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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.'"
I've been coming across popup ads in firefox even with popup blocking on for a couple of months now, though luckily not too many.
The Farewell Tour II
...it's time for the return of my shotgun to active duty.
I tolerate text ads because something has to pay for the web, but popups and other abusive ads (like the huge flash ads in the slashdot TEXT ONLY service) just get blocked. The fuckwits deserve not to get any ad revenue for pulling stupid tricks like that.
Beep beep.
I've had this trouble too just recently. I get one off and on at this site: http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/index.php.
Call me crazy (ok don't) but I thought I had spyware. I certainly don't. I'm running Firefox 1.0.
Hopefully they don't catch on too quick.
UID 1000000 is just around the corner.
So do those X10 camera ads still exist? I know they used to annoy the heck out of me, but it's been at least 2 years since I've seen one of those ads. I hope they don't come back.
My sig can beat up your sig.
it turns out that the pop-up advertisers (what's the proper denigrating term here?)
Poppers? Plippers? Flippers? Flappers? Wippers? Snappers?
Sorry, kinda high on Red Bull right now.
I enjoy large posteriors and I cannot prevaricate.
...am I lucky.
Lynx is, and continues to be, the ultimate browser for ad-less internet browsing.
Take that, 21st century!
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?
I haven't had any popup ad troubles yet (Mozilla on Linux/x86) but the first time I tried to click on the "Read More" link below the story from Slashdot's main page, the web browser spontaneously closed itself. Interesting feature...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
-- Note: These Comments are Generated by ME! Not You! ME!
Why do advertisers/companies think that annoying the hell out of people is a good way to make money?????
the macfixit article mentions that these are pop-under ads. i definitely have noticed a few of these in the past week, using firefox on windows...
it really confused me, since like the submitter, i havent really seen anything like it for over a year...
while browsing macslash.org, oddly enough. Fortunately there's nothing really interesting enough to justify the annoyance. The best way to fight this is to stop using pages that have these, and to let the owners know why you're not giving them your eyeballs any more. Scratch that, the BEST way is to find out what's powering these new ads and kill it on the browser. Ad arms race (again), here we come!
It's sorta like this:
"SCREW YOU, POPUP-BLOCKING BASTARD!! Now buy our cheap cameras.
Hmm...
Drudgereport seems to pop for me on Firefox all of a sudden. It just started happening w/in the last week.
-- jimmycarter
So....how long before firefox develops a popup blocker blocker blocker?
I think I just confused myself. Yikes.
Having long been a loyal Firefox fan, I thought i'd seen the end of pop-ups after I left IE...that bitch. Turns out not only have they defeated the pop-up blockers, but they have moved on from even java-based ads to weird ones. Check out the example at www.drudgereport.com (that site is notorious for pop-ups). It's another one of those cat & mouse games. Once they programmers plug a pop-up hole, the advertisers will work harder (afterall, their wallet depends on it) to develop a new means of displayer their content. This leads me to one conclusion: Advertisers will become more selective of where to put their ads. On the one hand, it could be profitable to have your ads everywhere if you appeal to every audience... I think several advertisers realized long ago that placing a penis enlargement ad on the weightlifting section of www.sportsauthority.com or on www.gnc.com would prove more profitable than Hello Kitty ads on Slashdot. Ad space will not become more valuable if there is an arms race between programmers and advertisers. The great and horrible thing about something like Windows is that it's limited in its possibilities. It is what it is, so advertisers have to work with what they have. If the exploits are all gone, there are even fewer possibilities for advertising. In other words, advertising must be legit: no more registry hacks and spyware. Given this environment of ad-resistant browsers, there's a huge problem: sites like NYTIMES.COM, Yahoo, etc. that have huge amounts of traffic but few forms of revenue other than ads will have to make a choice: do they stop advertising altogether and abandon that model or do they ask all visiting users to respect their ad policy and disable ad-blocking features. This would be monumental because it would depend on the willingness of the consumer to be advertised to. What I suspect would happen after that is NYTIMES (just an example) would offer premium services that they have not yet developed now (image-laden news feeds to next generation cell phones, perhaps). Once again, competition does force companies to respect the lowest bidder in a way. If google chose to give its new operating system away in 2006, MS would be forced to think about giving a version of Windows away for free. So if a major news outlet chose to do away with the ad-based model, all others would be forced to follow suit to keep their readership. Pretty amazing. I wonder where it will take us. Your thoughts?
