== More notes on using uMatrix in Firefox 56 (in place of NoScript) I wrote [[my first set of notes FirefoxUMatrixNotes]] very early on in my usage of uMatrix, before things had really settled down and I mostly knew what I was doing it. Since then I've been refining my configuration and learning more about what works and how, and I've accumulated more stuff I want to record. The first thing, the big thing, is that changing from NoScript to uMatrix definitely seems to have mostly solved [[my Firefox memory issues FirefoxQuantumTemptation]]. My Firefox still slowly grows its memory usage over time, even with a stable set of windows, but it's doing so far less than it used to and as a result it's now basically what I consider stable. I certainly no longer have to restart it once every day or two. By itself this is a huge practical win and I'm far less low-key irritated with my Firefox setup. (I'm not going to say that this memory growth was NoScript's fault, because it may well have been caused by some interaction between NS and my other extensions. It's also possible that my cookie blocker had something to do with it, since uMatrix also replaced it.) It turns out that one hazard of using a browser for a long time is that you can actually forget how you have it configured. I had initial problems getting my uMatrix setup to accept cookies from some new sites I wanted to do this for (such as bugzilla.kernel.org). It [[turned out https://twitter.com/thatcks/status/957840776632918017]] that I used to have Firefox's privacy settings set to refuse all cookies except ones from sites I'd specifically allowed. Naturally uMatrix itself letting cookies through wasn't doing anything when I'd told Firefox to refuse them in the first place. In the uMatrix world, I want to accept cookies in general and then let it manage them. Well, more or less. uMatrix's approach is to accept all cookies but only let them be sent when you allow it. I decided I didn't entirely like having cookies hang around, so I've also added [[Self-Destructing Cookies https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/self-destructing-cookies/]] to clean those cookies up later. SDC will also remove LocalStorage data, which I consider a positive since I definitely don't want random websites storing random amounts of things there. (I initially felt grumpy about uMatrix's approach but have since come around to feeling that it's probably right for uMatrix, partly because of site-scoped rules. You may well have a situation where the same cookies are 'accepted' and sent out on some sites but blocked on others. uMatrix's approach isn't perfect here but it more or less allows this to happen.) Another obvious in retrospect thing was [[YouTube videos embedded in other sites https://twitter.com/thatcks/status/956285158537252864]]. Although you wouldn't know it without digging under the surface, these are in embedded iframes, so it's not enough to just allow YT's JavaScript on a site where you want them; you also need to give YT 'frame' permissions. I've chosen not to do this globally, because I kind of like just opening YT videos in another window using the link that uMatrix gives me. I have had [[one annoying glitch https://twitter.com/thatcks/status/958501633339555841]] in my home Firefox with uMatrix, but once [[I dug deep enough https://twitter.com/thatcks/status/959150346256830464]] it appears that there's something unusual going on in my home Firefox 56. At first I thought it was weird network issues with Google ([[which I've seen before in this situation ../tech/IPv6ComplicationsAgain]]), but now I'm not sure; in any case I get a consistent ((NS_ERROR_FAILURE)) JavaScript failure deep in Google Groups' 'loaded on the fly' JS code. This is un-debuggable and un-fixable by me, but at least I have [[my usual option ChromeIncognitoUse]] to fall back on. ('Things break mysteriously if you have an unusual configuration and even sometimes if you don't' is basically the modern web experience anyway.) PS: A subtle benefit of using uMatrix is that it also exists for Chrome, so I can have the same interface and even use almost the same ruleset in my regular mode Chrome. PPS: I'll have to replace Self-Destructing Cookies with something else when I someday move to Firefox Quantum, but [[as covered FirefoxQuantumLikelyAddons]], I already have [[a candidate https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autodelete/]].