https://scorecardresearch.com"Pros and cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Pages load faster | Complicated setup |
| Web pages are less cluttered | You have to configure it for each website |
| Cheaper Internet (if you’re on a pay-as-you-go plan) | |
| The web runs more smoothly | |
| Removes websites’ user behavior tracking | |
| Prevents security risks like “Click here to get a gift” where clicking gets you a virus | |
| Also blocks websites’ like-baiting tricks (a like button hidden under features that trap users into clicking) |
uBlock – Firefox and Chrome
I don’t encourage using this Add-on, because it blocks ads, which are websites’ bread and butter. Have you ever been annoyed opening a website flooded with ads, with no content in sight? Pop ups showing up constantly at high intensity, click traps where clicking makes ads leap across your whole screen? It’s time to end that nightmare, with an add-on called uBlock. Download it here:
- Chrome: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin/cjpalhdlnbpafiamejdnhcphjbkeiagm
- Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
Before using it, I recommend removing every other ad blocking add-on. Using it is very simple: click its icon > turn the big blue button on / off to turn ads off / on. Before installing / with ads on
After installing / with ads off by turning uBlock on
You can read more of the usage guide here https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock#documentation
Happy surfing the Internet