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Why Your Pop-Up Blocker Doesn't Work Anymore
An anonymous reader writes "If you've noticed that pop-up ad windows seem to have made an unwelcome return into your life, it's because they're not using the same easily blockable technology as before. The Adimpact system uses DHTML to annoy you, and there's no immediate prospect of a solution."
Almost completely devoid of content.
...but I got so distracted with those shiny X10 pop-up ads.
Adblock plus, problem solved!
What popups?
This mostly popup free browsing experience brought to you by the makers of Firefox and NoScript.
DHTML popups are no big deal at all. They don't open a new window. They don't "pop under". They don't re-open when you try to close them...
The solution to them is simple and already implemented. Close the tab, and never return to that site again. Ever.
Problem solved.
"The Dynamic Popup Generator can create pressure pop-ups, unblockable DHTML pop-ups, PictoPop-ups, conditional popups, instant opt-in pop-ups, and rotating pop-ups"."
Wait, I have the answer...keep Javascript disabled for websites that do not really need it! Right now, I have Javascript enabled for...3 websites, all of which are trusted sites from either my job or my school. Popup free browsing, and incidentally, pages use less CPU time.
Seriously, why do we need Javascript to read articles or blogs? If your web apps are abusing Javascript to display ads, maybe it is time to consider not using web apps, or finding "friendlier" companies.
Palm trees and 8
Or just block adimpact.com in your /etc/hosts file (if you're smart enough). They want to sell it as a "hosted web application" and therein lies its vulnerability.
I found it much less intrusive once every host in the adimpact.com domain started serving up 404 Not Found for all pages.
DNS is your friend, especially when your nameserver is declared a master for that domain and the zonefile contains a wildcard record pointing all names to the IP address of your own dedicated nothing-there Web server.
I use Firefox with the AdBlock Plus, NoScript, and FlashBlock add-ons installed. I haven't noticed any pop-up ads.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
Unfortunately it would be an arms race of sorts, similar to virus definitions... requiring dom scripting to identify a particular class or id or attribute or some other unique element in the ad (possibly the image src which means it could piggy back on ad-blockers already in use)...
The idea is to use the DOM to walk back up from the unique Ad element to the containing div or divs, then turn them off or delete them.
Another way would be to identify the offending function in the script and set it to return false or something similar.
Someone could play around with greasemonkey or YUI anywhere and create a sample distribution...
I don't personally go to enough sites that do this to make the effort, so I'll leave it as an exercise for the class.
A fool throws a stone into a well and a thousand sages can not remove it.
Nothing more annoying than getting a huge flash video animation splatted in front of the article you are reading,
There is a solution to this "problem". Don't install Flash. Flash is evil. Flash must die.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
... are like free endorsements for Firefox + adblock plus + NoScript + ... some other extensions.
The more they keep annoying users, the more popular the solution becomes.
Tie two birds together: although they have four wings, they cannot fly. (The blind man)
Use flash blocker.
Also Opera has a facility to easily block a feed. Right click, click on the offending item, click done. you're done.
How many sources does this company have? Unless they have a lot, their adds are gone.
I don't know if FF has this or not ...
It has subtracts too!
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
NoScript (which is really annoying in and of itself, but that's another story).
You got that right! I removed 'NoScript'. Every, and I mean every, stinking website I went to had most of their content dependent on scripts. So, I had to constantly click on allow for this time, or for this page, etc... And many times, even after enabling scripts for that page, they still wouldn't run. Very few websites didn't have that problem. Scripts are just too ubiquitous to block.
Flash is indeed evil, but it's also necessary to get anything out of an increasing number of sites. The choice is basically live with the occasional Flash abuse or cut yourself off from an ever-growing amount of content on the web. Whether that additional content is worth the annoyance of the occasional Flash ad is a personal decision.
It's in this (useful, but long) one:
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
"Bloody hell", I thought, is that what the web looks like?
Then I went back to Firefox with AdBlock/NoScript.
Do not want.
No sig today...
Check out http://dhtmlpopups.webarticles.org/ for a quick set of examples of these.
It looks like a bit of experimentation could yeild a reasonably reliable greasemonkey script to kill these when not click initated.
Spyder
I've been using a hosts file since around 2003. It blocks out all those ads, popups, spyware,adware, stops alot of virii from calling home, you name it. I scan my computer about once a month, and I haven't had any of the 'serious outbreaks' of adware like all my friends. They all swear by their software programs to block it(ultimately, they always end up reformatting when they cant quite get rid of them all) but my solution uses no resources and doesn't require 'scanning' for them regularly.
I use it on my parent's computer and only update it once a year at Christmas. Even with only updating once a year they haven't gotten any adware/spyware yet, and it's been 3 years.
