Maemo, in case you were wondering, is a variant on the Debian Linux platform that used on several Nokia devices.
NoScript's core feature is to block third-party scripts by default, allowing users to whitelist them to run on their browser. This stops many attack vectors in their tracks, Infosecurity notes, and is one of the reasons why the Firefox extension has been downloaded and installed by millions of computer users.
According to Giorgio Maone, the author of NoScript, a number of important usability-oriented features – such as Script Surrogates or the ability to emulate JavaScript-only navigation on sites where scripting is blocked – have been ported to the mobile version, although many have been developed from scratch.
“For instance, on first run NoScript offers new users the ability to choose its default configuration among four presets which may be changed later”, he says in his latest security posting.
These features are:
- Easy Blacklist – the user picks untrusted sites where JavaScript and plugins must be blocked
- Click To Play - plugin and audiovisual content is blocked until you click a placeholder
- Classic Whitelist – the user picks trusted sites where JavaScript and plugins can run, similar to the default NoScript 2.x setup on Firefox
- Full Protection - like `classic whitelist' but all the embedded content is blocked until you click, even on trusted sites
The linkage between the desktop edition of NoScript and the portable version is, says its author, complete, and allows a remote sync option to take place, although Maone warns that the synchronisation authentication process can take a short while to link up.
The port to a portable environment has not been an easy process, as Maone said there is still a lot of work ahead to merge into the desktop version the many `under the hood' enhancements that this full rewrite of NoScript’s internals brought us as a welcome side effect, but this is probably the most important milestone in NoScript development since the XSS filter invention.
“So let’s celebrate and thank from the bottom of our heart the people who made it possible: the NLNet foundation which believed in this project since the beginning, and all those individuals, institutions and companies relying on and contributing back to NoScript”, he said.