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End Run Around Pop-up Blockers
An anonymous reader writes "The pop-up arms race continues, cnet has this article on how advertisers are responding to pop-up blockers." Can't wait for a full page of javascripted user-initiated pop-ups.
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I have not had one popup since I fully switched to FireFox (around 6 months ago).
There is also a FireFox extension that blocks those annoying Flash popunder ads.
If the code is on the page, The Proxomitron can kill it. I haven't seen a pop-up that has been able to get past it yet, and even if one did, I could just make a new filter to kill all pop-ups of that sort.
It also blocks other ads, background midis, flash animations, and all sorts of other annoyances in addition to adding functionality to other sites if you're clever enough to write some nice regular expressions and HTML code.
Wonderful little program.
Click here to see some sneakier popup methods. Some even get around firefox popup blocking, although I'm certain that once they become popular, the army of mozilla hackers will find a way to block them.
... and add it to their hosts file pointing at 127.0.0.1 ...
I don't get this.
Why does everyone advocate pointing these to 127.0.0.1?
127.0.0.1 is your local machine. It's not some magic blackhole address. Using 127.0.0.1 really messes you up if you happen to be running a web server on your machine (doing web development, say). It's bad advice.
It's so much easier to point them to 0.0.0.0. That works just as well in the hosts file, and since it's an invalid IP address, attempting to open a socket returns immediately with failure. No need to bounce the requests off your local machine, and your web browser instantly blocks images, pages, etc. from those domains.
I develop a contextual/live feed advertising system (yes flame me if you wish) and we have one guy who attends IAB (Internet Advertising Bureau) events here in the UK, so I get to hear about all the "latest and greatest" advertising formats.
/.ers don't have too much to worry about.
In response to the adblocking technology several new ad formats are being approved for general usage and they all suck.Basically the new ad formats are much much bigger than the current sizes. I can't remember what sizes they were but I was crying when I was told. (bad luck 800x600 users)
Other "great" news from the cutting edge of advertising is that more full movie streaming ads will become popular (obviously with advertisers not with users)
And worst of all what are currently blockable popup ads will be replaced with Flash overlays that fly around screen.
Apparently the IAB did an expensive study in the states into what normal users thought of all these new ad formats (pop-ups, pop-unders, flash overlays, dhtml etc,) And the result was that most users call all annoying ads "pop-ups" and they really hate them. Well duh, I'm not sure what the point of *that* study was for.
On the plus side I remember hearing that IAB guidlines will recommend all flash overlays have a close button.
So in general the whole state of affairs depresses me ALOT. I don't think the IAB/advertisers have even got Avalon on their radar yet, but I imagine Avalon ads will enable a whole new generation of annoying ads.
For normal users this will all suck, but most of the ads probably won't work on a standard debian install so
Popups are irritating because they, well, pop up, when you least expect it, where you least expect it, and have to spend time and nerves closing it. But when you use tabbed browsing and set new windows to open up as new tabs, this problem is gone. It is when I use a browser without tabs for some time and notice those ugly popups that I think - why don't I ever notice any popups? And this is because when an ad appears in some tab, I just click where the X that closes the tab usually is and get it over with.
What I really want, however, is a "turn off flash" quick menu item, same for animated gifs
Get PithHelmet, a great little ad blocker for Safari. Supresses most Flash crap, and you can limit animated gifs to a single run. The web is a much calmer place with PithHelmet installed.
0.9 is going to stop all of the FF spyware in it's tracks. A new website, update.mozilla.org will sign all new extensions and themes. If you then stumble across a .xpi file on the internet, if it does not verify with update.mozilla.org then it is simply blocked. However, apparently they will let you lower your security rating (high is the default though so newbies will not see this stuff) and then it will install ok.
But, smartupdate which will automatically update your browser, extensions and themes is going to be a great feature in 0.9 and will hopefully pull a few more IE users over.
IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
Food isn't the only product where lable and price are the only differences. I'm shure most slashdotters are aware how many tech items, such as cd-roms and dvd players are just rebadged.
I can also verify from personal experience that most charcoal is the same, when I briefly worked at factory packaging charcoal all we did was switch bags when we had enough of brand-x for that days order.
Most 'house' brands of anything are of course re-badged as well.
A clever tip I learned a while back about comsumer electronics. If it's got a fcc id number you can look it up on thier (fcc's) website to see who really makes it. They only isue one number per device no matter how many people change the plastic and re-sell it.
Mycroft
https://signup.leagueoflegends.com/?ref=4c3ed6600b6ea
The problem I've had with a few popup blockers is that they are not particularly intelligent. Some of them can't even tell the difference between a popup and when you create a new instance of your browser. Beating advertisers requires intelligent filtering at the HTTP stream level, and I've found that the Proxomitron is an excellent proxy that does this. Unfortunately, the writer burned out and it's no longer supported. As such, I've heard really good things about Provoxy, but I can't make a recommendation since I've never used it.
As far as Proxomitron goes, it makes my surfing much more pleasurable. Annoying Flash ads that pop up and make noise and block what you're reading? Gone. Pop-up mouse traps? I laugh in their face. Sidebar/banner ads? What are those? Sometimes, however, the Proxomitron DOES munge some sites due to its filtering, but all you have to do is double click its taskbar icon, punch the "Bypass" button, and reload your browser. A small price to pay compared to punching your monitor in because an ad just took over your browser.
For fighting spam, popups and malware in general, I find Cexx to be a good site. They have a decent list of anti spyware/adware apps, and lenghthy and informative analyses of the various spyware running around.
-R
There's a way in Mozilla. "PrefBar". It also has a button that will kill any active flash running on the page. Plus, you can easily disable colors and images (also checkboxes) for easy printing.