I highly recommend it. Give it a try, there's nothing to lose but the crapware.
http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm
this "solution" to the return of pop ups is of course akin to curing your hangnail by cutting off your foot
are you familiar with the phenomenon of the guy who doesn't own a television, and must remind every stranger he meets of this fact, constantly? if you look at the comments here, this article seems to have brought out the similarly quirky "look at me! i don't use javascript! i don't use flash!" brigade
ok, so you are proud of your bare html existence. good for you
but you might have noticed that the internet has evolved since 1994, and technologies, such as AJAX, are transforming the web browsing experience in GOOD ways, such as google maps. javascript is not merely cruft to make your anchor links animate. likewise, can you argue with the success and value of a site like youtube? which, by the way, works in flash?
javascript and flash are not in any way absolute negatives for the internet experience. they are merely useful tools whose usage is evolving, in good and bad ways. to disavow that obvious observation and just flat out block them does not make you wiser, it makes you an odd appendix of history. trumpeting your monklike ascetic internet existence doesn't add anything of value to the conversation, because, no, blocking javascript and flash is most definitely not the solution, really
when you announce that you don't use these technologies, all you show us is that you are indulging in some sort of odd attention-seeking disorder with a strange misplaced pride
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Or install Firefox and the Flashblock extension, which blocks ALL Flash content until explicitly allowed (which can either be once or always for a particular site). Which is better than AdBlock's version, that lets you block Flash but makes you explicitly block rather than blanket-block. (Blanket-block is better because 90% or more of Flash content encountered is ads.)
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
Or install Firefox and the Flashblock extension
No kidding... I was thinking "what popups?" when I read this. I run noscript, but same difference.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Go to your /etc/hosts file. (sample location: C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\etc\HOSTS )
Open it in notepad (or other basic text editor like EditPlus)
Under the line "127.0.0.1 localhost" add your own line that will be
127.0.0.1 porn.spam.com
Basically each new line will start with 127.0.0.1 and then tab and include the place you are want to block.
Recommendation 1: Backup the file before editing it.
Recommendation 2: Go line and look for hosts files people have put available on the web. Copy it and save it. I once had a hosts file that was about 2 megs in size. Considering it is plain text that was a LOT of sites it blocked. It was my own little slice of heaven...though I had to becareful, it blocked sites that I enjoyed (e.g. Netflix).
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
but it's also necessary to get anything out of an increasing number of sites.
If a site relies on Flash to convey its message, I don't go to it. I was looking for a car repair shop after the latest moron hit me and one site was nearly unreachable because the front page was entirely Flash-based. Had it not been for a site map link, I would not have been able to see anything.
Nor is this the first time this has happened. I have come across several sites, including restaurants, who have an entirely Flash-based site. I don't bother going to them either online or offline because of this nonsense.
The ONLY exception I can see for using Flash is if you have a product which you want people to see all sides of and you have a short display of the product rotating.
I have said it before and will continue to say it: There is no reason to have an entirely Flash-based site. None. If people want to come back to your site for a specific reason, they can no longer bookmark a page to do so. If someone has eyesight issues and uses a screen-reader, you've locked them out.
As I said in my journal, Flash is the new blink tag.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
DHTML overlays have been around for years - I know, I've been working in the industry for years *ducks* and they've been around longer than I have. Where is the story here? http://www.adopstools.net/index.asp?page=richmedia§ion=layer go on - make your own.
for(b=(a=0)+1;;b+=(a+=b))print(a+"\n"+b+"\n");
are you familiar with the idiotic windows vista practice of asking you to approve every executeable before it runs? after awhile, the average user just mindlessly clicks "approve" and doesn't even read the warning. and this is perfectly appropriate behavior: its the boy who cried wolf. an alert at every false positive leads people to completely ignore the alert
likewise, noscript is a wonderful extension... for the odd power user who likes such finetuned control over the minutiae of his browsing experience, and is keenly mindful and thoughtful about every site he visits and how he wants to profile his javascript footprint there
this describes perhaps 0.001% of web users
a real solution to the pop up problem is not to push the issue out to the end user and make them manage and fine tune their javascript footprint. in fact, as a solution, noscript represents a worse burden in terms of time and mental effort on the end user than simply closing pop ups when they open
and no, this doesn't mean the average end user is stupid simply because he doesn't want to exert the mental effort. a highly intelligent end user shouldn't have to work hard at his browsing experience, he just wants to browse with abandon, and that's a perfectly appropriate instinct. the end user, from the dumbest to the brightest, should not be expected to consider every click he makes on the web equivalent to the mental effort required to make a move in a game of chess
no, the real solution is to fine tune the browser's intelligence about how to handle pop ups. the advertising parasites are getting smarter, so the browser needs to get smarter. that's the real solution. an arms race between browser code and pop up code
but, no, i'm sorry: the end user must not be harassed even further, and that's what your noscript "solution" represents
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Absolutely. Flashblock is a no-nonsense tool that is dead-simple to configure. I had everyone I know install it after a number of flash vulnerabilities started cropping up, and I've heard no complaints.