Martini Glasses
Lately I've been hearing complaints by people using Firefox of some sites having pop-ups come up again. The biggest complaint coming from people that visit The Drudge Report. I too have seen them.
However, ever since I started using the Adblock extension, as well as keeping an updated list of definitons, I haven't had these problems lately.
How does defeating a measure designed to block your ads make good business sense? Does forcing your ads upon someone known to hate your approach produce good results? Does irritation equal a higher rate of return because people who hate your ads see them and have a change of heart? Do they say, "Hey, I had no idea those hateful ads were so interesting and useful to me. I think I'll buy their product."
Cuz my instinct is that when a person takes active efforts to banish you from their lives, forcing your way into their living rooms isn't a cost-effective approach. But hey, I don't work in advertising, as anyone who reads my About page on the headlines site knows. I like advertising in its place, but c'mon, if I kick you out of my house, stay there, please.
The Internet ad industry is causing an arms-race they won't be able to win. If the increasingly popular pop-up (or pop-under really in this case) blockers start getting defeated, that is just going to force the average browser user to start using a custom Hosts file of some kind to block nearly all ads. There isn't too much the ad industry can do about that, IMO, with the possible exception of making the ads come from the same server as the content. This will be okay for some sites, but I can't imagine too many people will want to give up that much control over their sites.
(But maybe that control is the ultimate plan of the ad industry - it would really make things easier on them...)
There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion. -- Francis Bacon
I've recently seen popunder ads for GoToMyPC. Using Firefox 1.0. I was on quite a few sites at the time, so not sure which did it, but I did see a site: paypopup.com included in my history. My best guess is that the popunder was triggered by an onclick event over a hidden link (I often click a page in an empty spot to make sure it has the focus before wheel scrolling). I have some of the "move or resize windows" disabled, so I didn't even notice the popunder for a while, was hidden at the bottom right hand corner of the monitor. Only after I maximized that that I saw it was a GotomyPC ad.
So....how long before firefox develops a popup blocker blocker blocker?
Blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, pop-up, pop-up
Blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, blocker, ARGH! Spam! A spam!
(apologies to weebl)
Urge to download...NCSA Mosaic...rising...
I ended up disabling my Javascript and the pop-ups don't bother me anymore.
RIGHT! lets get those fuckers. you get the guns and I'll get the fire-bombs. Now, who knows where these bastards live?
No, that's even better. It prevents you from accidentally not boycotting the stupid site that's using them.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
I've also recently encountered more pop-ups in Mozilla and at first attributed it to the Macromedia Flash plugin. The following page from Hindustan Times (often linked from news.google.com) puts up a pop-up ad that is quite effective -- centered and blocks most of the content such that you have to move it or click it or close it (no chance to have it pop-under). See it/slashdot it here:
Gurinder Chadha believes Austen was a Punjabi in her previous birth!
Linux at home
if I kick you out of my house, stay there, please.
So Popup Ads are like Jehovah Witnesses?
I sent them a brief email: I received an email from them soon after that they had sent to their advertising partner, TribalFusion:
Needless to say, I was very impressed, am browsing Macslash again, and have yet to see any more of these pop-ups.
-Paul
A not-terribly-computer-savvy friend of mine is having problems with his AOL email.
So I suggested he sign up for Yahoo mail, because all the people I know who use it find it perfectly satisfactory.
He can't get signed up for Yahoo mail. I tried coaching him step by step over the phone. I can't be 100% certain of what's happening, but as I followed through the same steps on my own browser, he ran into troubles at exactly the point when Yahoo popped up a confirmation screen on my browser.
I'm about 95% sure he has popup blocking enabled and that's what's preventing him from signing up with Yahoo.
Of course, he doesn't know what a popup blocker is, or how to control it.
So, these days there are probably users who are suffering both from the new popups and from incompatibilities caused by the use of popup blockers.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Here's my (educated*) guess - These sites provide metrics to media buyers. Media buyers have no clue about the 'popup ad arms race' - all they know is they have effective response rates from popups and site XYZ can show that they show popups to N visitors. N is just the amount joe ad buyer is looking for. He doesn't know that the only reason this number is so high is due to circumvention of popup blockers and a royally annoyed audience.
So my guess is that it really is the sites that host the ads which aren't being totally honest.
* I was an advertising major in college and have a little experience with media buying - I would suspect that this is what is happening.
