Unblockable popups

[freeztar]

On my home computer I got no pop-ups (few minutes idle). I'm running FF 2.0x and Adblock add-on.

What version of FF are you running Buffy? Do you have Adblock?

On a side note, I highly recommend NoScript as a FF add-on if you don't already have it. It's awesome!

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by CraigD

Expressions like "'<scr'+'ipt'" seem designed to defeat simple blockers.

Yep, but I think the more sophisticated ones modify the window class to intercept all calls to window.open in js, which may be why Ad Block works.

Originally Posted by CraigD

Interestingly, when I opened the page with no blockers of any kind on, it popped up 2 browsers, but when I closed everything and followed the link to it again, it popped up nothing.

I've noticed this too, leading me to believe its either setting a cookie or is looking at the browser history timestamps, because it does seem to try to be "nice" and only do it once a day or once every restart of the browser.

Originally Posted by freeztar

On my home computer I got no pop-ups (few minutes idle). I'm running FF 2.0x and Adblock add-on.

I don't have Ad Block, but am interested in what other things defeat this mechanism. I don't have anything but the basic popup blocker in FF simply because I don't really seem to need it: this is one of the only sites that seems to beat it among those I go to (although I wouldn't be surprised if those porn sites you guys like have much more devious popup mechanisms! ).

My interest is not academic. Our software is web based, and we like to open up a separate window with all the browser menus and controls turned off, so its a completely controlled web app. Our number one tech support problem when people first start using it is to figure out all the popup blockers that people have and tell them how to let ours through. You'd be amazed at how many people have 4 or 5 different popup blockers that are *all* turned on (native, Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, Norton Internet, etc, etc, etc). We have figured out how to programatically catch only *some* of these, and we even see situations where when we try to open a test window and then see if its actually there a few milliseconds later gets *false positives* back from the browser!

It would be nice if we could at least catch all of them and then lead people through the "how do you disable all this stuff, but just for us."

So no, I'm not trying to come up with an evil way to force more ads on people!

YouTube - snap crackle pop old rice krispies...

He won't eat it, he hates everything,
Buffy

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by Buffy

I don't have Ad Block, but am interested in what other things defeat this mechanism. I don't have anything but the basic popup blocker in FF simply because I don't really seem to need it: this is one of the only sites that seems to beat it among those I go to (although I wouldn't be surprised if those porn sites you guys like have much more devious popup mechanisms! ).

My interest is not academic. Our software is web based, and we like to open up a separate window with all the browser menus and controls turned off, so its a completely controlled web app. Our number one tech support problem when people first start using it is to figure out all the popup blockers that people have and tell them how to let ours through.

AdBlock is even more recommended in that case, imho.

You'd be amazed at how many people have 4 or 5 different popup blockers that are *all* turned on (native, Google Toolbar, Yahoo Toolbar, Norton Internet, etc, etc, etc).

Toolbars are a big no-no in my book.
I'm not surprised in the least by what people inadvertently install on their system. Did I mention that I don't like toolbars? Well, I do have StumbleUpon so I can't criticize too much.

We have figured out how to programatically catch only *some* of these, and we even see situations where when we try to open a test window and then see if its actually there a few milliseconds later gets *false positives* back from the browser!

If the thermometer doesn't work, make a new one.

It would be nice if we could at least catch all of them and then lead people through the "how do you disable all this stuff, but just for us."

Why does your software trigger anti-popup software?

He won't eat it, he hates everything,
Buffy

Mikey will eat it.

[REASON]

Originally Posted by freeztar

Mikey will eat it.

No, no, no. The line is, "He likes it! Hey Mikey?

[freeztar]

Originally Posted by REASON

No, no, no. The line is, "He likes it! Hey Mikey?

Where's the beef?

[REASON]

Originally Posted by freeztar

Where's the beef?

Fine. Have it your way.

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by freeztar

Why does your software trigger anti-popup software?

Reread my post: in order to control the user's interactions and reduce "confusion" (our target users are only moderately tech savvy), we run our application in a window with the browser's menus toolbars, etc. *removed*: all you see is the window frame and our application is inside it, and we provide all the navigation within it. This is *extremely* common among web applications, and the web browsers all very cooperatively allow this manipulation of their windows.

Unfortunately, to do this removal (especially in these days of tabs and so forth) we need to launch a new browser window, and the only way to do this is through the same calls that the popup ads use. As a result, we need to find a way to make it easy for our users to, upon first logging in, determine exactly what they need to do to allow our app to be "approved for opening popups": its not that complicated, since most popup blocking software supports a mode for saying easily, "this one is okay," the problems are a) in order to lead people through it, we need to be able to *tell* that we're being blocked, and b) we need to deal with the fact that there may be a bunch of blockers all conspiring (and probably conflicting) with each other. In the case of a) the problem is that one of the techniques that the ad purveyors use is to detect blocking and try to work around it, so because we are trying to the same thing, the blockers are now busily spoofing by saying "oh yah, we showed the user your ad so you can stop trying."

We're almost at the point of actually writing plug-ins or installable applications on the desktop where we have the power to look at what's there and defeat it directly (kinda like trojan ad-ware does!), but we've been trying to avoid this like the plague because big F500 IT shops *hate* having to manage (or in some cases even *allow*) installation of software on user's desktops. If we can make this work with pure Javascript we are *much* better off.

Originally Posted by freeztar

Mikey will eat it.

Forgive him REASON, he's *way* to young to have actually seen this in anything but "I Love The 70's" on VH1....

Its not a car, its a Volkswagen,
Buffy

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by mynah

and why do messages from some people get deleted consistently, even though I haven't blocked them?

I don't know!

Recursively self-referential,
Buffy

[mynah]

Originally Posted by Buffy

I don't know!

Recursively self-referential,
Buffy

At least there is one honest person on this forum...

[alexander]

freez, i use quickjava plug-in, i like it a lot more then noscript actually.... but right now i am disappointed that they have not modded it for beta5 here

T, i've never even seen popups for hypo, even when i they were on... just like i didn't see the ads up on top of the page... etc