Google Chrome Will Block Tab-Under Behavior (bleepingcomputer.com) 66
An anonymous reader writes: Google is working on blocking tab-under behavior in Chrome, according to a document seen by Bleeping Computer. For users unfamiliar with the jargon, Google considers tab-under behavior when an unsuspecting user is scrolling or clicking on a page, but the site duplicates the current page in another tab and shows an ad or a new website in the page the user was initially reading. Countless of website owners and advertisers have abused tab-unders to show ads and redirect users to unwanted sites, all for the sake of ad impressions and redirection fees. This demo site created by Google engineers that shows how tab-unders work. Earlier today, Google published a document detailing three ways it's currently looking at for dealing with tab-unders in Chrome. The current approved proposal is for the browser maker to block websites before opening a new tab, similar to the pop-up blocking mechanism. According to Chrome engineer Charles Harrison, the tab-under blocking feature will be supported on five of the six Blink platforms -- Windows, Mac, Linux, Chrome OS, and Android, but not Android WebView. Once the feature is ready, it will ship with Chrome Canary under its own option on the chrome://flags settings page.
I've never seen this (Score:2, Informative)
I've never seen "tab-unders". Thank you, NoScript!
Re:I've never seen this (Score:5, Informative)
NoScript does a lot more than just block Javascript. It blocks many types of web-based shenanigans, such as cross-site-scripting attacks, clickjacking, etc. And even if we're just talking about blocking Javascript, it is far more flexible than any of the things I've seen built into browsers.
Chrome doesn't come close to being as good. There aren't even any extensions for Chrome that approaches it.
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NoScript also doesn't work on many of the Mozilla based browsers.
And it doesn't do much good in the case of tab-unders, because the original page won't serve you the new content that you wanted to go to, those are only served in the new tab. It can block the ads from appearing in the original tab, but you won't get the content you clicked to go to.
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Maybe I've just never hit a site that uses tab-unders, then, but I've not encountered a situation where I had to allow a new tab to happen in order to see content on the first tab. If I did, though, I'd just leave the site and never return -- so it's possible that I did encounter this and have simply forgotten.
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Maybe I've just never hit a site that uses tab-unders... I'd just leave the site and never return...
Piracy and porn.
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Well, I don't pirate, that's true enough.
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Works just fine in Pale Moon.
Only newer versions of Pale Moon that do not work in still supported OSes like Enterprise Linux 6. NoScript requires Pale Moon 27.2 or newer, and Pale Moon dropped support for anything not having glibc 2.17 or newer, despite not taking advantage of anything that actually requires 2.17 - their team is just too small to build for a lot of platforms.
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xhamster (Score:1)
xhamster does it. how do I know? errr a friend told me. honest.
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I heard redtube does it too.
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I'm that friend.
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A friend told me that after three hours, it does it again.
Or 90 jack offs at the current rate.
You might get your first one out in 2 minutes. If you're gifted, maybe even your second 2 minutes later. But by #80 or so, it's hard to maintain that pace. Maybe I'm just getting old.
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Pease take some more "features" out (Score:2)
I'll give the browser makers more credit when they stop websites from opening a huge opaque overlay over something I just started to read.
Although I've blacklisted every website that does that I've hit so far, and don't see it so often any longer.
We're starting to see some backlash, though. Preventing auto-play videos, invasive-unasked-for sound... those are great browser fixes.
Oh, they can't monetize my visit without my cooperation? I really don't care. :)
I still support websites that behave reasonably. I
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I have this in my bookmarks bar. One click and those overlays vanish from the page. (I didn't write it, I think I found it here [daringfireball.net])
javascript:(function()%7B(function%20()%20%7Bvar%20i%2C%20elements%20%3D%20document.querySelectorAll('body%20*')%3Bfor%20(i%20%3D%200%3B%20i%20%3C%20elements.length%3B%20i%2B%2B)%20%7Bif%20(getComputedStyle(elements%5Bi%5D).position%20%3D%3D%3D%20'fixed')%20%7Belements%5Bi%5D.pare
And to think... (Score:5, Insightful)
And to think that ad companies wonder why ad blockers are so prevalent.
