Firefox Improves Pop-Up Ad Blocking 464
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."
I've been testing it... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:5, Informative)
Drudge Report [drudgereport.com] is another site that still defies Firefox and Safari with pop-unders. Still very irritating, but not even close to being as irritating as those javascript ones that float around on the window that you have to chase down with the mouse, trying to click a tiny, moving close-box.
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:5, Informative)
Using AdBlock [mozdev.org] combined with a good filterset [geocities.com] took care of the Drudge Report for me.
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:3, Informative)
The settings in Firefox are:
user_pref("browser.link.open_newwindow", 1);
user_pref("browser.link.open_newwindow.ui", 1);
The above settings were, at one point, undocumented, though I don't know if they remain that way. Try it and see if the problem persists.
See another poster's link to a g
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:5, Funny)
It's frightening the things that can lurk under the browser window. NEVER close it.
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:3, Insightful)
PS, they're not under my browser. They're not anywhere. Drudge gives me no popups.
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:5, Funny)
Not sure how they're going to fix that one with a browser extension, though...
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:3, Funny)
However, if you're unhappy with the size of your extension, i h4v3 s0m3 pi11z th4t cn f1x th4t 4 U!!!!!
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:2, Informative)
I suspect this tends to occur at certain sites of.. *cough*.. questionable content. Which would explain why most probably don't encounter it.
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:3, Informative)
My brothers computer had a nasty spyware/adware app running as a windows service. Every few seconds a popup would appear with search results for any text that was entered no a webpage or in the address bar. All attempts to remove it manually would fail. Since I disabled IE's netw
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:4, Interesting)
Counter-counter-attack (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:5, Informative)
ummm.. (Score:3, Funny)
I've been too busy using Firefox.
Re:ummm.. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:ummm.. (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Wrong! (Score:4, Informative)
- A
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:4, Interesting)
There's nothing wrong with putting business interests first, as long as customers have the option to go elsewhere.
It's only when you can't "vote with your feet" to punish a company for stupid decisions that really serious problems arise.
This is the essense of the problem with MS. Not that they are a business, but that they have a monopoly. And the goodness of The Mozilla Foundation is not that they are non-profit, but that they are trying to offer a viable alternative to one part of the monopoly.
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:4, Interesting)
I use IE exclusively and haven't seen a pop-up ad (flash or otherwise) for over 3 years.
I think it's more about legal battles (Score:3, Insightful)
Sometimes I just wonder if it's more likely that Microsoft is just paranoid about being seen to stomp on others' business interests. Ad revenue for some businesses aside providing a decent popup blocker would almost certainly have driven at least several other companies
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:5, Insightful)
It helps that Firefox, or sites where Firefox use is prevalent, tends to skew younger, a demographic web advertisers seek out.
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:3, Insightful)
How fscking assinine is that question???
What about the morality of throwing shit in your face that you don't want?
Because thats exactly what popups are, is throwing stuff at you.
If your business model requires pissing off customers, get a new model, cripes!!
(Oh, just as a curious aside, if you do not read at -1 you're a hypocrite aren't you?)
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:4, Insightful)
If 99% of the pop-ups I saw weren't deceptive spyware installs or trying to get me to get a "free" ipod/razr/whatever, I might agree with you.
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, though, I think it's great that they're working on this stuff and making the Internet that much less annoying. Every time the Mozilla team makes the blocker stronger, it makes it harder for the advertisers to get around it. I believe that eventually, we'll reach a point to where it won't be possible to get around the filter without explicit permission from the user. That would be very nice.
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:2)
Re:Counter-counter-attack (Score:2)
Unless someone has found an entirely different method that uses neither client-side scripts nor plugins, I would say this system should be safe for a while at least. And as far as I can see, that takes care of almost anything around today. I couldn't find any specifics in TFA though. I wish there were a few
It doesn't work (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:It doesn't work (Score:5, Informative)
Use the adblock extension! (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Re:Use the adblock extension! (Score:3, Informative)
Caveat--I haven't been using Adblock very lo
Re:Use the adblock extension! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:It doesn't work (Score:3, Informative)
- A
A refreshing change... (Score:5, Interesting)
For the impatient (Score:5, Informative)
Not really an update (Score:5, Informative)
In fact, it blocks all popups so that you have to manually whitelist the sites that use legitimate popups.
