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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.
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.
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.
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.
"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
You don't need Javascript. I want to provide a more feature rich interface than HTML by itself provides. If you're not interested, then I am not angry with you. You can ignore what I have to offer, and I can accept that you're just not interested. I really don't care whether you look at it or not; in the long run, you're such an infinitesimal minority who is part of the unique overlap of a: having the technical knowledge to be able to equate the misuse of DHTML on other sites to the usage of JavaScript within browsers in general and b: having the personal distaste for such misuse to such a degree that you would eschew the primary building block (JS) altogether except for a few very specific instances.
To whit: I'm not going to cry about 0.00001% lost traffic, and more surprisingly, neither are my customers when I explain to them the pitfalls of making "web applications" with JavaScript. When I tell them they may lose a few geeks who are ideologically opposed to the use of JS in their "webapp", they basically just laugh and call you a retard.
(Note: I don't feel you're a retard; I get fired up over stuff like this too, usually. For me, this isn't a hot button issue, but I have other ones and I'm sure people call me a retard for feeling that way also).
Long story short: people want an application delivery mechanism that doesn't require a software install, update management, etc, and they're trying to make browsers be that mechanism. If you are really that against it, find a way of distributing that mechanism to every computer currently using the web, and then I can try convincing people that they should use that rather than fitting it into a browser. But until your mechanism reaches every computer a browser currently reaches, they aren't going to bite. And at the end of the day, I'm working to support my family, so if the customer really wants a "rich, dynamic Web Application Experience", then I'm going to give that to them.
Sorry :(
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
Why was he moderated "FlameBait?"
I think we need more meta-moderation, and people that get unmodded ought to get fewer mod privileges (if that's not already how it works). Unbelievable.
Anyway, I don't disable it... what annoys me is every few days there's an "update" whose sole purpose, IMO, is to keep NoScript at the top of the popularity list, and then when you do upgrade, it automatically loads the NoScript page in Firefox when it finally starts up. I often just click to skip installing the upgrade, but that gets tedious, too.
I very rarely encounter pages where it's not obvious which script I need to allow, although it certainly does happen.
Stupid sexy Flanders.
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
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.
Why not just telnet to port 80 and read the page as it streams across?
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.