Say, what are you paying these websites you're visiting? I don't see a * next to your name, so I take it you're not a subscriber to slashdot. I guess they should just be grateful for your presence, huh?
Contrary to what you may think, the websites don't make any money by just "showing" the ads. So when you don't click on the text ones, you give advertisers an incentive to make ads more and more intrusive.
Popup blockers are becoming standard issue. As a result, circumventing popup blockers is primarily to get to those people who could have been sucked in by a pop-up ad had they not run Windows Update and gotten SP2 auto installed.
Secondly, it might be the advertising services or the pages that host these ads that are trying to bypass blockers. The advertisers probably realize that people who go out of their way to block ads won't every buy anything, but many sites with ads or web ad providers just care about the impression count, not their click through rate.
http://brandonbloom.name
Konqueror supports whitelisting sites for java/javascript access. The latest version even supports whitelisting sites that can use plugins. I think Omniweb supports that as well if you also have Macs. Another great feature is that user_agent spoofing in Konqueror is per site rather than a global setting like Opera/Firefox.
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.
--guru
They may use javascript, but that doesn't mean it's necessary. I've been surfing without javascript (or java, or flash) for many, many years now, and there are only a select few sites that even have reduced functionality because of it.
Netflix, for instance, requires javascript only to allow you to rate films, and works perfectly without javascript other than that.
The only place where javascript is usually needed is with drop-down lists, which is rather stupid, as a single button next to the drop-down would eliminate the need for javascript for them.
If you find a site that needs javascript, complain loudly to the webmaster, and you will see it change, most of the time.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I use Only tabs, and think "new window"s are an absolutely horrible bug which should never have been included. I loath new windows. I think it's sickening that you need to install a seperate extension in order to hack on a way to use only tabs. I _NEVER_ use new windows.
And I've been getting popups for the past couple of weeks. Like, one or two. (they open in new tabs, not windows, but they still pop up)
So, no, it's not that.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
I'll second the recommendation of others here: block the ads at the DNS level. Windows users need to add entries to their local hosts file. Myself, running Unix at home, I use a three-step approach. First is a very small web "server" running on a scratch server. It's only job is to respond with a "404 Not Found" to any HTTP request (it does SSL and listens on ports 80 and 443). Second, I create a wildcard zone file for BIND that returns the address of my 404 server for any name in or below the zone's root. Third, I modify the named.conf file for the copy of BIND that serves my network, pointing each domain that's a problem (eg. "fastclick.net", "doubleclick.net") to the wildcard zone. Presto, as far as everything on my LAN's concerned any hosts in or under the domains I list now belong to me and my 404 server, not the companies who registered them. This can obviously be worked around by using IP addresses instead of hostnames in URLs in the ad HTML/JS, but nobody's doing that yet and if they do I can deal with it with some appropriate IP-level redirect rules in my firewall.
Advice to obnoxious advertisers: we control the clients, not you. If we don't like what you're doing, we'll do something about it. If you make it too hard to do something about it and won't change your ways, we can make you cease to exist. And with a Linksys router with custom firmware and configuration the non-geeks can get a turnkey solution too.
I haven't seen any popups in Safari. I'm on MacOS X 10.3.8 but I suspect this is not due to OS or app upgrades, it's some new technology. There is, however, a better solution to popups for Safari users, the plugin PithHelmet. Stops popups and almost all ads dead. Other OS users may find successful solutions with gadets like Privoxy.
Now if only I could figure out a way to get rid of "pop-IN" ads, like those annoying popup-style ads that appear inside the browser window, it's some sort of DHTML trick to make a closable window inside a frame. It's used on sites like wunderground.com and I hate it. Nothing can kill those yet.
A solution to this is to install the AdBlock extension for Mozilla/Firefox. Once you've done this, grab this list of search strings. Once you've done this, import the text file and you should be home free. Try to keep that file updated as it should be a good starting-off point, but will become outdated as time goes by.
Better yet, switch to a text-only browser!
I haven't tried this with the specific examples referenced here, but it ought to work in general in Firefox and other *zilla browsers.
1) Type about:config in the URL bar
2) find dom.popup_allowed_events
3) change the value to the empty string
Now no events allow popups by default. That means if you want to let a site pop up a window from Javascript you will have to whitelist it.
