diff --git a/misc/userscripts/format_json b/misc/userscripts/format_json
index 42d8dea14..10ff23e53 100755
--- a/misc/userscripts/format_json
+++ b/misc/userscripts/format_json
@@ -22,15 +22,14 @@
 # default style to monokai if none is provided
 STYLE=${1:-monokai}
 # format json using jq
-FORMATTED_JSON="$(cat "$QUTE_TEXT" | jq '.')"
-
-# if jq command failed or formatted json is empty, assume failure and terminate
-if [ $? -ne 0 ] || [ -z "$FORMATTED_JSON" ]; then
+if ! FORMATTED_JSON="$(jq . "$QUTE_TEXT")" ||  [ -z "$FORMATTED_JSON" ]; then
     echo "Invalid json, aborting..."
     exit 1
 fi
 
 # calculate the filesize of the json document
+# parsing the output of ls should be fine in this case since we set the block size
+# shellcheck disable=SC2012
 FILE_SIZE=$(ls -s --block-size=1048576 "$QUTE_TEXT" | cut -d' ' -f1)
 
 # use pygments to pretty-up the json (syntax highlight) if file is less than 10MB
diff --git a/misc/userscripts/password_fill b/misc/userscripts/password_fill
index 22497d987..5f30a6bf6 100755
--- a/misc/userscripts/password_fill
+++ b/misc/userscripts/password_fill
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ die() {
 javascript_escape() {
     # print the first argument in an escaped way, such that it can safely
     # be used within javascripts double quotes
-    sed "s,[\\\'\"],\\\&,g" <<< "$1"
+    sed "s,[\\\\'\"],\\\\&,g" <<< "$1"
 }
 
 # ======================================================= #
diff --git a/misc/userscripts/taskadd b/misc/userscripts/taskadd
index 9c70fb978..b1ded245c 100755
--- a/misc/userscripts/taskadd
+++ b/misc/userscripts/taskadd
@@ -25,9 +25,7 @@
 [[ $QUTE_MODE == 'hints' ]] && title=$QUTE_SELECTED_TEXT || title=$QUTE_TITLE
 
 # try to add the task and grab the output
-msg="$(task add "$title" "$*" 2>&1)"
-
-if [[ $? == 0 ]]; then
+if msg="$(task add "$title" "$*" 2>&1)"; then
     # annotate the new task with the url, send the output back to the browser
     task +LATEST annotate "$QUTE_URL"
     echo "message-info '$msg'" >> "$QUTE_FIFO"
diff --git a/misc/userscripts/view_in_mpv b/misc/userscripts/view_in_mpv
index 9eb6ff7c6..f465fc4e4 100755
--- a/misc/userscripts/view_in_mpv
+++ b/misc/userscripts/view_in_mpv
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ msg() {
 MPV_COMMAND=${MPV_COMMAND:-mpv}
 # Warning: spaces in single flags are not supported
 MPV_FLAGS=${MPV_FLAGS:- --force-window --no-terminal --keep-open=yes --ytdl --ytdl-raw-options=yes-playlist=}
-video_command=( "$MPV_COMMAND"  $MPV_FLAGS )
+IFS=" " read -r -a video_command <<< "$MPV_COMMAND $MPV_FLAGS"
 
 js() {
 cat <<EOF
diff --git a/scripts/dev/ci/travis_backtrace.sh b/scripts/dev/ci/travis_backtrace.sh
index 4027f7c10..227dde8a8 100644
--- a/scripts/dev/ci/travis_backtrace.sh
+++ b/scripts/dev/ci/travis_backtrace.sh
@@ -15,4 +15,4 @@ case $TESTENV in
         ;;
 esac
 
-find . -name *.core -o -name core -exec gdb --batch --quiet -ex "thread apply all bt $full" "$exe" {} \;
+find . \( -name "*.core" -o -name core \) -exec gdb --batch --quiet -ex "thread apply all bt $full" "$exe" {} \;
diff --git a/scripts/dev/download_release.sh b/scripts/dev/download_release.sh
index 66242ec8e..207da21c8 100644
--- a/scripts/dev/download_release.sh
+++ b/scripts/dev/download_release.sh
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 #!/bin/bash
+set -e
 
 # This script downloads the given release from GitHub so we can mirror it on
 # qutebrowser.org.
@@ -11,23 +12,23 @@ if [[ $# != 1 ]]; then
     exit 1
 fi
 
-cd "$tmpdir" || exit
+cd "$tmpdir"
 mkdir windows
 
 base="https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/releases/download/v$1"
 
-wget "$base/qutebrowser-$1.tar.gz" || exit 1
-wget "$base/qutebrowser-$1.tar.gz.asc" || exit 1
-wget "$base/qutebrowser-$1.dmg" || exit 1
-wget "$base/qutebrowser_${1}-1_all.deb" || exit 1
+wget "$base/qutebrowser-$1.tar.gz"
+wget "$base/qutebrowser-$1.tar.gz.asc"
+wget "$base/qutebrowser-$1.dmg"
+wget "$base/qutebrowser_${1}-1_all.deb"
 
-cd windows || exit
-wget "$base/qutebrowser-${1}-amd64.msi" || exit 1
-wget "$base/qutebrowser-${1}-win32.msi" || exit 1
-wget "$base/qutebrowser-${1}-windows-standalone-amd64.zip" || exit 1
-wget "$base/qutebrowser-${1}-windows-standalone-win32.zip" || exit 1
+cd windows
+wget "$base/qutebrowser-${1}-amd64.msi"
+wget "$base/qutebrowser-${1}-win32.msi"
+wget "$base/qutebrowser-${1}-windows-standalone-amd64.zip"
+wget "$base/qutebrowser-${1}-windows-standalone-win32.zip"
 
 dest="/srv/http/qutebrowser/releases/v$1"
-cd "$oldpwd" || exit
+cd "$oldpwd"
 sudo mv "$tmpdir" "$dest"
 sudo chown -R http:http "$dest"