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)
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.
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
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:It doesn't work (Score:5, 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.
You could fix this (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:1, Informative)
Other methods (Score:5, Informative)
They are one stop shopping for blocking the junk that clutters the web.
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:For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:5, Informative)
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:Blog comments Say It Works Too Universally... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:2, Informative)
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&
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Example of these popups? I need to test adblock (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:2, Informative)
Re:You could fix this (Score:5, Informative)
Ask.. and ye shalt receive [mozdev.org]..
Re:STOP: it blocks even legitimate popups (Score:3, Informative)
Re:ummm.. (Score:4, 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: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: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:Counter-counter-attack (Score:5, Informative)
Re:For those to lazy to read the blog (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Half of the problem solved... (Score:3, Informative)
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:Flash? Somebody please....! (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Pop-ups. (Score:1, Informative)
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.
Re:Use the adblock extension! (Score:3, Informative)
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 network access at the soft firewall and installed Firefox, he hasn't gotten any search-related popups.
Wrong! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pop-ups. (Score:1, Informative)
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.
Re:ummm.. (Score:2, Informative)
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.
Re:I've been testing it... (Score:3, Informative)
Parsing Error Discloses Memory to Remote Users (Score:1, Informative)
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 good set of adblock filters, though really the only way to have a good set of filters is to be patient for the first week while you block everything on the sites *you* visit. I don't need my browser running through a three megabyte text file every time it loads a page, just because some guy in Abu Dhabi needs ads blocked on the local dating website, you know?
Re:Wrong! (Score:4, Informative)
- A
Re:It doesn't work (Score:3, Informative)
- A
Re:Use the adblock extension! (Score:3, Informative)
Caveat--I haven't been using Adblock very long, so don't take this as an overall endorsement.
My advertiser-blocking strategy (Score:1, Informative)
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