Popups: Any way of ridding ourselves of these constant annoyances?

[rh99]

rh99 last edited by

Popups are being used increasingly more for advertising, often blocking the entire screen until you use your mouse pointer to hit the X in the upper right corner. This is a flagrant waste of time and shows absolutely total disregard for the viewer. If anything it alienates the viewer from the company initiating such a selfish way to get their message out. Is there any app that really works or any setting? Of course Javascript if disabled works but then most sites don't even function. Javascript: The cancer of the internet.

[cl007]

cl007 last edited by

what about ublock extension?

[sgunhouse]

sgunhouse Moderator last edited by

Strange, Opera blocks most popups here.

[blackbird71]

blackbird71 last edited by

There are a variety of blockers available, depending on the browser family: uBlock, AdBlock, Ghostery, NoScript, etc. None of them are 'foolproof' in that they may interfere with non-ad page material or functionality, or they may not block all ad and pop-up mechanisms if fully displaying all kinds of pages. It's a lot like antivirus programs: ones that are extremely effective at trapping malware tend to also have higher false-alarm rates against safe files. So as a user, YMMV in what you can accept or tolerate.

There's also a bit of a 'political' dilemma about placing pop-up and adblockers directly into a browser, since some of a 'free' browser's income for its creators may come from selling favored placements (or even ads) to some of the same cartels whose ads or pop-ups would be blocked by such browser settings. It harsh reality in the free software world has to be fully understood by users: if it's 'free', the user is not the customer, but instead is a resource being sold to somebody somewhere.

[rh99]

rh99 last edited by

Ads are no problem. Ads that need to be "Xed" out with every page are a pain and shouldn't ever be used. This creates anger and aggravation for the viewer and they are probably less likely to use that product. Seems counterproductive.

[sgunhouse]

sgunhouse Moderator last edited by

Oh, you mean the fake pop-ups (they are inside the current tab; real popups are a separate tab or even separate window).

[rh99]

rh99 last edited by

I mean popup ads that block the page. They are often a little transparent. The only way to get rid of them is click the X at the upper right hand corner. Sometimes ESC works too but often not. That would be a little faster for those that are more keyboard oriented.

[leocg]

leocg Moderator last edited by

I mean popup ads that block the page. They are often a little transparent. The only way to get rid of them is click the X at the upper right hand corner. Sometimes ESC works too but often not. That would be a little faster for those that are more keyboard oriented.

Those are mainly flash based pop-ups. You may need to block plugins or uninstall flash to get rid of them.