I sat in on a tech meeting today at the U of MN and a Firefox Add-On was mentioned. NoScript was a suggestion made to block <script> and Java, Flash and Plugin Objects. I tested this out only a little so far today, but I quickly went to ESPN.com immediately after installing NoScript. On the main page http://espn.go.com/ NoScript is blocking 56 scripts and 1 Java, Flash or Plugin from being displayed.
I can see everything I want on the site, but it is blocking at least one major thing I know has to be slowing my connection to this site. That is the video player that is display on the top left and automatically loads and plays clips from Sports Center. Now that NoScript is running, it isn’t displayed and ESPN.com loads immediately.
In my short time running this add-on, I have come across one site that has navigation that gets blocked, which I would think is a no no and is something that is cautioned when checking a site for full compliance to web standards.
I am trying a few others, but I haven’t had enough time to form any kind of opinion of them yet:
- Grease Monkey
- Web Developer
- Fire Bug
- ScribeFire
Powered by ScribeFire.
I use the first two CONSTANTLY. Webdev is great for getting to a CSS fast, and seeing a page sans CSS. GreaseMonkey, how I love thee, let me count the ways… The best script I have found so far for greasemonkey is one that tells me the exact web-address of pictures on a page, right below the picture… very useful for Flickr.