This blocked the popups on drudgereport.com for me when I tried it a few months back. I don't leave this setting on, for now, since I prefer to choose not to frequent sites that maliciously abuse me with ads. However, if it starts to become a regular nuisance, I will set Firefox back to this aggressive anti-popup setting. After all, nobody really NEEDS to use Javascript popup windows, and if I can see where a legitimate site is trying to do so, it only takes a few seconds to whitelist them in FF's popup blocker.
Just turning off JavaScript is horribly shortsighted.
As per the cousin post, there are good reasons for pop-ups in an application context; because JavaScript variables can be retrieved from spawned windows, pop-ups also make a good alternative to session cookies without placing anything in local magnetic storage.
But no sane developer is willing to rely on such an approach, mostly because of BOFH's with attitudes like that.
...When in doubt, think for yourself.
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.
1. Get an old POS PC from a trashpile
2. Install Smoothwall on it. It's free..
3. Install Ad Zapper following THESE directions.
Any and ALL system that you connect into your lan will have ads blocked whether they want to or not.
If the advertisements use images, animations, flash, or any other scheme that significantly impacts page loading or distracts from the content on the page, they are just as bad as popups/unders.
Also blocking popup/unders is easy. Blocking banners and flash ads is a little more difficult and those who are doing so will not be buying from your ads anyway.
Though I've advocated (read, bored ppl with) firefox (FF) usage over the last 2 years, I've been brought to the boil with the pop-up ads coming to view on FF over the last few months, my tolerance having been extensively tested with the very sluggish page rendering of FF on Win XP as compared to FF on my Mandrake (Does anyone know why and can he/she be bothered to tune up the engine?) and I decided to try out Maxthon, despite knowing it's built on IE. Maxthon's not as versatile and add-on friendly as FF (unless someone can point me to untapped un-Googled resources out there?), but it's holding up to the pop-up on-slaught very well so far. And hopefully, :-p, this post won't bring Maxthon's usage to the attention of the pop-up coders...
Which, if I may digress, brings to mind the question, who are the people responsible for the evils- pop-ups, spamming, spyware? (ok, before you release the hounds, I'm not looking for M$ as an answer) Gasp, could they be among us? :-/ I mean theses are geeks and/or coders, who are they? Can someone drive some civic sense into their selfish criminal little brains?
Lynch them but don't you dare Flame away!
Isn't it easier just to use POST instead of coming up with elaborate javascript workarounds to hide the address bar?
Why not fork?
Has anybody seen DHTML pop-ups around? They effectively utilize JavaScript and CSS in collaboration to unhide a centered page element containing an ad. They tend to contain a link to activate a JavaScript function to hide the block. I've also seen them disappear after a short amount of time.
How is a web browser supposed to block that kind of pop-up? Why don't we just all disable JavaScript since it is going to be abused so much? And like a previous poster has mentioned, not too many sites seem to absolutely require it; I surf with JavaScript disabled for quite a while before remembering I turned it off.
Audioscrobbler
I hate hearing this term because it makes it sound like a webbrowser is inherintely designed to show pop-up windows. It is simply a JavaScript command. If your web browser chooses not to implement it, then it doesn't show up. There is nothing to "block" you simply "ignore" the command to show the pop-up window.
> Your ID is not low.
:D
Neither is yours, you newbie!
Pop up blockers are security feature...anyone who writes a program that deliberately circumvents a security is liable under the DMCA. Anyone who distributes code that does the same thing is also liable.
If the corporate boys are going to screw us using the DMCA why cant we do the same thing?
Teach me to wait to sign up for an account...
How's my programming? Call 1-800-DEV-NULL
I've been using Mozilla and Privoxy http://sourceforge.net/projects/ijbswa/ for over six months now and haven't had a single problem with popups. Granted, sites that are heavily dependent on javasctipt and flash are not always functional.
Haven't you heard of gmail?
Are you really going to complain loudly to the webmaster of every little javascript-based site you want to use and wait for them to redo the site?
Do you realize that many sites are actually faster with javascript on, because there is a non-trivial application running on the client site, and it needs to download no (or very little) data for many of the requests, as opposed to loading the whole damn page every time you want to change the width of a column in a table?
"why cant we do the same thing?"
Just a wild guess here, but possibly because they're not necessarily copying anything and the blocking features aren't necessarily protecting intellectual property.
DMCA has nothing to do with it. I'm personally more in favor of hunting these fuckers down and torturing them with pliers, myself.