"Gosh, we are purveyors of annoying content that nobody wants and we use every dirty trick in the book, including exploiting browser bugs, to get our content in front of faces. Why do people hate us so much?"
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This post should be modded insightful not funny. Every time i have to browse the internet without an adblocker it is WORSE then i remember it. When slashdot had the outage and was only hosting the front page, i disabled ublock because i thought it was messing up the comments. Now slashdot has fucking hovering ads!?!? What the actual hell! It is not like 90% of the users already run adblock, make sure you punish people a bit more for disabling it. That is really going to incentivize people to whitelist the s
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You, sir, are no capitalist. Where would we be if everyone adopted your selfserving attitudes?
Please block "half page scrolling" ads.. (Score:3)
Like the ones I constantly run into here on slashdot. I try to scroll down the page away from the ad and it just stays there blocking the top-half of my screen. My vertical space is short enough already on a 16:9 monitor thank you!
I've never seen these "tab-unders" in the wild but the "half page scroll" ads are very prevalent on slashdot and other sites paid by ad.doubleclick.net.
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You can try downloading the hosts file from http://winhelp2002.mvps.org/ho... [mvps.org] and installing it in the appropriate place -- e.g. /etc/hosts on most(?) Unix distributions. It'll bust a lot of stuff of course, but if you can live with that, mostly ads will be a thing of the past. You may need to update the hosts file from time to time.
I'd suggest keeping a backup of the original hosts file (if any) and maybe of the last one you can live with as well.just in case the most recent one someday kills a site you
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Google bought doubleclick in 2007, but ya...I see my attempt at irony fell short. Chances are if you ever see ANY ad you're seeing Google doubleclick ads.
once AGAIN: disable javascript already! (Score:1)
Sheesh, we have an absolutely fucking endless series of rude advertiser behavior enabled by javascript, constant behavioral surveillance, and another endless list of security exploits using javascript as an attack surface.
95% of what pages use javascript for does not need it, and could use plain old HTML, or like in this case, simply should not be done at all. Anyone not disabling javascript by default by now (white list it in select cases) is a fool. Don't give control of your browser to random web pages
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Anyone not disabling javascript by default by now (white list it in select cases) is a fool.
Agreed. So how would the operator of a web application prove that it is trustworthy enough to become one of these "select cases"?
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So other than banking and shopping, I take it you'd consider a web app to be as worthless as a native app that you can't use because it's for a different operating system. Am I right?
Tab-unders are a new low (Score:4, Insightful)
They fundamentally break the browser behaviour. The problem is as soon as you close the advert to get back to your page you have now low the history. If you ended up there as a result of a search, screw you, no back key for you, start from the beginning.
This isn't just an advert.
This isn't just a quirky way of getting attention.
This is fundamentally screwing with the web browser and to me is as offensive as a HTML5 pop-over that can't be cleared.
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Or you can always open search result clicks in a new tab or window, and never worry about what the destination site will do to your history.
I don't contest that it's bad, but you can still mitigate it easily. Personally, I generally prefer opening things in a new window when I know i am going to another website.
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The more obnoxious tab-unders also break the usual ways of opening a link in a new tab or window too, just to make sure you're thoroughly annoyed.
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Or you can always open search result clicks in a new tab or window
You're making assumptions about which search engine is in use and where the pop-under sits. There are plenty of sites of questionable rapport which offer search and will happily then create a pop-under off a middle click.
You just reminded me of what's even worse. By trapping the middle click it also breaks the open in new tab functionality.
Countless of (Score:2)
I'd stay anonymous if I wrote like that.
Yes, Benson, yes. (Score:2)
Yes, Benson, yes.
Yes. Just Yes.
Answered! (Score:2)
I always wondered what that other tab was loading in the 0.4s it took me to spot and close it.
Great. (Score:2)
Needs to be done to ALL Chrome Products. (Score:2)
I rarely see it on my Windows PC or my Linux Laptop. I do see it all the bloody time on my iPad and Android Phone.
And it's not just that trick. I go to a site on my iPad and start reading an article and all of a sudden there's an ad taking up the entire screen and not giving me an option to close the ad short of closing the browser.
I'd have to say that fully 2/3rds of the articles I want to read don't get read by me since I'm denied access to them thanks to the ads.
And I'm just loving (sarcasm dripping) th