Userscript

Last updated

A userscript (or user script) is a program, usually written in JavaScript, for modifying web pages [1] to augment browsing. Uses include adding shortcut buttons and keyboard shortcuts, controlling playback speeds, adding features to sites, and enhancing the browsing history. [2]

Contents

On desktop browsers such as Firefox, userscripts are enabled by use of a userscript manager browser extension such as Tampermonkey or Greasemonkey. The Presto-based Opera-supported userscripts (referred to as User JavaScript [3] ) are placed in a designated directory. Userscripts are often referred to as Greasemonkey scripts, named after the original userscript manager for Firefox.

On Wikipedia, a user scripts feature is enabled for registered users that allows them to install userscripts to augment editing and viewing of the encyclopedia's pages. [4]

Userscript managers

A userscript manager is a type of browser extension and augmented browsing technology that provides a user interface to manage scripts. The main purpose of a userscript manager is to execute scripts on webpages as they are loaded. The most common operations performed by a userscript manager include downloading, creating, installing, organizing, deleting and editing scripts, as well as modifying script permissions (e.g. website exceptions).

Userscript repositories

One aspect of userscripts is that they can be shared. They can be uploaded to a userscript repository where they become available to other users for downloading.

Historically (circa 2005–2011) userscripts.org, created by American programmer Jesse Andrews, was the largest such repository for userscripts. Over time, the site was transitioned between various maintainers before it went offline completely in May 2014. [5] All that remains is a mirror, which is useful for archival purposes. [6] [ non-primary source needed ]

A handful of the most active contributors in the userscripts.org community [7] created OpenUserJS, [8] [ non-primary source needed ] which is actively in use today. Also available is Greasy Fork, a repository largely developed and maintained by Canadian programmer Jason Barnabe. [9] [ non-primary source needed ]

Users of the Greasemonkey [10] and Tampermonkey [11] extensions may choose to install .user.js scripts from any location.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Konqueror</span> Web browser and file manager

Konqueror is a free and open-source web browser and file manager that provides web access and file-viewer functionality for file systems. It forms a core part of the KDE Software Compilation. Developed by volunteers, Konqueror can run on most Unix-like operating systems. The KDE community licenses and distributes Konqueror under GNU GPL-2.0-or-later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Plug-in (computing)</span> Software component that adds a specific feature to an existing software application

In computing, a plug-in is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. When a program supports plug-ins, it enables customization.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bookmarklet</span> Web browser bookmark containing JavaScript code

A bookmarklet is a bookmark stored in a web browser that contains JavaScript commands that add new features to the browser. They are stored as the URL of a bookmark in a web browser or as a hyperlink on a web page. Bookmarklets are usually small snippets of JavaScript executed when user clicks on them. When clicked, bookmarklets can perform a wide variety of operations, such as running a search query from selected text or extracting data from a table.

This is a comparison of both historical and current web browsers based on developer, engine, platform(s), releases, license, and cost.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Conkeror</span> Mozilla-based web browser

Conkeror is a Mozilla-based web browser designed to be navigated primarily by a computer keyboard. Its design is mainly patterned after the text editor GNU Emacs, with some influence from other programs, including vi.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greasemonkey</span> Userscript manager extension for Firefox

Greasemonkey is a userscript manager made available as a Mozilla Firefox extension. It enables users to install scripts that make on-the-fly changes to web page content after or before the page is loaded in the browser.

In the context of the World Wide Web, a bookmark is a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) that is stored for later retrieval in any of various storage formats. All modern web browsers include bookmark features. Bookmarks are called favorites or Internet shortcuts in Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge, and by virtue of that browser's large market share, these terms have been synonymous with bookmark since the First Browser War. Bookmarks are normally accessed through a menu in the user's web browser, and folders are commonly used for organization. In addition to bookmarking methods within most browsers, many external applications offer bookmarks management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Features of the Opera web browser</span> List of software application features

This article details features of the Opera web browser.

IE7Pro is an add-on for Internet Explorer 6, 7, and 8 that aims to enhance the feature set provided by the browser. IE7Pro adds features such as tab enhancement, an ad blocker and flash blocker, mouse gestures, inline search, privacy enhancements, online bookmark service, Greasemonkey-like user script support, and plug-in support. IE7Pro is available in several languages – this is made possible by user translations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stylish (software)</span> User style manager

Stylish is a user style manager that can change the appearance of web pages in a user's browser without changing their content by including user-supplied CSS style sheets with those supplied by the web site itself. The Stylish browser extension includes tools with which to write user styles, and can install user styles written by other Stylish users from a companion website. These user styles may be more or less selective, targeting just one web page, or all of the pages on a domain, or every page on the web.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Firebug (software)</span> Web development add-on for Firefox

Firebug is a discontinued free and open-source web browser extension for Mozilla Firefox that facilitated the live debugging, editing, and monitoring of any website's CSS, HTML, DOM, XHR, and JavaScript.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Web development tools</span> Software used to test the UI of a website or web application

Web development tools allow web developers to test, modify and debug their websites. They are different from website builders and integrated development environments (IDEs) in that they do not assist in the direct creation of a webpage, rather they are tools used for testing the user interface of a website or web application.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">WebGL</span> JavaScript bindings for OpenGL in web browsers

WebGL is a JavaScript API for rendering interactive 2D and 3D graphics within any compatible web browser without the use of plug-ins. WebGL is fully integrated with other web standards, allowing GPU-accelerated usage of physics, image processing, and effects in the HTML canvas. WebGL elements can be mixed with other HTML elements and composited with other parts of the page or page background.