Wouldn't that also block user-initiated javascript popups? Many sites use these legitamately (though they are annoying).
This post written under Gentoo-linux with an SCO IP license.
In my opinion, here is the proper way to deal with this and any similar scourge:
1. Install Privoxy. It writes every bit of HTTP activity to its log file.
2. Wait for a pop-up ad to appear.
3. Immediately consult the Privoxy log file. Determine what URL the pop-up came from.
4. Block out the entire domain from which the pop-up came from. Use whatever IP blocker you like best: Your DNS relay, your firewall, your hosts file, or Privoxy.
5. Repeat as needed.
Penguin Follower has it right. This works for me; but there is another factor.
Go to the children's sites (porn, games, sports, entertainment, ad nauseum) and you will have no end of marketing technology blasted at you.
Go to adult sites (corporations, universities, respected publishers, etc) and you will enjoy relative freedom from that foolishness. Why, it's just like the real world!
...omphaloskepsis often...
Not always, plus it isn't elaborate window.open() location=no.
Sometimes you use querystrings that pass values and you validate any input. Plus if someone really knows how to hack at all post won't stop a damn thing (I can write an example in about 30 seconds to demonstrate). In web apps like C programs you always assume the data you are processing is trying to do something it shouldn't, and as a consequence you validate everything. I don't fuck around when it comes to HIPAA. Going to jail for not properly securing PHI is not an option.
Plus click reply and look at the location bar on slashdot.
In the back of my mind I keep thinking there was a law on the books about people taking control of a computer without the users consent. Now it seems to me that circumventing a pop up blocker to open a new window violates this law and the advertiser and possibly the website could be held liable.
I know this law is on the books maybe someone could point it out.
That's only one of the popups. They have more than one. The one that gets past doesn't always show up.
Le français vous intéresse?
I've been noticing some popups squeezing their way through Avant's popup blocker, myself. A recent upgrade fixed it somewhat, but I have a feeling it won't be the end of'em.
Sometimes I just fail to see why these companies keep forcing ads on us like this. I mean, we don't want'em, we go out of our way to prevent'em, we never click on'em. And when it comes to email ads, anyone with half a brain knows not to try and get refinanced by a company who slipped an email past your filters by using horrible language and spelling.
But then I remember that a majority of the world is filled with stupid people, who will in fact click these things, and even go as far as to buy things from'em. So unless humanity's intelligence factor happens to spike suddenly, I don't see an end to these ads anytime soon.
You can modify your hosts file to point back to localhost for ad hosting sites. Mike Skallas maintains one here. There is even an installer for Windows users.
(%i1) factor(777353);
(%o1) 777353
This is very useful. It's worth noting, also, that removing all "allowed" popup events doesn't completely kill your ability to use sites that need popups...it just causes Firefox to warn you that it has blocked something, allowing you to adjust settings for that site.
Seems to have fixed all those new popups for me.
IE7 wish checkbox: ignore onLoad / onUnload
This simple option in the upcoming IE7 (or any other browser) will KILL ALL UNSOLICITED POPUPS FOR GOOD! No more 3rd party popup blockers will be needed anymore!
As a stopgap measure, HTTP proxies can be 'recoded' to 'rename' onLoad / onUnload on the HTML that passes through them so the Javascript interpreter won't see them. However, this tatic will likely be construed as some sort of copyright violation by the media bigwigs and will be fiercely opposed....
The only unblockable advertising left will be that of webmasters PERSONALLY hosting ads alongside their content on their domains....
I am right there with you. I'm sorry, but there just aren't any websites that are so important to me that I feel the need to beg for bullshit by turning on a bunch of pointless features.
The very concept of a pop-up blocker is stunning to anybody who has been using the web since before Javascript became common. (To say nothing of the folks who have been using the Internet since before it had websites on it!) I can think of very few features that were so bad that users begged for ways to prevent the feature from being used... And said feature wasn't removed from the product!
Can you imagine if car makers started including bombs in all their cars, and you had to get or make a special explosion-blocker? You'd think that it would occur to the manufacturer to just not install the bomb, rather than working on the ultimate explosion blocker!
I'm using more exclamations points than is my habit, but only because I find the situation so excrutiatingly baffling. If, in IE6, MS had simply not bothered to include the code to open new windows automatically, the world would be a better place, and few people would have felt the need to switch to better browsers. Any sane web designer has come to realise that their user's hate popups. Further, any sane web designer has to deal with the fact that their 'legitimate' popups are likely to be blocked. Thus, any sane web developer should just stop using popups as part of the actual site, so all popups can be assumed ads, and we can just abandon the feature entirely.
