Firefox Popups

One of the main attractions of Firefox is the lack of spyware and associated stuff like popups that you get when you switch.

Well at least for me, that's over.

 

I got about four or five Firefox popups last week.  The one shown above was courtesy of Panasonic.

I'd be curious to find out if this is happening to others.

Comments

[Chris]

I saw a couple of unexpected pop ups this week using Fiefox. I'm hoping its the exception and not a trend.

[jcwinnie]

I have seen only one so far when accessing a CNN story. "Build it and they will spam."

[JB]

I get pop ups from Drudge every so often, not sure how they slip through.
Maybe there is a Firefox extension available top remedy this, I just haven't looked hard enough.

[Helmar]

This is not the first and will not be the last time such thing happens, but you guys must really be suckers for punishment - maybe some strange form of Net masochism ;) - if you continue to endure it.

I know I'm repeating myself, but with Opera I don't have such problems. I have a setting called "block all unwanted popups", and the rest is history. Some years ago I said surfing with IE or (then) NS is like mowing the lawn with nailclippers: technically possible but hardly advisable. Nothing's changed since.

Opera has become even better and will continue to lead the pack with useful features that allow me to go to gym or the beach while the rest is still trying to get the info they are looking for. Oh well...

Just another 30°C hot 0.02 from the inventor of the Shift-Control-Click. :)

[Charlie Wood]

Ironically, the RSS version of your post was accompanied by an (amazon.com) ad for a Panasonic CD/MP-3 player ("with D-Sound!"). :-)

[simon]

you can always install the pop up stopper + extension.

[W.B. McNamara]

Yep. Firefox blocks the overwhelming majority of popups, but there are already a number of known ways to get around the popup blocking, and I have no doubt that more will be invented.

Reference link:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=253831

[RC]

So everyone is aware, not all 'Popups' you see in Firefox are popups in the IE sense. Many of them are Javascripts that pop a frame over the existing window, rather then opening an entirely new window. disabling javascript should cure your problems, at the risk of breaking some websites. another way is using the Adblock extension to block either the script or the sever it resides. Another trick i've seen is to attach a popup request to a mandatory link-click, for example a link to a homepage from a gateway. I've used Adblock to solve this problem, too.

[Anna]

Adblock interfers with new screens on game sites like Pogo. It treats them like popups. I've tried to delete the adblockable items, but they stay there. Help! someone.

[Justin]

I got a popup today. I haven't had a single one since I installed Firefox 0.4.

I'm sure they'll fix it though.

IE - 938,393,108,102 popups
FF - 1 popup

But who's counting?

[Geoff]

Recently this has been becoming more and more of a problem for me. The interesting thing is it doesn't necessarily come from accessing a website - I'll leave FF idle for a while and come back to a popup. That almost suggests to me that it's a particular extension doing it in my case...

[DL]

Try the fix here
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,12727198~mode=full

It seems to help.

[Sadako]

I find that the following works well to block ALL firefox popups...

- Sweep your PC with Adaware & Spybot, and a good AV to remove all spyware & trojans.
- Remove all your Cookie files esp ones from sites you don't like/recognise (and anything with 'ad' or similar in the filename).
- Get the Firefox Adblock extension that allows selective blocking of popups. Every time a popup appears it shows an unobtrusive tab allowing you to block the ad server. After about a week I had blocked every popup on the sites I visit regularly. It's great for stress relief too - zapping popups really makes you feel better about the internet.
- Get SpywareBlaster, which blocks security holes in both IE and Firefox.

Note: All the above software is freeware (NOT shareware).

I would especially sing the praises of Adblock:

- It is not like an AV or most popups since it has no 'built in' list of threats - it allows you to block any annoyance that gets through your other protections. (If you don't fancy this you can download premade lists and periodically update them.)
- It can block banners, animations and in-site adverts, even those b*****y ones with no window that you can't close.
- It is the only software I've found that stops ads being shown on the side of geocities pages.
- It doesn't interfere with Firefox's inbuilt popup blocker unlike many Firefox & IE blockers.
- YOU have complete control - you can select what to block, use wildcards, and change your decision later.