The Return Of The Pop-Up Ad

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.'"

Comments

JavaScript Off

[Space_Soldier]

"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."

I want to see them beating me turning off JavaScript. I hate you, you cunts!

Re:This isn't that serious

[Firethorn]

A closer analogy would be a television, or DVD player.

There's a certain sweet spot for television. Too many ads and you'll lose viewers, and features such as VCR & TIVO ad skips gain importance.

Such as the disable menu flag on DVD's. As long as DVD manufacturers only used the 'feature' for the FBI/Interpol warning, people weren't too pissed off. As soon as Disney started setting it for their 5+ minute ad bonanzas at the beginning, people starting shoping for players that ignore the flag(and often getting region & macrovision free in the process).

The whole problem came from, like many 'features' from microsoft, is that, used correctly, they are useful features. Now, I have seen a couple sites that open a new window in a more or less useless way, but as a legitimate site(which is why I like white lists). I have also seen sites that use popups in a legitimate fashion, for control and form entry. But just like the scripting in microsoft office that allows a user to mass mail things like customized form letters to customers ultimatly, when combined with other features allows the macroviruses to reign.