To quote Mr. Jeff Foxworthy's guide to UI design... When you have features that make front page news when they get used, because your users hate those features so vehemently, you might be a bloat-peddler.
Why do we want to surrender functionality? Don't give up the web to those that abuse it. Kick them off it by boycotting. Google has almost singlehandedly re-launched the dotcom boom by getting the eyeballs of people who choose to reward good sites and ignore bad tactics such as pop-ups, excessive banners, animations, and blurring between content and advertizement. You have the power to determine content. Don't bow out by surrending both the content and the functionality.
Hi! I just heard about this site from some of my hacker friends, and just wanted to say hi to you people!
This is my point though. If you don't trust any input from the query string, or POST or what have you, why are you going to make your users go through the extra song and dance of enabling popups?
Why not fork?
Damnit slashdot stripped out my script tag even in plain text! Go to snopes and view source for the page and you'll see:
c gi/v=2.0S/sz=468x60A|728x90A/'+rnum+'/RETURN-CODE/ JS/"></scr'+'ipt>');
document.write('<scr'+'ipt src="http://www.burstnet.com/cgi-bin/ads/ad1874c.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
Ploppers
It would seem that the problem which exists is as follows:
Since you really can't dissuade the middlemen in a material way, you need to dissuade the businesses from continuing in employing such practices.
The best way to do this would be to create a list of businesses which employ such techniques and enter them into a boycott database. Ala RBL.
Another method might be to employ a plugin which, when it encounters a site which attempts a pop-up, pop-under, or pop-revenge and the site is not a pop-approved site, the plugin will continue to suck a variety of files from the site. Be it the advertisement media or something else "heavy" on the page.
With enough people with the plugin and continually sucking bandwidth from the business's site, this will incur a bad-behaviour-curbing financial cost to the companies which insist on making money at the expense of web-surfers.
If enough people have the plugin, then the business' ill-behaved website will get a "time out". Businesses, after a while, would potentially get the hint and stop employing such techniques... or take the MPAA/RIAA route and start suing their own potential customers.
Either avenue hurts their business or their business image.
If businesses claim to be looking out for their customers, they should act like it. They should conduct business legally AND ethically. To employ means to circumvent a protective function on a web browser is basically, breaking into someone's house to post banners and advertisements. It is, in my mind, just a stone's throw away from malware/adware/spyware.
Winged Power Photography
If you want to curb the popups until Firefox releases a new patch, you can set dom.popup_maximum to 1. This will keep 99% of legit items that pop up working while limiting the amount of popups you have to take care of yourself.
The browser has to do a number of things and call and API function to open a new window. Is it that hard to make it check and see if the window request comes from me clicking on a link?
Actually no, they're not.
The DNS Service in WinXP and 2000 Pro are simply caching services, you can disable them and have DNS still work. I do at home here because I have a DNS caching server on the gateway machine so I don't need another cache, it does speed things up in the proper configuration.
I too noticed this, but contrary to most, realised that they must simply be doing what has been possible for a long time but which no one had really bothered with, with the exception of porn sites and other spyware "value adders", until now.
Basically, it just uses the age old technique of using the document.write method, but obfuscated, to write other, obfuscated tags which are not recognized by the blocker as being new script tags, which themselves call a new obfuscated pop.js code that actually, in yet another round of obfuscation, produces the actual pop-under code: In essence, if one can block any request for the server of the obfuscated pop.js, or pop.cgi or whatever code, one will be in peace for a while. This can be done via adding the following lines to the hosts file on Windows (C:Windows(or WinNT)\System32\drivers\etc\HOSTS) or on Linux or MacOSX (/etc/hosts) or simply via your firewall software, which I'm sure we all use, don't we?
127.0.0.1 www.fastclick.net
127.0.0.1 media.fastclick.net
I have the code from the above server, as used by scienceblog.com, but I won't post it, as it's copyrighted, because the last thing I want is some internet low life trying to sue me for their own low life purposes.
As (almost) everything in the IT field, people will always figure out a new way to overcome the blockings.
:(
So, if those are "official" pop-ups, the ideal would be to boycott the advertisers... Start a campaign against them... etc... Ok, it is naive and idealistic, but it is the only way they would feel for sure the pain on their side, too.
