In light of recent news of Stylish extension's harvesting of user's browsing history and potentially personally identifiable information, and its subsequent removal from both Firefox and Chrome's add-on store, I highly recommend that people make the switch to Stylus, an open source fork of Stylish without the user tracking. Both extensions have the ability to import/export styles as .json files and is compatible with each other, which should make migrating existing styles easier.

In addition, I urge style creators to switch hosting away from Userstyles.org to OpenUserCSS.org, and for the admins of this group to modify the pinned threads promoting Stylish and Userstyles.org in favor of the alternatives. Resolved.

Discussion on Reddit /r/programming

The 'Blocked Add-ons' page should really say more than it "causes compatibility issues with Firefox" then.

This is recent news? I found out it did that when I was looking into custom css stuff for fimfic 4.0 around a year ago. Or maybe it was a little after, but still.

Either way, good to see it taken down.

6495764 That's an old, 2011 version of the addon, not the addon in general.

6495731
I'm surprised to hear about this. Thanks for spreading the word!

6495773
That was the page I got linked to from the message in my Extensions page when I went to uninstall Stylish.

Edit: My addons auto-update, so I wouldn't have the old version.

6495731
I had no idea about this until now. I've uninstalled Stylish from my browsers now, thanks for letting us know.

Noted, kind sir! Mine most sincere gratitude for spreading the word!

6495731
I unpinned the thread linked and modified the title. Only ssokolow would actually be able to modify the initial post, but if they do, I'll repin it, and I can always pin any replacement anyone writes.

Of course, I actually disabled Stylish right before stopping by. I was going to post something if this thread wasn't already here.

--arcum42

6495731
You might also want to mention that exporting your styles from Stylish and then importing them into Stylus works fine. (Stylish doesn't name the file well, so you should make sure to save it as <whatever>.json, because json is the file type Stylus looks for to import.

6495870
Thanks! I wasn't aware that group admins lacks the ability to edit other's posts.

6495871
Original post edited.

6495893
No problem.

That always has been one of these missing admin abilities, unfortunately. I can delete and lock posts without an issue, but editing someone else's post is beyond me. That's why sometimes you'll see admins in a group removing an old pinned post by a former admin and replacing it with a new one. Once that admin's gone, they can't edit it!

--arcum42

6495731

I don't really care. They can know my browsing history, there is nothing illegal in there and I have nothing to hide. And even if they should sell it to some companies for targeted ads, I won't be bothered by this either, cause targeted ads are everywhere today anyway.
I rather have that than putting up with knighty's hideous, sterile site design.

6495870

Could you please not? I am relying on those user styles to replace the ugly reality of knighty's horrible choices for FIMFiction.net and so do many others. Making a big deal out of this will just encourage userstyle creators to cease support for Stylish and to remove their userstyles.
I'm definitely not in the mood to wait until all the userstyle creators have bothered to migrate their styles and to put up with this horrendous site design until that happened.

6495972

1. Alternative extensions exists, the one I recommended in the thread opener is compatible with userstyles written for Stylish and Userstyle.org and is easy to migrate to.
2. The extension is already banned from Firefox and Chrome, that means new users won't be able to install it even if they wanted to, and existing users will soon find it disabled on their browser. This was also mentioned in the OP.
3. Even if you're fine with the amount of data the extension is collecting, many others are not. By advocating for the group admins to ignore the issue, you're putting your own personal convenience over other people's data security and privacy.

6495972
Beyond what 6496002 already said, "compatible" is an understatement as far as using Stylus as an alternative to Stylish goes. It's a fork off of the last version of Stylish before it got sold, so it's basically the same extension you are used to, minus stealing your entire browser history. Just use the same user styles you have been using.

Of course, I believe knighty just did an update to the site anyways, so that could easily have broken some scripts and styles...

--arcum42

6496002

This might all be, but the fact remains that, if the creators don't migrate them over, because of inactivity, no time or because they just don't care enough to do that, users here will sit with that half-flanked site design or without the features they're used to.
And regarding the collected information, this is a little to non-existent issue. Those who don't have anything to hide in their browser history or in the files on their computer (if that even gets looked through by a browser add-on of all things), aka no highly illegal stuff, they also have nothing to fear.
The worst thing that could happen are targeted ads on websites, which already happens anyway, it's common these days. And ads targeted to your interests are at least less annoying than stuff you wouldn't buy anyway. When in doubt, you can still use ad-blocker.

