There’s been a lot of talk about pop-unders that get by Firefox and Safari and I’ve seen them myself. The ones I’ve seen are using the technique I first saw on SitePoint, did the ad makers get some “fresh thinking for web developers and designers”?
There’s been a lot of talk about pop-unders that get by Firefox and Safari and I’ve seen them myself. The ones I’ve seen are using the technique I first saw on SitePoint, did the ad makers get some “fresh thinking for web developers and designers”?
Isn’t that the Slashdot from a couple of hours ago? (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/21/0143223&tid=95) very vibrant thread…
Pop-ups can always be blocked if the browser aims to do so — that is if your browser is your friend and does not have its conflicting interests a la M¥¢ro$o£t.
That’s not entirely true, Roy. They have found a way through at least on Firefox and Safari, neither of which have MS interests. Matt is correct. I’ve had one slip through the “Disable popups” on me as well. It surprised me so much that I went back to Safari’s preferences to see if it was accidentally unchecked. It was checked. They’ve found a way in.
Davezilla, This is a race between advertisers and angel Web browser developers. As long as you patch up your browser, you will be on safe grounds. Allow me to explain why.
The advertiser can force download of a pop-up window content. It can also force display. it cannot, however, know if the O/S puts the window in focus, hides it, or sends it a ‘kill’ signal. A smart advertiser will request that you press an object in the pop-up, but again, the O/S or browser can fake it. The spammer versus filter analogy might help here.
It would be handy to always turn off javascript, and only turn on js for certain sites (such as gmail etc)
Does anybody know if there is a FF plugin that does such a thing?
I’ve seen occasional pop-unders at nme.com, when I’ve clicked an article link – I get a full-screen ad appearing in the background when I use Firefox, but Opera doesn’t fall for it.
The problem is that there are completely legitimate uses for pop-ups. Firefox shows pop-ups if they are “user requested”. In other words, they occur during an onclick event. Problem with Sitepoint is that they have an onclick event on the document so any time you click in the window, it shows a pop-up.
Firefox would’ve been better to include options to set a preferred level of pop-up protection from super-strict (no pop-ups ever) to completely open (all pop-ups, all the time).
The Adblock plugin or a hosts file pretty well assures that you won’t have problems with unwanted advertising. If marketers keep pushing the issue like this, we’ll see such tools become more and more common…
huphtur, if you downlaod the Web Developer toolbar” there is a drop down list called Disable. From there you can turn off Javascript, Java, Images, Cookies, etc.
Greg: yeah that’s what I’ve been using. but it would be nice if there was an extension that would remember for which sites I want to enable (or disable) javascript. Like a trusted/untrusted list.
That is a good idea. It is already built in for Images and PopUp blocking, javascript would be nice.
Turning off JavaScript just because of popups is a little like throwing the Baby out with the bathwater, don’t you think?
no, not at all.
If it takes care of the pop ups (or downs), not at all.
Pop ups is anoying, with multi TAB like Firefox there more Good reason