Unfortunately unrealistic. Oh well.
Yes, it did block the popups, but plastered across the front page:
"COMING TOMORROW: HOW SPYWARE WORKS!!"
-- You are in a maze of little, twisty passages, all different... --
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)
Go look at Google maps and Gmail. You can do some really good stuff now with Javascript, particularly as you can make a request back to the server with it and update part of the page without a reload.
Like any web tech it can be abused, but if you are a half decent developer the reason you are putting in JavaScript is to make the app a better experience for the user.
Maybe you want a world of basic pages and lots orf reloads, but most user seem not to.
My website uses pop-ups for viewing images (here's an example post; left-click the images to view them). I used to have regular links directly to the images, but felt it was actually more annoying that way. I, for one, prefer having a pop-up sized to exactly fit the image; when I'm in 1600x1200 resolution, viewing a 640x480 image, I appreciate it not taking up the entire screen, as a new tab or window would do. Anyway, do you agree I've used them legitimately, or do you think even this sort of thing should be done without pop-ups?
~CGameProgrammer( );
That will work, a little, in the short term, but not much.
You can't restrict yourself to a handful of websites your entire life. Sooner or later, you are going to visit a new site, and they are going to have thousands of pop-ups. Maybe it'll be a site you just visit once, or perhaps a site by someone who doesn't care how much they annoy you... Trying to convince everyone to restrain themselves from using the tools you've given them, is not a permanent solution to any problem.
You might as well try complaining to spammers who purposefully try to get around your spam filters...
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
In August of last year, I made this demo, which shows how to easily popup a full-size page. This is done by submitting a form on onLoad, which targets a new frame. Works in Safari, but not in Firefox.
http://tom.lightheadsw.com/etc/safaripopup.html
Sig Nature
Frankly I don't think that the people who make these ads are trying to circumvent the protection methods in Firefox and Safari, since those two account for a very very small percentage of the browser market. The more likely explanation is that the advertisers have come up with a way to block the SP2-instigated IE popup blocker, since that was the bane of advertisers since it was added in the Summer. So, now we have a method of popups that is getting around the IE popup blocker, and because of these new methods, is probably getting around Firefox and Safari's blockers as well. The most obviously geeky explanation that FF And Saf are being targeted might not be the right one! They're still better browsers anyway though. Kind of sad to see I cant say "Hey, I can just turn on popup blocking to stop that ad.... oh wait...."
I believe you weren't formally introduced to Gmail.
Javascript can be a good thing.
Dear aunt, let's set so double the killer delete select all
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.
A week ago I had problems getting Firefox to close.
Turns out some site had opened a popup window offscreen. I tried to adblock the contents from - wonder what it was - 888.com or something.
Thank heavens that it opened offscreen. Otherwise I might have actually seen the popup. (What's the point of opening popups offscreen anyway? I just got spam that was titled "Do not read this" or something like that.)
If there's some way to disable java/javascript/plugins per-website, please let me know.
Most pop up windows these days are let through by the browser if the user first clicks on a link or something to open the window. I've seen some web pages where they will capture the clicks for the entire document then open a pop up window.
Norton Internet Security does exactly this, and has done for many years.
Switch off all the "intelligence" of the package, like auto-program recognition, and set the firewall to "paranoid plus" (only specific ports to specificcally permittied programs) and then set the defaults to non-script/activex/java, etc.
Works for all browsers, since it installs an invisible proxy (not as bad as it sounds - none of my *really* weird software conflicts with it, and software doesn't need to be proxy aware), and all traffic is rerouted through that, so it appears like a secure TCP-IP stack. Damn bulletproof, in my opinion.
Winds up the GF, who has to ask me to relax the security on a new site occasionally (twenty seconds click-work), but that's a small price to pay knowing that only sites that prove trustworthiness to me get to use flash/java/script/activex/cookies/popups.
I'm *not* affiliated with Symantec, and the only downside with NIS is their new fetish with key-based software activation, which means I'm looking for a similarly-accomplished alternative firewall package for this reason only. But I've not found it yet.
If, like me, you play first-person shooter games, you'll probably have the hand-eye coordination to 'head-shot' the close button before the window has barely rendered.
So yes, I'm seeing more popups lately, but any advertising content in said windows has barely 'spawned' before it's sent back to oblivion!
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 :)