pop-ups - are they from mefi? July 17, 2002 7:25 AM   Subscribe

Is it just me, or is everyone else being attacked by pop-ups while trolling around in here?
posted by lilboo to Bugs at 7:25 AM (14 comments total)

I think I am wrong about this -- very sorry, just delete the whole thing
posted by lilboo at 7:29 AM on July 17, 2002


I recently got a call from a relative whose system was being overrun by popups whenever he visited his favorite Web site, rendering it unusable. Though it looked like the site was to blame, he had Gator and a whole bunch of adware on his system, thanks to his teen-age kids downloading all kinds of crap from file-sharing services and other places.

If you're on Windows and keep having pop-ups appear in places you don't expect them, download and run Ad Aware. My relative's system had 50 different adware components on his system, including several porn banner services. Kids today.
posted by rcade at 7:42 AM on July 17, 2002


I can personally vouch for Mozilla 1.0's pop-up killing abilities. Very cool. Nice browser, too, with it's tabbed browsing capabilities.
posted by jennyb at 8:15 AM on July 17, 2002


I ran ad aware, and I'm working on the pop-up killer and Mozilla. Thanks for the help - You guys rock.
posted by lilboo at 8:40 AM on July 17, 2002


This page has links to opt-out of many of the major popups.
posted by astruc at 9:15 AM on July 17, 2002


I'll throw in another vote for Moz. Only thing that makes some sites surfable these days.
posted by SpecialK at 10:24 AM on July 17, 2002


I've said it before and I'll say it again: I use Opera with pop-ups blocked, and I use Mike Skallas' host file. I never see ads.
posted by gd779 at 11:06 AM on July 17, 2002


Opera can disable popups (press F12), which is very handy, but frustrating when you come across blogs that want their comments section to popup in a new window. Can Mozilla determine if a popup is an ad or does it also just disable all of them indiscriminately?

I know it sounds like a stupid question, but everyone always mentions the feature as a spam-killer. It'd be cool if they were being clever about what constitutes spam (i.e. if the URL in the popup comes from the same site or comes from people trying to sell you voyeur cameras).
posted by Gary at 11:12 AM on July 17, 2002


I hate to rain on the Mozilla love-fest, but I can't stand the thing. I use IE with webwasher, which does all kinds of neat things in an easy-to-configure package. I particularly like the configurability of the toolbars in IE, as well as the way the favorites work.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 11:24 AM on July 17, 2002


Gary - Moz seems to discriminate based on proximity to you clicking on a link on the page. So if the popup tries to execute at load time, it quashes it, but if you click on a link, it will usually allow you to get away with it. I've only had it block a legit popup once, though.

monju, what don't you like about it? I admit that I hated it when I tried it last year, around .75 or so, but now that it's 1.0 it's solid and fast.
posted by SpecialK at 11:42 AM on July 17, 2002


Gary, the popup killer in Mozilla only disables 'unrequested' popup windows.

This means a window.open function called with the body onload handler, or any window.open called with setTimeout or setInterval.

So, clicking on links can still open popup windows. However, something like Live 365's radio station launcher (click on a link to open a popup, that popup spawns another popup then closes) does break.


posted by alana at 11:50 AM on July 17, 2002


Sounds pretty cool. It's still not enough to make me switch, but only because Opera is one of my favorite pieces of software. The crash recovery system, where it returns you to the pages you were on before it (rarely) crashes, is fantastic. Especially since I held on to the crash-happy netscape well beyond it's expiry date.
posted by Gary at 12:25 PM on July 17, 2002


That's a neat feature, Gary, and I think it's in the works somewhere. Interestingly, me getting used to Opera's tabbed browsing system but hating the ads in the free version is what got me over to Moz. When I found the popup stopper and the JS Debug console, I was completely sold.
posted by SpecialK at 12:34 PM on July 17, 2002


not to mention that mozilla allows you to block images from specific servers. so just right-click on a banner ad (it's probably being served from doubleclick.net or x10.com or something) and click "block images from this server". Very handy.
posted by jnthnjng at 12:43 PM on July 17, 2002


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