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Firefox Improves Pop-Up Ad Blocking
BlakeCaldwell writes "The popular open-source browser already contains a pop-up blocker by default, but this does not handle pop-ups launched by plug-ins such as Flash and Java. Mozilla employee Asa Dotzler wrote in his blog last week that Mozilla developers are responding to the increasing number of advertisers that are using plug-ins to launch pop-up ads."
...and it seems to work very well so far. The sites I've noted that managed to get a popup through even with the normal popup blocker can no longer get them open.
DBA? Software Engineer? My company is hiring! Click
In short, it doesn't work particulary well. However, adot has responded and says that those issues will be worked on.
Having suffered one of those "new generation" of pop ups only about 10 minutes ago, I look forward to seeing this functionality when it's in a more finished state.
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http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nig htly/experimental/popupsdie/
This isn't really an update to the popup blocking code in Firefox, it makes the default preferences a little more aggressive.
In fact, it blocks all popups so that you have to manually whitelist the sites that use legitimate popups.
Fight plugins with plugins.i nfo.php?application=firefox&version=1.0&os=Windows &category=Web%20Annoyances&numpg=10&id=433
For the 3 people who aren't aware of the Flashblocker extension yet.
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/more
Might not be the ideal solution who use alot of web applications rather than just surfing.
Here's a direct link to the extension.
I'm waiting for the patch/extension that allows me to turn off flash banners like I can turn off images.
"If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit." - Mitch Hedberg
You could fix this a long time ago by going to about:config, and changing the value of privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins to "2". I started using this since I've heard of it, and it haven't seen a popup since. I think it's nice that they've enabled this by default, or made it more accessible. They should make more of the settings in about:config accessible in an easier way.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
They are one stop shopping for blocking the junk that clutters the web.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
Advertisers may not be that worried about Firefox in particular. Remember that it still only has 5% market share or so against the IE monolith, thus a smart advertiser would spend more resources exploiting IE. When Firefox becomes more popular, that's when we really have to start worrying.
However, couldn't there be a definitive end to this battle in which one browser essentially stops popup windows completely? There are only so many ways to load the damn things, after all. I thought (correct me if I'm wrong) that popups have gotten more press in the last month or so because more people started using Flash to open them. That quickly got blocked by a FF extension. The recent renewal of interest in the issue doesn't necessarily mean that popups are impossible to get rid of.
yes, that's the beauty of OSS. no need to wait till point releases for things that require immediate attention *cough*...IE...*cough* safari... *cough*
Bad example.
Safari's pop-up blocking addressed the pop-under issue weeks before Firefox. It's been ad-free for quite some time now.
A very useful windows freeware(non-OSS) that acts as a local proxy server with custom filters to rewrite web sites on the fly on their way to the browser. All Filters are written in a reasonably potent filtering language and new ones can be written and added.
b tnG=Google+Search
Possibilities include:
- some popup blocking
- convert within-frame links to normal ones
- convert embedded flash animations or other plugins to clickable links
- modify header information (referrer, browser name,version , caching meta tags)
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=proxomitron&
SitePoint
Yes it does. People have abused the power of the popup, so all popups are bad by extension. The only true way to get rid of the 95% bad popups is to eliminate popups. A small price to pay.
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Yeah, IE in SP2 included a popup blocker extremely similar to the one currently in Firefox (it's strange, because I had that little bar that pops up on IE before I had it on Firefox, I don't know who implemented it first).
I'm shocked that so many people use Firefox, but not the Adblock extension. That's the first extension everyone on Earth should install, hell it should be integrated into Firefox!
Most /.ers (me inc) use flashblock. No flash content is loaded till you click on it, instead a nice, subtle blue italic 'f' in a frame is displayed. It's no problem when you want o see something - you just click! - and the rest of the time it means flash jiggly advert crap is all gone.
Get FF then get flashblock (google is your friend), then try IE again after a week. You'll never touch it again.
J.
You're only jealous cos the little penguins are talking to me.
Sorry, but you're wrong. I get every update Apple pushes out, and as of yesterday evening, I was still getting pop-unders in Safari.
No matter where you go... there you are.
flashblock or adblock
I'm not a troll!
Maybe you would have been better modded as flamebait.
You see, a lot of web developers read Slashdot. People like you waste hours of our time because you insist on using a web browser with a crappy rendering engine that hasn't been updated in years.
PNG 1.0 will have been around for a decade next year. Us web developers will still be unable to use it properly because of that abortion of a web browser.
The same goes for HTML 4, HTTP 1.1, CSS 1.0 & 2.0, and DOM 2. IIRC, all of those specifications date from the 90s and Internet Explorer still fucks them up.
Stop using Internet Explorer. Please. You are holding back the web.
Firefox ALREADY HAD a popup blocker. What they borrowed from Microsoft was the top bar that allowed you to unblock a specific popup on runtime. Sometimes good ideas CALL to be borrowed (and thank God this one wasn't patented!)
Flashblock gave me alot of problems when I actually -did- want to see Flash-files ;
The file would simply not load after clicking on it, and seeing this behaviour happen more than a few times, made me uninstall this plugin.
The only thing that was borrowed was making a toolbar to complement the status bar icon that already had all the functionality of IE's toolbar. Both toolbars have an option to be hidden, in which case the status bar icon is used, which Firefox had first.
Mozilla Browser Javascript Regex Parsing Error Discloses Memory to Remote Users - Apr 5, 2005 Description: A vulnerability was reported in Mozilla Browser in Javascript regex parsing. A remote user can obtain portions of browser memory. The browser's javascript implementation does not properly parse lamba list regular expressions. The vulnerability resides in 'js/src/jsstr.c' in the find_replen() function. A demonstration exploit is available at: http://cubic.xfo.org.ru/firefox-bug/index.html
I'm running FF, but even before with IE, I got a hosts file from http://everythingisnt.com/hosts.html and put it in the proper spot on my WinXP machine and that took care of 99% of everything popup and ad-related.
Now I have a simple rule: if an advert is 100% static, no motion, no blinking, no fading, no nothing, I leave it.
Anything that blinks or moves, right-click and block images from that host. This way I am able to still view non-blinking adverts.
My theory is if everybody did this, then the ad companies would notice that their animated ads are not getting viewed as much and change to static ones.
'Course by then I'd still be blocking those servers; oh well; their bad business choice to start with!
PeachKisser