I agree with you. Strangely enough last week, I finally got fed up with my leaden Firefox and disabled almost everything (29/36 bit the dust). AdBlock remained, WebDeveloper and SEO for Firefox.

Even with AdBlock still enabled, Firefox is spiffy again. I didn’t know which extension was the molasses in the pudding. Your suggestion that is Firebug is highly likely.

So everybody – when you install NoScript cut back on your other extensions and slowly add the other ones back in.

Now that I have Giorgio’s info, I am going to try to disable AdBlock plus and get by with NoScript alone. All the really bad ads these days are Flash.

I’ve just read you review on addons.mozilla.org, and I would like you to try to disable Firebug for a while: you’ll immediately notice an incredible burst in Firefox performance.

Really, I’m a Firebug enthusiast but I enable it only when I need to debugsome page, because otherwise navigation is unbearable. As you correctly guessed the second most likely culprit for your slowness is
AdBlock.

NoScript, on the other hand, is very optimized performance-wise, and its impact on window opening is absolutely negligible and unperceivable (try ona clean profile with just NoScript), especially if compared to any of the extensions you named.

There are some known problems with FlashBlock documented. See the bottom of the page. Some are quite serious.

What I like about NoScript is that it gives you control of JavaScript and Flash in a single extension. The fewer toys the better.

What I don’t like about it is that it is that I think it may be slowing down new window opening. The only way to be sure would be to disable all my extensions and just enable NoScript.

As my computer is running more or less well now, I am not inclined to do this. I just disabled a bunch of extensions yesterday.

I’m setting up a PC for someone else who is a computer novice. Since I have been using Flashblock with Firefox without problem, and have appreciated that it is simple while still allowing a white list of unblocked sites, I’ve been planning to incorporate it.

But if there are reasons why the other two (NoScript + AdBlock) might be preferable to Flashblock, I would still be interested to understand the differences and tradeoffs. Perhaps if I understood what you liked better about the other two or how they distinguish themselves from Flashblock, it might persuade me to incorporate them instead.

I welcome your thoughts on how they compare to each other.

Best regards,
Eric

You are quite right. I am talking about SafariPlus. I’ll go back and correct this article later.

I am happier with SafariPlus as it needs less fiddling. Although to be honest, it was interfering with viewing/using certain sites (actually making Safari misbehave in terms of speed or memory) and I’ve disabled SafariPlus for now.

Nothing really works as well as a combination of NoScript and AdBlock on Firefox. I’m back to viewing sites with heavy advertising content on Firefox these days.

I’m on 10.3.9 for my mac, so SafariPlus is not an option for me. One that appears to be an option is the v1.13 version of the SafariBlock that is made by FSB Software.

But I notice that your article recommends “SafariBlock” while (apparently) talking about SafariPlus.

Being a Mac fan, I also note with irony that installing the Flashblock addon for Firefox is simplicity itself, even on Windows, using the standard addon selection page of Firefox, whereas some Safari addons install, upgrade, and/or uninstall with instructions that read more like what I would expect from Windows. (Start with this directory, find this folder, then copy this obscurely named file, etc., etc.) Its certainly doable if you follow the instructions, but I expected a different experience in the mac world regarding Safari addons. Safari is made by Apple, after all.

It is an unfortunate confusion, since there actually is a “SafariBlock” plugin made by FSB Software that also does blocking of flash, etc.
link to fsbsoftware.com

One possible advantage of SafariBlock for some is that version v1.13 can still be used with OS 10.3.x, whereas SafariPlus requires 10.4.

I’m curious about what you think of how the Flashblock addon for Firefox compares with Noscript, if one is simply trying to control flash animations. Flashblock does allow setting sites where Flash is not blocked (as well as allowing any individual blocked flash to be turned on).