Half of the problem solved... (Score:5, Informative)
For the 3 people who aren't aware of the Flashblocker extension yet.
https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/more
Re:Half of the problem solved... (Score:3, Informative)
Blog comments Say It Works Too Universally... (Score:5, Informative)
Might not be the ideal solution who use alot of web applications rather than just surfing.
Re:Blog comments Say It Works Too Universally... (Score:2, Informative)
test pop up link (Score:5, Funny)
This is why I chose Firefox (Score:3, Interesting)
This is one of the reasons I chose Firefox, its stable, has tabbed browsing and keeps evolving..
The POP Up blocker is already pretty good, so much so that is scares the pants off me just how much crap I miss out on evertime i go to an old Windows box with IE 5 or 6 Vanilla installed.
Kudos to the Firefox developers and the community, developing a cross platform browser that was born to rock
-- Jim
All things are relative (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I borrowed a friends machine with Internet Explorer. Wow! I had no idea how much crap Firefox was blocking!
How do people live with all of this garbage?
Re:All things are relative (Score:2)
Example of these popups? I need to test adblock (Score:3, Interesting)
Can anyone provide a link?
Thanks!
Re:Example of these popups? I need to test adblock (Score:2, Informative)
For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:5, Informative)
I'm waiting for the patch/extension that allows me to turn off flash banners like I can turn off images.
Re:For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:2)
Re:For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:2)
https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.ph
Re:For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:2)
Re:For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:3, Interesting)
Also,
Re:For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:3, Informative)
You could fix this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You could fix this (Score:5, Informative)
Ask.. and ye shalt receive [mozdev.org]..
I love the FireFox's teams responsiveness (Score:3, Insightful)
Just my $.02.
Are they really willing? (Score:2)
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9403
(Bugzilla dislikes
It's opened in 2001 and not fixed as of now. There are those who argue that a fix is implemented as an extension, which I don't agree to.
Pop-ups. (Score:5, Interesting)
But I have hardly any trouble with popups.
Maybe I don't go to the sort of sites that use them? Maybe I've just filtered those sites out of my brain?
I don't know but the only sites I see popups on are Sciam.com and NewScientist.com
Others might do it but I never notice.
However, I do get pissed off with those floating flash ads which hover over the body of the page. Those are f*cking everywhere these days.
If FF blocks those reliably then I'd be tempted to swap.
Pete
Re:Pop-ups. (Score:5, Informative)
Get FF then get flashblock (google is your friend), then try IE again after a week. You'll never touch it again.
J.
Re:Pop-ups. (Score:4, Funny)
What's the point ? you're obviously a masochist so you'd only enjoy it
Other methods (Score:5, Informative)
They are one stop shopping for blocking the junk that clutters the web.
How about. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm always amazed at people who write in the Mozilla forums about the popups they are getting when using FF and my first question has always been: do you have Flash installed?
99.9% of the time the answer is yes.
Not sure why people think they need to have Flash installed since it's nothing but a resoure hog and rarely provides any extra benefit. As a poster the other day said, if I see the missing puzzle piece when I go to a site that means th
Re:How about. . . (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How about. . . (Score:2, Insightful)
If you're not installing flash because a few bad apples cause popup ads to appear, then you're totally missing out what Today's Net can do.
Say hello to the 1990's
Re:How about. . . (Score:3, Interesting)
How can you NOT have flash installed. There are many legit sites that include flash.
There is one site I would desperately like to get more out of, but Flash hinders that. I expect them to wise up in time.
It provides much more functionality than straight HTML pages.
But nothing I want.
You can include Video and sound.
I don't want it. If I want video or sound, I want it as a downloadable media file.
You're not restricted to the page placement limitations of HTML pages.
I don't want that in
Re:How about. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
simple, there's really one very good reason to have Flash installed:
Strong Bad [homestarrunner.com]
I just can't go on without my weekly fix of email snarkiness!
Insightful? (Score:5, Insightful)
But it's not like the technologies can only be used for obnoxious means. Hooray for the flash game that'll kill 10 minutes here and there!
