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IE To Block Pop-Ups

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the late-to-the-party dept.

smd4985 writes "Next year MS will release a XP service pack that enables IE to block pop-up ads. Only a few years late. Maybe Mozilla.org/Opera should patent the technology to make it hard for Bill 'embrace and extend' Gates to kill those XCam ads...."

6 of 719 comments (clear)

  1. Proxomitron? by Empiric · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What's the point? Among others, Proxomitron is free, takes 5 minutes to set up, and is massively configurable for popup/banner/script/etc. blocking.

    The strange thing here for me is why Microsoft would do this from a business perspective. I would think they're drawing a fair amount of income from their MSN portal advertising. Maybe it doesn't work for MSN? Or they're only blocking popups because the don't plan on having them on a MSN linked site anyway?

    --
    ~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
    1. Re:Proxomitron? by invisik · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Somebody said to me the other day they wanted to switch off of their local ISP DSL to Earthlink DSL because it had pop-up blocking.

      Enough said.

      -m

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      http://www.invisik.com
  2. Bad for users of alternative browsers? by Spleener12 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    The thing is, before now companies who did the pop-up thing didn't bother figuring out how to get around existing pop-up blockers because the browsers that had them are not remotely in the majority, and I'll bet that there isn't a terribly significant percentage using separate pop-up blockers, either- kinda like how Mac/Linux users are mostly safe from viruses because most viruses are designed for Windows because most people use Windows. If pop-up blocking is integrated into the browser that 90% of the web-surfing population is using, you can bet that they'll start figuring out how to get around it- or worse, figure out some more annoying method of advertising. Either way, us Mozilla(Firebird)/Opera users might get screwed along with the IE users.

    Or they'll just exploit one of IE's 40 billion security holes to get the pop-ups through and everyone else will be just fine.

  3. Prediction by Davak · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Soon pop-up ad companies will be hiring lawyers to attack Microsoft for blocking ads...

    Who do we cheer for then? (grin)

    Davak

  4. Re:Bad news by red+floyd · · Score: 3, Interesting

    here are a number of free utilities to block popups in IE that work well, but AFAIK, none can block Flash animations

    Then use Mozilla Phoenix. And download the "click to play flash" extension.

    --
    The only reason we have the rights we have is that people just like us died to gain those rights. -- Cheerio Boy
  5. losing selling point for MSN by SethJohnson · · Score: 3, Interesting


    One thing I haven't seen a lot of discussion of is why MS hasn't stepped forward to do anything about popups and spam before this. Enjoying their monopoly in the OS arena, they've established a browser monopoly and have no competitive pressure to improve their browser. IE users have been subjected to torturous popup ads for a few years now. If you examine any of the MSN marketing materials (intentional alliteration), you'll see that they tout popup blocking as one of the advantages to their service.

    If the company would improve its browser, they would have one less 'feature' in their MSN service.

    Clear example of monopoly exploitation in one product (browser) to gain an advantage in another area (ISP service). Sure, every other ISP is offering pop-up blocking, but let's see how they implement this service patch. Wouldn't it be interesting if it sort of half-works, but is 100% effective for MSN users?
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