Even if Firefox bans Stylish entirely, there's probably a way around that somehow, somewhere in the wide Internet landscape, so it will still be useful for those styles that the creators don't bother to migrate. Or you can just switch to another browser that still supports it. Firefox is getting problematic anyway, with its attitude of dictating you what browser extensions you can use that it lately has, so a switch might be a good idea.
Stylish should still get at least mentioned here for those who wanna use it until all the styles are migrated.

6496181

My styles still work. Even the one Greasemonkey style I'm using.

Just went and actually read that article, and wow, that author knows how to play up the drama:

Before it became a covert surveillance tool disguised as an outstanding browser extension

Yes. I'm absolutely sure this was their goal in buying Stylish all along. They don't care for offering a browser extension, they just wanna scroll through everyone's personal data collections.
Are my downloaded Foalcon fics and pictures now in danger of getting fapped to by one of their employees during lunch break?

You also have to hope that they have good data access controls, no rogue employees, and strong enough security to prevent the theft of all their data (formerly your data).

Damn, I knew it!

There’s a check box in the Stylish control panel that claims to disable tracking, although SimilarWeb helpfully enable it by default. It does appear to work, at least until the next change to Stylish’s 2,000-word privacy policy or 3,000-word Terms and Conditions.

Of course. They will give one a way of disabling the tracking, just to take it away from them a few months later by changing something in their policy that suddenly makes disabling it useless. Because, which people deeply concerned about their privacy to the extent that they would cease using a whole browser extension that is very useful for them would ever check this to find out if any shady stuff is pulled on them? That would be just nuts.

This article is paranoia at its finest.

6496276
Just for reference, Stylish is no longer in the app store for either Firefox or Chrome. Stylus is in both, is open source, and is functionally identical to an earlier version of Stylish. As such, Stylus would be my current recommendation for anyone looking to use userscripts.

If you still have Stylish installed and working, using it is your prerogative, naturally. Anyone new looking for a userscript extension is going to be pointed towards Stylus, though.

--arcum42

6497221

Just for reference, if new users are only directed to Stylus, they will likely not even find the userscripts for FIMFiction, as the the site of Stylus doesn't have them yet.
There is a migration period for the styles and as long as that isn't over, Stylish should still have a place here in a pinned thread where users can find it and see what userscripts for FIMFiction exist.
Replacing links to Stylish here would be premature right now.

6497235
This is Stylus:

This is me clicking on the "Find styles" button, and a bunch of scripts coming up from userstyles.org, which can be enabled by clicking on them.

Finding them doesn't seem to be an issue.

--arcum42

For anyone interested, here's a direct quote from the FAQ for Stylus:

What are the main differences and improvements over the original Stylish add-on?

1. Any and all analytics, telemetry, and data-collection have been removed completely. We'd rather not know what you're up to.
2. A backup feature, compatible with the one recently introduced in Stylish. To transfer your database, simply export from Stylish and import to Stylus.
3. An automatic update feature for installed styles. You can now set your own interval for all installed styles to automatically update on their own, silently in the background.
4. CodeMirror and CSSLint have been updated to their latest versions, respectively. Many false positive editor warnings and errors have been improved via the update, and we've added a few extra exceptions for some other common false positives.
5. Customizable badge color for the icon. You can now specify what color you'd like the badge to be for "enabled" and "disabled" icons.
6. A new icon state, which indicates when all styles are globally disabled.

7. Stylus supports the installation of usercss styles (see Docs):

   • These files will have a .user.css or .user.styl extension.
   • These files can be hosted anywhere – GitHub repo or gist, GitLab, Bitbucket or a personal server.

Number 2 is especially useful right now, and I'm curious about the bit about usercss styles...

