I run NoScript because it provides the full feature set of FlashBlock, plus extra stuff. It's the easiest way to protect myself from flash/acrobat reader/java 0-day exploits, and not running tracking JS/ad JS is an extra perk on top of that.
In my experience, it's hard to evaluate this with NoScript because you typically whitelist domains as you go. There is probably a Pareto distribution here... whitelisting a handful of domains will cover 80% of your web browsing. Once you get going, it's not very obtrusive... although I certainly have to temporarily enable or whitelist new sites every day, it's an automatic response at this point.
Often a site will link in lots of third-party javascript, and this is where NoScript gives you more flexibility. A lot of times it's easy to tell where the advertising and tracking code is coming from and leave those domains disabled. Sited usually work any way.
The worst thing about NoScript is when a "third-party" site itself uses third party (fourth party?) code, since NoScript does not seem to detect that. Of course this is a heinous practice, and it's disturbing how often it seems to occur. If I really have to use a site that does that, I typically pop into IE.
Most of the web works fine, in that the content is readable (which is really all I care about 90% of the time). Things like comments are often readable but rarely can be made without javascript. Twitter and blogger are the worst offenders in terms of no content whatsoever without javascript (I have twitter whitelisted but not blogger, and will often not bother to temporary whitelist it if I follow a link to it). I usually wind up whitelisting the bare minimum to get the features I want enabled on websites I frequent.
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I run NoScript because it provides the full feature set of FlashBlock, plus extra stuff. It's the easiest way to protect myself from flash/acrobat reader/java 0-day exploits, and not running tracking JS/ad JS is an extra perk on top of that.
I'm curious: how much of the web would you say is broken when you browse this way? Is there a difference between 'consumer' sites and 'pro' sites?
In my experience, it's hard to evaluate this with NoScript because you typically whitelist domains as you go. There is probably a Pareto distribution here... whitelisting a handful of domains will cover 80% of your web browsing. Once you get going, it's not very obtrusive... although I certainly have to temporarily enable or whitelist new sites every day, it's an automatic response at this point.
Often a site will link in lots of third-party javascript, and this is where NoScript gives you more flexibility. A lot of times it's easy to tell where the advertising and tracking code is coming from and leave those domains disabled. Sited usually work any way.
The worst thing about NoScript is when a "third-party" site itself uses third party (fourth party?) code, since NoScript does not seem to detect that. Of course this is a heinous practice, and it's disturbing how often it seems to occur. If I really have to use a site that does that, I typically pop into IE.
Most of the web works fine, in that the content is readable (which is really all I care about 90% of the time). Things like comments are often readable but rarely can be made without javascript. Twitter and blogger are the worst offenders in terms of no content whatsoever without javascript (I have twitter whitelisted but not blogger, and will often not bother to temporary whitelist it if I follow a link to it). I usually wind up whitelisting the bare minimum to get the features I want enabled on websites I frequent.