Stop Popups

October 18, 2004 10:17 AM

I've been Drudged! How can the drudgereport launch a popup window when I am using Firefox? It is the only site that seems to be able to do that. Constructive answers only please, I'm sure that the first response will be "don't read drudge". I can't help it, I love sensationalism.
posted by jonah to computers & internet (10 comments total)

Get adblock, then block everything on that site that's a .js, and that should alleviate it. The same thing happened with the crazy popups on this ATHF site. (Which I wouldn't click if you don't want near infinite popups.
posted by apathy0o0 at 10:26 AM on October 18, 2004

I reccomend privoxy. I use it at work, heck, I force all the computers at work through it (I like its windows web-virus stripping features).

I've noticed some sites that are able to do some odd stuff with firefox before, like resizing the browser and making it "jiggle".
posted by shepd at 10:35 AM on October 18, 2004

You can launch popups from flash files that don't get blocked by firefox, as far as I know (at least, that used to be the case).
posted by mathowie at 10:52 AM on October 18, 2004

I'm fairly certain that the answer lies in Flash and Flash's ability to -- via its getURL() function -- circumvent pop-up blockers. Of course, since I said it aloud, the cat's out of the bag and we're all doomed!
posted by Danelope at 10:53 AM on October 18, 2004

Drudge beats Pop-up Blocker discussion at the MozillaZine forums.
posted by turbodog at 11:06 AM on October 18, 2004

Get the Flash Clcik to View Extension.
posted by Mick at 11:06 AM on October 18, 2004

Well, geez, stop loving sensationalism!

Seriously though, I second the AdBlock advice. It appers the JS files are from two VERY common ad servers (media.fastclick.net and a.tribalfusion.com), which would be among the first to be blocked if you were judiciously blocking every ad you see in AdBlock. I didn't get any popups at Drudge.

And that ATHF site only popped up 3 ads for me before I killed it. I didn't get the "porn ad cascade" I was expecting.
posted by neckro23 at 12:11 PM on October 18, 2004

I should clarify that the ads only pop up when I click on a link, not when the page loads, is it an "on exit" action, because when I open a link in a new tab, it doesn't happen. Thanks for the tips.
posted by jonah at 12:15 PM on October 18, 2004

CNET article.
posted by pmurray63 at 1:18 PM on October 18, 2004

Ah. Well, that would keep Firefox's popup blocker from functioning, since it does allow windows to be opened if it's activated by a click. Blocking the Javascript with Adblock will still work, though -- it doesn't do that for me.
posted by neckro23 at 5:20 PM on October 18, 2004