--arcum42

6495731
Just thought I'd mention that since the pinned thread you pointed out now recommends Stylus, I've restickied it.

--arcum42

Just checking by to say, good job on the PSA! I'm siding with 6496364 a bit in the sense that this is probably a bigger outcry than the problem actually demands, but I still agree with the rest that we shouldn't support it anymore.

This actually reminds me of the time userscripts.org was bombed and suddenly the whole Userscripts community was there with empty hands. Eventually, greasyfork.org established enough to replace it, but even that took a long time.

Progression is a pain in the ass in IT, but there's a reason for it.

6502336

So, are you saying that userstyles.org and Stylish should still be linked and find support here, because it will take long for the styles to migrate to somewhere else and the community using them would be a fish without water until then, or that Stylish should not be supported anymore regardless of that?
Because these two positions don't go together at the same time. They completely contradict each other.

6502903
Nah. I said I agree with you that migration is annoying and out of convenience I wouldn't change the addon soon either (mostly because I don't install new styles ones every day and already got all the ones I need). BUT I've also said that we should NOT link/support Stylish here anymore. There's a huge difference between personal and public representation.

That's how moving forwards in technology works. Let the old users keep using the legacy stuff or as long as they want, but make sure the newcomers start at the right spot. It means the launch will be rough, but it will be better in the long run. I'd think that GreasyFork has established as a great platform by now.

Yes, that means a big chunk of the styles will take ages to get migrated or maybe that never happens anyway. But the matter of the fact is that anything doesn't get migrated didn't have much demand to begin with, and if it had, some third party could easily copy paste the code themselves. Briging up the UserScripts example again, when knighty removed jQuery, every script that required it got fixed within a week. Meanwhile, the ones still left broken weren't asked for.

6503805

I understand what you want to say, but a demand isn't a guarantee that a userscript gets moved. Userscript creators can have lots of reasons why they simply can't do it.
And even if a particular userscript isn't used often, what's with the few who do use it? Implying it doesn't matter if it's just a minority who uses that userscript doesn't sound like a good position to have. It still matters to that minority, so, should they just put up with that design, because no one's moving the userscripts and they don't know how to do it themselves?

In the end, everyone should be able to decide for themselves what they wanna use their scripts with. There's nothing wrong about announcing that there's an alternative, but Stylish should at least get a mention here alongside Stylus. Then users who come here can find out how it all started and will be able to still use a script that Stylus doesn't offer.

6504180
Stylish doesn't host scripts. It's just an extension that loads them.

Stylus is a fork of that from prior to the whole tracking debacle. It also just loads them.

6504180

it doesn't matter if it's just a minority who uses that userscript

Not merely an implication, this is fact. You are free to use unpopular things, but not force or demand others support it. You can do the work yourself and migrate it or support it if it is so important to you.

I agree that the tone of the "no, don't use this, it will steal your firstborn!" message is hyperbole. That doesn't mean the folks doing this are wrong or that they must accommodate you and those sharing your opinion though. Your appeals to "new users" are simply irrelevant, and now you're trying to champion "minorities."

Want to customize your stuff? Do it yourself, learning all the necessary skills to do so. Or rely on the opinions and whims of those who do it for free. Demanding more (and let's not split hairs here, you have gone well past friendly suggestions and are firmly in the demands territory at this point) is simply self-entitled.

Yeah, I've just kinda realized that this entire debate is completely pointless. Turns out, you can still install styles from userstyles.org with Stylus just fine by pressing the "Install Style" button.

German, but it should get the point across:

gg that no one here (myself included) tested that before posting and now everyone looks like a moron.

There is literally no reason anymore to use Stylish over Stylus, other than the 30-second inconvinience of having to install a new addon. Boohoo.

So what exactly are we talking about again?

6504268

Butts?

6495731 Thanks for the alternative. Gonna try it out since my Stylish was just removed by google today (and I mean I had no say in the matter, it was just GONE).

6523000
Techinically it's still there in your extensions until you uninstall it yourself, it's just deactivated (that's how it is on my browser, at least). You may need to reactivate it to redownload scripts, if you want, but arcum showed that you can easily find user styles through Stylus itself, so it's up to you. I had to reactivate it to grab what edits I made to the coding, since I still wanted what edits I made to the styles.