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The Return Of The Pop-Up Ad

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the open-in-tab-is-a-nice-sidestep dept.

SYFer writes "Shortly after upgrading my Macs to OS X 10.3.8, I noticed that I was getting pop-up ads on Safari. It had been so long since I'd seen a pop-up, I completely forgotten how annoying they can be. I went over to Apple's Support site to see if there was a relationship, but learned that the timing is just a coincidence (even though there's a lot of the usual FUD and flailing of arms in the discussion forums). In fact, it turns out that the pop-up advertisers (what's the proper denigrating term here?) have finally defeated the pop-up blocking functionality found in many browsers. MacFixIt is running a front page article on the topic and says 'Contrary to initial reports, this problem isn't limited to Safari; subsequent reports have noted pop-under ads victimizing a number of browsers that provide pop-up-blocking features, including the latest versions of Safari, FireFox, Mozilla, OmniWeb, and Camino.'"

10 of 1,129 comments (clear)

  1. I don't see a problem here... by IO+ERROR · · Score: 5, Informative
    Hm, Firefox's built-in pop-up blocking hasn't yet failed to block a pop-up ad, and the Adblock extension has gotten all the rest, once the offending sites were added to its blacklist. I rarely see an ad anymore, of any type, unless I'm looking for it.

    In any event, it's going to be something of an arms race between advertisers and pop-up blockers. Ideally, these jerkwad marketers should realize that people using pop-up blockers do not want to see their ads and display them to someone else who does want to see them. If they can find anyone like that.

    --
    How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
  2. How it mostly works by BWS · · Score: 5, Informative
    Fundamentally, most browsers allows popup if it is cuased by a click. (eg, you click on a link and a popup window occurs).. So what they have done is figured around that. They wrap all links around javascript calls, it changes your current page to the new destination and popups up a new window (that's an ad). Here's some code I did that popups up 5 windows in Firefox..
    <html>
    <head>
    <title>Test Page</title>
    <script type="text/javascript">
    function goLink(t1, t2){
    window.open(t1, "pop1", "name=a1,width=400,height=400,left=10,top=10");
    window.open(t1, "pop2", "name=a2,width=400,height=400,left=40,top=40");
    window.open(t1, "pop3", "name=a3,width=400,height=400,left=70,top=70");
    window.open(t1, "pop4", "name=a4,width=400,height=400,left=100,top=100");
    window.open(t1, "pop5", "name=a5,width=400,height=400,left=130,top=130");
    window.location = t2;
    }
    </script>
    </head>
    <body>

    <A HREF="javascript:goLink('http://www.google.com','h ttp://www.fark.com')">Go TO Fark.com</A>
    </body>
    </html>
    --
    -- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
  3. How to not get pop-ups and keep your javascript on by Penguin+Follower · · Score: 5, Informative

    Just turn off javascript in the browser you use. If a site requires javascript then don't go there.

    That is not a viable option. 95% of the sites I (and almost every other web user) visit use javascript in some way, shape, or form. I don't want to take the mindset of "Flash is evil, images are a waste of bandwidth, java is pathetic (even though it is, but that's beside the point). The Internet is full of crap so I should just use Lynx." I like to see things other than plain text and images. I can deal with a couple of pop-up ads here and there until the next version of Firefox comes out.

    Well, here is what I do in Firefox. I haven't received any pop-ups (yet). In the options dialog, under "Web Features" you'll find that on the far right across from the "Enable Javascript" checkbox is a button that says, "Advanced."

    "Allow scripts to: " (remove check marks next to the following)

    • "Move or resize existing windows"
    • "Raise or lower windows"
    • "Disable or replace context menus"
    I also uncheck "Hide the status bar" but that's a personal preference.

    After unchecking those along with having the pop-up blocker enabled I no longer get any pop-ups. And I really don't see unchecking those having any profound viewability problems on the web. If a site needs to resize your window, it's usually because they want to open a pop-up along side it. :P Same goes for raising/lowering too.

  4. Re:been seeing this a while by Curtman · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't doubt that an update or plugin will be made soon to stop even these, if one's not already out and I just haven't noticed.

    Setting 'browser.block.target_new_window' to true in about:config seems to work, I haven't noticed any.

  5. Re:been seeing this a while by ticktockticktock · · Score: 5, Informative
    I found the following adblock filter on slashdot somewhere, but don't have the reference handy, so I just copied/pasted my copy. There should be no spaces in any of the lines, and all lines start with / and end with /. There are some false positives with these rules on some sites. But for most other sites, you just don't see ads on pages anymore. (I am not sure how well these rules would work against popup ads though.)

    [Adblock]
    /\/(ad|commercial|marketing|promo(tion) ?|shop|sponsor)s?\//
    /((double|fast|ad)click|clic k(xchange|sor))/
    /(page|side|text)_?ads?/
    /rcm.* \.amazon/
    /(adsdk|a1\.yimg|akamai|amznxslt|atdmt| atwola|bilbo\.counted|bizrate|bonnint|brides\.ru|e dge\.ru|hitbox|falkag|maxserving|promote\.pair|rea lmedia|santa\.imho|servedby|spinbox|tribalfusion|q ksrv|zedo)/
    /\/ads?(\.[\w]*){2,3}\//
    /(ima?ge?|a d)serv/
    /(ad|banner|sponsor)s?_?(id|ima?ge?|[0-9] *x[0-9]*)/
  6. Re:been seeing this a while by ArcCoyote · · Score: 5, Informative

    Zophar and other sites that pop in Firefox seem to be using javascript that traps the click and mouseup methods on all links. If they don't get you when you click, they get you when you let up on the button. Technically, these are user-initiated pops, so FF doesn't block them.

    You don't have to kill all allowed events, just hash out click and mouseup.

    dom.popup_allowed_events = "change #click dblclick #mouseup reset submit" works well and still alows legitmate popups when you click form buttons and other user-requested behavior.

    As always, you can always allow a site you need popups on.

  7. Re:been seeing this a while by elfurbe · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's worth noting, though, that target="_blank" is deprecated in XHTML strict. If you're trying to write strictly compliant web pages (that is, XHTML 1.0 Strict/1.1), there's no answer except javascript for firing off a new window.

    That said, I like the idea of NO popups of ANY sort without authorization. As long as Firefox clues me in that it stopped a popup so I can approve the site, I'm in. Though, I'd like to see a "one time" authorization. As in, I'm on some website I don't intend to be at again, I need to see one popup to complete some task, and that's it. I don't want it on my whitelist, I just want to see the one popup. Sort of like a firewall. Do I want to allow this: once, always, not this time, never.

  8. Bugzilla bug #253831 for Firefox by Val314 · · Score: 5, Informative

    if you see PopUps in Firefox, please file them here : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25383 1 (no link, Bugzilla doesnt like /. links)

  9. FIX FOR FLASH POPUPS by Barbarian · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=17607 9

    - go to about:config
    - right-click and select New/Integer preference
    - make a pref called "privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins"
    - set the value 2

    Now plugins are treated just like javascripts trying to open popups--they get blocked by the popup blocker. You have the option then to show the popup or to allow them for that site if you want.

  10. Re:Overcome this. by pizza_milkshake · · Score: 5, Informative

    flashblock replaces all flash with an (F) icon, which can be clicked, enabling the flash to play. 99% of the time i don't want flash, but in the case of strongbad, of course, i click :)