Mozilla Working On In-Page Popup Blocker For Firefox (androidpolice.com) 53
Firefox is working on a blocker for annoying in-page alerts that often ask you to input your email address to receive a newsletter from the site. "The feature is still in the planning stages, but Mozilla is asking users for any examples of sites with annoying pop-ups," reports Android Police. "Mozilla wants to make Firefox automatically detect and dismiss the popups." From the report: If you know of sites that use in-page popups (whether it be newsletter signups, surveys, or something else), you can fill out the survey here. There are also Firefox and Chrome extensions that make the process easier. I'll be interested to see how Mozilla pulls this off, it will no doubt be difficult to detect the difference between helpful and not-helpful popups.
Adblock (Score:2)
Tracking blocking (Score:3)
Sometimes I submit a support request that a website mistakenly detected the tracking protection built into Firefox [mozilla.org] as an ad blocker. I tell them that I see ads hosted by the publisher,* such as those on Daring Fireball [daringfireball.net] and those on Read the Docs [readthedocs.io], and sometimes I click ads hosted by the publisher. But I don't blindly accept scripts that allow third parties to insert arbitrary proprietary scripts that track my "click-stream" from one website to another in order to build an interest profile and try to sell me
Re: (Score:1)
My criteria for whitelisting ads in the 90s
- Don't be distracting
My criteria now
- You cover any data bills incurred by downloading your ads. With interest.
- Static image. Jpg or PNG, no larger than 45,000 pixels total.
- A one-click function that brings up the ad network, the provider, and whoever paid for the ad. Names, home addresses, and phone numbers.
- National vetting and region locking for all ads. so that I can sue for bad ads under the laws of my country.
- The status bar shows where it goes to on mou
Be Brave (Score:1, Interesting)
Helpful Popups (Score:5, Insightful)
it will no doubt be difficult to detect the difference between helpful and not-helpful popups
There is No Such Difference! Kill 'em all, let FSM sort 'em out.
Re: (Score:2)
Virtually every image viewer on the web uses an in-page pop-up.
The alternative is to resort to "old fashioned" pop-up tactics, like drawing an element off-screen and moving into place on cue, using z-order tricks, making them 1-pixel wide and widening them, etc. There's no way to distinguish between ads and image viewers.
For now, the only way to detect ads is to weigh the amount of scripting from 3rd-party sources. Whether the element is presented as a pop-up or not is irrelevant.
Re:Helpful Popups (Score:5, Insightful)
Right now Firefox blocks popup windows with a message that the site wanted to open a popup, with an 'open anyway?' prompt and 'ok' button. The same functionality could be reused for in-page popups, with an option to permanently whitelist the site.
Re: (Score:2)
I've been blocking those elements with uBlock for a couple of years now. It takes a couple of filters, to get both the popup, frame, and overlay, but once done for a site it's done.
I don't see them often now, unless I'm wandering far outside my normal haunts.
Those idiotic players on news sites (Score:2)
I've been using adblock for ages, but it's modern incarnations mostly lack the ability to list lockable elements.
With that, I am completely unable to block those stupid little players on news sites, such as foxiness, that pop up partway down, and stick around, partly obscuring the test.
The chances of my walking a video on a news site are about the same as being struck by lightning. Safari is fully successful in blocking them from playing but I want them *gone*.
While I'm at it, the other lost art is the b
When the publisher serves the crap (Score:2)
You're not APK; I can tell because your writing style doesn't match. But I'll quickly answer why his DNS blocklist solution (whether installed locally or through Pi-hole) isn't quite a complete solution by itself:
Sometimes the publisher itself serves this crap.
A DNS blocklist works when a third-party script displays the popup. But if the same site (e.g. files.slashdot.org serves both things essential to the website's operation (such as style sheets and images) and the popup script, trying to block it will e
Re: (Score:2)
Mac, Windows, Linux.
Click on the malware pushing ad and get the nice GUI to ban that from the computer.
As an app that would be worth something as a lifetime licence per computer, mobile.
Re: (Score:2)
notifications (Score:2, Interesting)
Already can be done with about:config. Works about 95% of the time.
Re: (Score:2)
are able to stop me from reading the page
You can often just switch to reader view to read the page by clicking the document icon in Firefox's location bar. Firefox doesn't detect a possible reader view for all pages though.
Re: Bad idea (Score:1)
As a small business owner, that's bullshit. If a customer doesn't like or trust you, they're not going to give you money. Especially, not if it requires a credit card.
If you can't compel the prospect without the annoying scripts. You don't deserve to be in business. Confer up with a better pitch, better product and better ads.
Position Absolute (Score:1)
* disable display of anything with absolute positioning
* disable remapping of keys
* disable remapping of mouse buttons
* disable redirection (optionally with confirmation)
* start pages with javascript disabled with an easy access button to refresh with scripting enabled
* have a fast/secure mode where all of the above (and more?) are disabled and after a page is fully loaded, a menu with all these worst practices violations would allow you to enable them individually either
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, in Firefox there is an about:config option to ignore AutoPlay settings so videos do not play by default.
Also, Firefox does allow shift-right-click which bypasses any javascript disabling of right-click menus so you can copy/paste (and do anything else).
This is one of the key reasons why HTML5 is better than Flash - because a browser is free to disable those features that are annoying. You can't disable aut
Re: (Score:2)
Excellent! (Score:4, Insightful)
A while back I started to get pop ups of this type that clearly identify when I'm about to close the tab (they probably check the mouse movement).
I imagine it's highly effective in getting attention, but once again (for the millionth time), being inconvenient is not an acceptable way to get attention. Being user-unfriendly like that only leads to continuing an arms race, and I'm happy to see Mozilla working on this sort of thing once again.