Not to mention that if FF wants to be taken seriously by the mainstream it needs to have the options that give it an edge (in this case, pop-up blocking) but support those technologies an average end-user expects from the web (rightly or wrongly!). Sitting their going "It's a third party issue!" is so much more damaging to the growth of FireFox than actually implementing a fix to work around that behaviour.
Shooting one's self in the foot? (Score:5, Insightful)
If the advertising companies ever cop on to the fact that many/most people never even see their ads, won't they drop them and leave unfunded?
Re:Shooting one's self in the foot? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Shooting one's self in the foot? (Score:3, Insightful)
I think Google has got it right on their Gmail service: I see links in a small pane off to the right side that are related to the subjects of the emails I am viewing. This has proven very useful to me, and I am not annoyed by flashing logos, sounds or other attempts to 'push' something I don't want.
Pop-ups take over yo
Proxomitron (Score:5, Informative)
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&
Doesn't work properly for me. (Score:2)
Anyone else have it work like this? Guess I need to search bugzilla for this...
STOP: it blocks even legitimate popups (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:STOP: it blocks even legitimate popups (Score:3, Informative)
Prefbar lets you ignore most of the crap (Score:5, Interesting)
Not the solution I'm looking for (Score:2)
I installed the extension (http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/n i ghtly/experimental/popupsdie/popupsdie.xpi [mozilla.org]), restarted, but using the Flash plugin test at http://chrisbenard.net/slashdot/ffpop.html [chrisbenard.net] I still get the popunder.
Am I missing something?
Is another mass-vaccination the solution? (Score:2, Insightful)
Isn't the whole problem with popups (as with so many other annoying or outright malicious software) caused from a lack of diversity or genetic stock?
Nature teaches organisms this lesson often; do we all stampede toward the same vaccination which will eventually fail, or quietly, subtly change our composition to present more diverse ranks which are more difficult to break?
Re:Is another mass-vaccination the solution? (Score:3, Insightful)
What would more diverse ranks be in this case? Using lots of different browsers, that impliment JavaScript in different incompatible ways?
Include Ablock (Score:3, Insightful)
The solution to this problem: (Score:4, Insightful)
1) disallow layering, or force items in different layers to be drawn at the bottom of the page, much like a word processor document page 2 is drawn below word processor document page 1 (this may be needed to preserve navigation items that are in the non-default layer).
2) disallow plugins from using screen space not reserved for them
The combination of the two will send a message to web design companies "don't even try this unless you want your web page to look bizzare on some customers' machines."
Granted, this could interfere with "good" things like menus that "floated" at the top of the page and other related items, but per-site and per-page exceptions will take care of this problem.
"Best viewed in any browser" is the idea web page for "general public" web sites anyways.
Too bad this is in the "easier said than done" category, but I hope someone or some group is up to the challenge.
some issues (Score:3, Interesting)
--
http://unk1911.blogspot.com [blogspot.com]
Re:Excellent! (Score:2)
Re:worried (Score:2)
Re:well (Score:3, Insightful)
Baloney Re:well (Score:5, Interesting)
Lets get this straight...
NO WEB AUTHOR HAS THE RIGHT TO DO ANYTHING OUTSIDE THE WEB PAGE ITSELF.
Whether it is cookie, a popup, or whatever. The web page owners right to control what I view ends at the borders of the web page. Any website owner who uses code to deliberately bypass my popup blocker is hacking my web browser and I should be able to prosecute both the web page owner(as an accessory) and the person who put the code in there. Is that clear enough?
Re:well (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It will not stop floating DHTML divs (Score:4, Interesting)
Some problems would be expiring page content (if the page changes, the marked div could become a valid one), and the fact that this alters the display of some web pages.
Another idea might be to have a centralized blacklist/whitelist of popups (incl. div ads), and have an optional setting to turn this on in Firefox's preferences. Then when people happen upon popups, they could be added to the list, and if they permit them they could be whitelisted. Or vice versa with the div ads, since you can't assume all divs are ads.
There are many problems with this idea as well, but for people who want to err on the side of strict blocking, it might not be a bad idea. It might send a message to advertisers too -- that we consider popups to be the web page equivalent of spam.