I consider Flashblock + Firefox my "compromise" with the advertisers: I will submit to viewing ads to help them pay for content, so long as they are not Flash, and so long as they are not pop-up/under. Really, I do not find static images and text annoying at all, and if an advertiser makes an animated GIF that is too annoying, I can just press ESC.
But if the advertisers insist on using this crap evervwhere and pushing an arms race, I won't hesitate to upgrade to noscript (and everyone I know) and shut the door entirely. I hope they won't force me to do that, because then they would get zero money from my page views.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.
I don't think Flash is going away any time soon. As someone who knows several web developers, I can tell you they love Flash because they don't have to code the page differently for different browsers.
The fact that it obfuscates your source code and animates things (makes them "flashy," if you will) are added bonuses that give the management and marketing departments a huge boner.
Why not just telnet to port 80 and read the page as it streams across?
Wouldn't it be better to use 0.0.0.0 instead of 127.0.0.1? The latter attempts to connect while the former doesn't bother.
No:
While you are correct that using localhost for 'ad diversion' would hit a locally running web server, but at least you'd could have a log of your results. Just thinking of it, but wouldn't it be cool to see your own personal pictures/content instead of ads?
The grass is only greener, if you don't take care of your own lawn.
I can attest personally to the power and convenience of Flashblock. It's simply a great system.
Upon installation (and a restart), Flashblock will replace all, ALL, flash components on every page with an empty, but clearly outlined box where the flash applet would have been. In this way, over all page layout is unaffected during the block.
At the center of this empty block, Flashblock puts a recognizable stylized "F" icon, which when hovered over, turns into a standard "Play" symbol. Personally, I think it should always be a play symbol, but that's just nit picking. After this icon is clicked, the flash applet, and only THAT applet, loads and begins just as it would have insisted on doing when, or even before the page was finished loading.
No more crazy ads. No more loud and obnoxious audio content. No more flash-bomb pages, slowing the system to a crawl, and/or crashing firefox. Admittedly, the crash problem still exists, but now you risk it only at your own behest. Normal use of flash, e.g. Youtube, is almost completely unaffected, and IMHO even improved by flashblock. The web page is cleanly and gracefully separated from the flash content, as it always should have been.
Flashblock is the first extension I download on any new firefox install. I highly recommend it.
May the Maths Be with you!
Websites done in flash are useless. I have never seen an exception. I can't bookmark anything. I can't link to a specific page. I can't copy any text. I can't search. Navigation buttons don't work.
All so some idiot can have spiffy transition effects between pages.
they love Flash because they don't have to code the page differently for different browsers.
So instead they use Flash, which is -guaranteed- not to work in all browsers, especially mobile ones?
Sounds like someone is in need of a few extra visitors.
Perhaps in the form of a distributed set of requests - that really shouldn't be denied - for service, but we surely shouldn't attack them.
Question everything
Why give impressions? Nobody is paid off impressions for one, and also it would confuse the accuracy of advertising.
Also plenty of people, like myself, do not want to see ads period. We are well past the generational concept from previous generations of "you can buy our eyeballs". Answer is, you can't. I don't care if it's an ad I would actually want to see. I want to browse the web to find what I want.
Only type of "ad" I accept is browsing somethingawful's forums unregistered where they explicitly say Adbot. Also accepted are "click here to view our ads" ideas. However "PLEASE LOOK AT OUR SIGN IN CAPS" as a banner, does not deserve my eyes at all.
The deceptiveness of advertising on the web does not make it more effective. It's the head fake, that gives people a reason to view things. 100% of ads could be taken off the web and many sites would do just fine. Even google and doubleclick have other ways to garner profits. This is something many websites haven't wrapped their heads around. People may be tolerant, but it's really a waste of cash/time.
Google could truly help people make their own sites more relevant in comparison to what meta tags show up,etc aka: website consulting. I bet they already do this anyway. Ads as a market is something many of people are just waiting for it to become obsolete.
There are a number of sites I go to that have these damn click to pop ads, I'd still like to visit the site but without the ads. If I have to turn off NoScript anyway, it's gained me nothing.
Most sites don't host the script for their own ads, rather they use a third party script to do so. In most cases you can unblock a site, but still leave the ad providers site blocked. One of the replies to my original comment also reminded me of the fact that a while ago I modified my hosts file to black-hole all of the worst offenders with regards to ads/malware, and I run eDexter to serve up blank image files in their place.
/., but blocks all the ads.
Just as an example, right now I've got slashdot.org allowed, but doubleclick.net and google-analytics.com blocked, which allows me to use the comments and such on
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.