May 18, 2004

3:10 PM

Hopefully this hasn't been asked yet... my Google toolbar is seemingly less able to block popups like it did before. This is happening at home and work. What's the reason and what's a more efficient blocker? Is this happening to anyone else?
posted by moonbird to (15 comments total)

Are you sure you haven't been hijacked? It's possible you have spyware causing the problem.
Also, I think the toolbar is less effective when a site pops multiple windows at the same time.

I'd run Spybot Search & Destroy to check first, and once you've cleaned up your computer, see if the popups keep coming.

And if it does... well... uh... get Firefox? :)

(I know, I know, but you know someone was gonna say it... why not me?)
posted by linux at 3:29 PM on May 18, 2004

After you run Spybot S&D you should also download and run CWShredder. CWShredder removes CoolWebSearch variants that are missed by Spybot.
posted by estey at 3:47 PM on May 18, 2004

One more thing-- make sure you have installed the Cumulative Security Update for Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1 (KB832894).
Also, what linux said. Firefox.
posted by estey at 3:54 PM on May 18, 2004

I doubt it's spyware--I've observed the same thing, and I'm particularly careful about what I install on my computers. (Very little, and what I do install I research carefully first.) I suspect that some pop-up advertisers have managed to get around Google Toolbar's pop-up blocker. How, I wouldn't know.

Which is not to say that it's not worth running the various anti-spywares anyway.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:31 PM on May 18, 2004

I'm with Devils. I'm a total freak about what gets installed, and I run spyware detectors all the time. And I'm seeing more popups as well on those times when I run IE. Even in Mozilla, I'm seeing popups that are getting opened. Sneaky stuff.
posted by dejah420 at 4:40 PM on May 18, 2004

My Avant Browser seems to be getting a bit "porous" lately, too...it used to block 100% of all pop-ups, but in the last three weeks or so, a few keep getting through -- like on Drudge. Curious.
posted by davidmsc at 4:49 PM on May 18, 2004

Get Firefox, then get "Click Flash to View", which is an extension for it. Firefox blocks popups, and Click Flash to View blocks those god-awful browser hijacking flash ads -- or, rather, let's you decide whether you want to see them.
posted by Hildago at 4:53 PM on May 18, 2004

The advertisers have come up with a new way of opening pop-ups. Rather than using an onLoad handler, they create a form button or link that opens the pop-up, then have onLoad send that item a click event. This fools some pop-up blockers into thinking you actually requested the pop-up.
posted by kindall at 4:54 PM on May 18, 2004

Interesting.. I haven't noticed this in firebird. Does anyone have any specific sites/urls that do it every time, that I can test with?
posted by duckstab at 5:00 PM on May 18, 2004

drudge seems to be the most consistent, which is rather embarrassing to admit.
posted by moonbird at 5:09 PM on May 18, 2004

I, too have noticed an increase in pop-ups in recent weeks, even using Firefox. I have been obsessively running SpyBot almost every day and yelling at my eldest daughter, thinking that she has installed something she found in the web, but it seems that it is not only me. Which is good, but bad at the same time.
posted by dg at 6:53 PM on May 18, 2004

Popup blocking has changed significantly in the latest release of Mozilla and FireFox. I think 1.7a was the first to use it. It is significantly better than all other popup blockers, but it's not in a production release of the browser. It does seem to be in FireFox nightlies and is in RC2 of Mozilla.

If you use a stable release of FireFox or Mozilla or any of the gecko derivatives, you have old style popup blocking. That old style popup blocking is being defeated by advertisers to in an effort to try to find new consumers to show ads to because pop up blockers are killing their pop up revenue. This old method of pop up blocking had a variety of weaknesses.

IE, with and without toolbars, is defeatable in a vast number of ways. However, many of the toolbars have improved significantly enough to scare advertisers into looking for more markets to show popups.

All versions of all browsers with any toolbar is currently defeatable in some means. (On a side note, I don't keep up with every project from http://mozdev.org, so it's possible there are extensions to Gecko browsers that could make this statement untrue.)

The best way to defeat popups (and not a method I've seen done yet) is as follows:

When a new browser window is requested from an existing browser window (one you manually executed on the local OS), flash a little icon in the status bar, with a message like "http://domain.com has requested to open a window."

Clicking on that sentence in the toolbar would show a small menu:

"This request has been automatically denied.

Click here if you want to see that window.
Click here if you want to open this in a new tab.
Never show me new windows from this domain.
Always show me new windows from this domain."

Do this with ALL new window requests. In an instant, you'd never see another popup window unless you had spyware, adware or malware installed or had specifically allowed it.
posted by sequential at 8:36 PM on May 18, 2004

Very interesting, kindall. eeeeevil.
posted by Hackworth at 10:23 PM on May 18, 2004

I'm running Mozilla 1.3, and the NY Times has found a way around its popup blocker. Anyone had this problem in more recent releases?
posted by fuzz at 8:01 AM on May 19, 2004

"he advertisers have come up with a new way of opening pop-ups. Rather than using an onLoad handler, they create a form button or link that opens the pop-up, then have onLoad send that item a click event. This fools some pop-up blockers into thinking you actually requested the pop-up."

"Anyone had this problem in more recent releases?"

If you ever *click* on a link, button, etc, it is possible to open a popup. Mozilla 1.7a and above and FireFox nightlies block the former method, as described by kindall, but not earlier versions of the same browser. (Basically, you could assign the opening of a new window to any user action because subsequent code was attributed with the users authority. This *has* been fixed.)

fuzz, try upgrading to Mozilla 1.7 RC2 (if you don't mind release candidates) and see if that still happens.

(If it's not clear, I work in online advertising. There is an NDA that looms over my head whenever I talk about this. If you'd like to assign some hate my way, your welcome to. I haven't come to terms with it myself, but part of what I am paid to do is to know how to get around popup blockers. For what it's worth, I use FireFox, Mozilla and Opera as my primary browsers and *never* see popups, but I also use nightlies and alpha versions.

In my opinion, it is invalid for any page to open a new window without the surfers consent If a content provider wishes to open a new window, the surfer should be asked. Thus my suggestion for a popup blocker. It's my computer and I'll open the windows when I want windows opened. Period.)
posted by sequential at 9:29 AM on May 19, 2004