A very brief tutorial on "NoScript"
NoScript is an add-in to the Firefox browser - it won't work for Internet Explorer or Opera.
Basically, it "does just what it says on the tin" - no scripts are allowed to run ... unless you OK them, either "temporarily" for the current session and site or permanently (if you're happy).
If you have (or have used) ZoneAlarm firewall, it works in a similar way - when it finds something it hasn't been OKayed for, it asks you to check.
It pops-up a full-width bar at the bottom of the screen, just above the taskbar, listing what it's been allowed to run and noting how many other scripts it has found that are not (yet) allowed.
If you click on the "options" button, it pops-up a drop-down (erm? well, you know what I mean) list of all the script sources, showing which are allowed and which are dis-allowed. The listing allows you to swap the setting for each script source.
In today's case, the list showed plakias.co.uk, mediacount.net, about:neterror (all allowed) and the dreaded wdqccrzpmd.hk (not yet allowed ... and no way was I going to allow it!).
How did I know? Well, plakias.co.uk is pretty obvious; mediacount.net is a fairly common "site traffic counter" and about:neterror is a common "bug catcher". However, wdqccrzpmd.hk I had never come across before, it wasn't there last time I went to the Home page (a week or so ago) and the "hk" suffix (Hong Kong) seemed pretty improbable for UK or Greek sites, so let it stay dis-allowed.
If you are presented with a new site and don't know what to allow, a few simple tests can be used:
* Is the website listed - if so, it should be OK (unless you go to dodgy websites ).
* Have you seen any of the sources before - probably OK, they are common tools, like mediacount.
* Is "google" part of the name - again, common site usage recording.
* Is the national suffix somewhere dodgy (ru - Russia and hk - Hong Kong are known areas for malware distribution) - take great care.
* Not at all sure? - leave it dis-allowed and see if the site works;
- if it doesn't, temporarily allow it (if you have confidence in you security-ware)
- if it now works and nothing nasty happens, you can consider allowing it properly next time you go to the site.
Right, that's enough, I said this was a brief tutorial but I've gone on and on .... and it's well past my bedtime!