Content Security Policy (CSP) is a computer security standard introduced to prevent cross-site scripting (XSS), clickjacking and other code injection attacks resulting from execution of malicious content in the trusted web page context. It is a Candidate Recommendation of the W3C working group on Web Application Security, widely supported by modern web browsers. CSP provides a standard method for website owners to declare approved origins of content that browsers should be allowed to load on that website—covered types are JavaScript, CSS, HTML frames, web workers, fonts, images, embeddable objects such as Java applets, ActiveX, audio and video files, and other HTML5 features.

Media Source Extensions (MSE) is a W3C specification that allows JavaScript to send byte streams to media codecs within web browsers that support HTML video and audio. Among other possible uses, this allows the implementation of client-side prefetching and buffering code for streaming media entirely in JavaScript. It is compatible with, but should not be confused with, the Encrypted Media Extensions (EME) specification, and neither requires the use of the other, although many EME implementations are only capable of decrypting media data provided via MSE.

uBlock Origin Web browser extension

uBlock Origin is a free and open-source browser extension for content filtering, including ad blocking. The extension is available for Chrome, Chromium, Edge, Firefox, Brave, Opera, Pale Moon, as well as versions of Safari before 13. uBlock Origin has received praise from technology websites and is reported to be much less memory-intensive than other extensions with similar functionality. uBlock Origin's stated purpose is to give users the means to enforce their own (content-filtering) choices.

This is a list of articles related to the JavaScript programming language.

A userscript manager, also known as a userscript engine, is a type of browser extension and augmented browsing technology that provides a user interface to run and organize userscripts. The main purpose of a userscript manager is to execute scripts on predetermined webpages as they are loaded, for example, running a userscript to modify only youtube.com pages. But, userscript managers do a lot more than execute scripts, and screen for the pages they are intended to run on. The most common operations performed by a userscript manager include installing, organizing, creating, copying, saving, deleting, and editing userscripts.

Tampermonkey is a closed-source donationware userscript manager that is available as a browser extension. This software enables the user to add and use userscripts, which are JavaScript programs that can be used to modify web pages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Decentraleyes</span> Browser extension

Decentraleyes is a free and open-source browser extension used for local content delivery network (CDN) emulation. Its primary task is to block connections to major CDNs such as Cloudflare and Google and serve popular web libraries locally on the user's machine. Decentraleyes is available for Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox + Firefox ESR, Google Chrome, Pale Moon and Opera web browsers.

References

  1. ↑ "User script". Computer Hope Dictionary. Computer Hope. 2017-04-26. Retrieved 2017-08-19. script that is run in a Web browser to make live changes to a Web page. These scripts are oftentimes used to add some functionality to a page or to change its appearance. These are typically written in JavaScript, but can be written in other languages as well.
  2. ↑ "userScripts - Mozilla | MDN". developer.mozilla.org. Retrieved 2021-06-21.
  3. ↑ "User JavaScript". Opera.com . Opera.com. 2012-06-02. Retrieved 2017-08-31. User JavaScript allows you to specify local JavaScript files for Opera to include on every page that you visit.
  4. ↑ Broughton, John (2008). "Chapter 21: Easier Editing with JavaScript" . Wikipedia: The Missing Manual. O'Reilly Media. p.  401. ISBN   978-0596515164. You can customize Wikipedia in ways that make your editing easier with user scripts, which are written in JavaScript code.
  5. ↑ "Userscripts.org down for good? Here are alternatives - gHacks Tech News". gHacks Technology News. May 9, 2014. Retrieved 2021-06-13.
  6. ↑ "Jesse Andrews - Userscripts.org". userscripts-mirror.org. Retrieved 2021-06-13.
  7. ↑ "Community - Userscripts.org". userscripts-mirror.org. Retrieved 2021-06-13.
  8. ↑ "OpenUserJS". GitHub. Retrieved 2021-06-13.
  9. ↑ "JasonBarnabe/greasyfork". GitHub. Retrieved 2021-06-13.
  10. ↑ "User Script Hosting - GreaseSpot Wiki". wiki.greasespot.net. Retrieved 2021-06-13.
  11. ↑ "Tampermonkey • FAQ". www.tampermonkey.net. Retrieved 2021-06-13.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.