Slashdot Mirror

Right on. I always install Adblock with Firefox or Mozilla. I haven't seen a pop-up or flash advertisement for months. They all seem to come from a few advertisers. Here is my adblock list:

http://.mediaplex.com/* http://.tribalfusion.com/*
http://.doubleclick.net/* http://.adbureau.net/*
http://.atdmt.com/* http://.emode.com/*
http://.advertising.com/* http://.tickle.com/*
http://.fastclick.net/* http://.falkag.net/*
http://.e.akamai.net/* http://.yieldmanager.com/*
http://.casalemedia.com/* http://.serving-sys.com/*
http://.pointroll.com/* http://.thinktarget.com/*
http://.zedo.com/* http://.com.com/cnwk.*/Ads/*
http://.qnsr.com/* http://ar.atwola.com/*
http://ads.guardian.co.uk/* http://rss.slashdot.org/~a/*
http://.starwave.com/* http://ads.ign.com/advertisers/*
http://ads.space.com/RealMedia/ads/* http://gfx.dvlabs.com/*

There is a rather better write-up of this awesome story on MNSBC, including some rather shocking pictures.

When I followed the link, I saw this picture at the top of the page.

Shocking indeed! What that hideous kid needs is to to bleach his face, chop off his nose, and straighten his hair. Then he'd look normal.

This site is using Flash to do its popups in FireFox. So you shouldn't see them if you don't have the Flash plugin installed.

It executes this javascript. That does a document.write() to create an EMBED with the source pointing to this flash applet. And that flash applet is the thing that opens the popup.

It also sets a cookie so that it only gives you a popup once per day. This is why changing your JavaScript settings may seem to block it. But messing with those settings has no real effect.

I have FlashBlock installed, but that's not enough. The Flash applet still gets a chance to run for a fraction of a second before FlashBlock hides it, and that's all it needs.

See this post on Asa Dotzler's blog for a workaround for this problem.

This site is using Flash to do its popups in FireFox. So you shouldn't see them if you don't have the Flash plugin installed.

It executes this javascript. That does a document.write() to create an EMBED with the source pointing to this flash applet. And that flash applet is the thing that opens the popup.

It also sets a cookie so that it only gives you a popup once per day. This is why changing your JavaScript settings may seem to block it. But messing with those settings has no real effect.

I have FlashBlock installed, but that's not enough. The Flash applet still gets a chance to run for a fraction of a second before FlashBlock hides it, and that's all it needs.

See this post on Asa Dotzler's blog for a workaround for this problem.

As mentioned in the parent, here's a link that causes a pop-up in firefox.
http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/ffp.swf?url =http://google.com

click that link and behold your Popup

This code just loads some more script code from fastclick.net

The secret sauce is an SWF file that opens the popup. I saw that coming when StrongBad was able to do it.

The next layer of code is this:

function ffPop(){
var encodedURL=escape(myFFURL);
var top=screen.height/2-300/2;
var left=screen.width/2-700/2;
var width=700;
var height=300;
document.write('<embed src=http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/ffp.swf ?url='+encodedURL+'&width='+width+'&height='+heigh t+'&top='+top+'&left='+left+'" quality="high" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#333333" width="1" height="1" name="popup" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflash player" />');
fcfocus();
}

This code just loads some more script code from fastclick.net

The secret sauce is an SWF file that opens the popup. I saw that coming when StrongBad was able to do it.

The next layer of code is this:

function ffPop(){
var encodedURL=escape(myFFURL);
var top=screen.height/2-300/2;
var left=screen.width/2-700/2;
var width=700;
var height=300;
document.write('<embed src=http://cdn.fastclick.net/fastclick.net/ffp.swf ?url='+encodedURL+'&width='+width+'&height='+heigh t+'&top='+top+'&left='+left+'" quality="high" wmode="transparent" bgcolor="#333333" width="1" height="1" name="popup" align="middle" allowScriptAccess="always" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflash player" />');
fcfocus();
}