#270181 - 26/11/2005 07:48
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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I don't get any popups there with Firefox 1.5rc3 on Windows.
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#270182 - 26/11/2005 08:57
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/05/2001
Posts: 2616
Loc: Bruges, Belgium
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Quote:
Here's another example of a web site that gets around the popup blockers built in to my web browsers.
http://www.planetvids.com/html/Missle-Jam.html
No popups on that page with Firefox 1.07 for me!
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#270183 - 26/11/2005 13:32
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: andy]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 12/11/2001
Posts: 7738
Loc: Toronto, CANADA
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I didn't get any pop-ups with Firefox 1.5rc2 on a Mac either.
Bruno
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#270184 - 26/11/2005 13:43
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: tfabris]
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addict
Registered: 11/11/2001
Posts: 552
Loc: Houston, TX
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It tried to do a popup when ever it got focus, but every time the popup blocker in Windows XP SP2 Aiiiieeeee 6.0 blocked it.
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78GB MkIIa, Dead tuner.
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#270185 - 26/11/2005 16:18
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: BAKup]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 17/12/2000
Posts: 2665
Loc: Manteca, California
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Quote:
Aiiiieeeee
giggles abound.
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#270186 - 28/11/2005 03:33
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 08/07/1999
Posts: 5549
Loc: Ajijic, Mexico
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Here's another example of a web site that gets around the popup blockers built in to my web browsers.
My Google popup blocker knocked them out...
tanstaafl.
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#270187 - 28/11/2005 14:51
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: tanstaafl.]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31602
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Quote:
My Google popup blocker
My point of this thread wasn't to compare third-party blocker utilities. Rather, to discuss the programattical reasons why popup blocking is so poorly implemented in the base web browsers. I'm still not completely sure why.
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#270188 - 28/11/2005 15:08
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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Quote:
Quote:
My Google popup blocker
Rather, to discuss the programattical reasons why popup blocking is so poorly implemented in the base web browsers. I'm still not completely sure why.
Because when most of the browsers were first coded they didn't have to worry about the issue of popups and the sort of end-to-end management of the tracking of whether a popup should our shouldn't happen is just the sort of change it is hard to graft onto a complex and spralling app.
As to why the more recently created browsers aren't better at it than they are, that is a harder question.
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#270189 - 28/11/2005 18:19
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: tfabris]
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enthusiast
Registered: 11/06/2003
Posts: 384
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Quote:
Rather, to discuss the programattical reasons why popup blocking is so poorly implemented in the base web browsers. I'm still not completely sure why.
I'll take a shot at this... Because the real issue is distinguishing between what's a necessary popup and what's not. Granted most useful popups have been replaced, but not all. And that's not a core function of a web browser. Also, there are so many ways to create a new window or tab...
Without actually doing the analysis it seems that the routine to open a window is going to be the same whether it's a popup or starting the browser, so just NOPing that isn't a good idea.
The old-school method was to supress new windows that were part of a "onPageLoad" method, and while that used to work, just like anything, it's an arms race and the advertisers care more about making it work than people who are trying to deal with an entire browser.
Almost all popups need to load content from somewhere, and the URL for that content is not very different from ad blocking, which is all about choosing good content over bad content.
Between Adblock and the basic UI options in Firefox I haven't had a problem with popups, and the rare occcasions when there's a popup I do want that adblock blocks, most of the time I figure it couldn't have been that important anyway, rather than clicking once to turn off adblock, clicking the link, and then clicking adblock back on.
So maybe consider the problem in a different domain, that of content discrimination?
--Nathan
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#270190 - 28/11/2005 18:27
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: Mataglap]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 20/12/1999
Posts: 31602
Loc: Seattle, WA
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Why is it so difficult to distinguish between the undesired kind of popup (one that didn't come from me clicking on a link) and the desired kind (that is the direct result of me clicking on a link)?
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#270191 - 28/11/2005 18:38
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: tfabris]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
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I imagine that the software architecture is sufficiently abstracted that by the time the call to open the new window is reached, it really has no idea how it got there.
I think all of it comes down to the fact that it they were written without the notion of ever having to implement something like this and all the implementations so far are (more or less) lousy hacks. A completely new browser implementation will probably be required with that as a design criterion before it's fixed.
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#270192 - 28/11/2005 18:48
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: BartDG]
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new poster
Registered: 10/11/2005
Posts: 35
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Firefox 1.5 on windows blocks two popups on that page for me, and none make it all up (even with adblock disabled).
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#270193 - 28/11/2005 19:19
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: jpt]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 15/01/2002
Posts: 1866
Loc: Austin
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Navigate around, don't just sit on that page. I'm using FF 1.5 and I don't get popups until I click a link (I clicked Nerdy Videos). Two popups occurred. They don't really bother me so much, though. Very rarely do I get a popup with any content. Anytime I see an ad that is an image that I don't want to see I right-click and block images from that host. They stay blocked. Flashblock keeps me from seeing flash ads.
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#270194 - 28/11/2005 19:52
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: wfaulk]
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enthusiast
Registered: 11/06/2003
Posts: 384
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Quote:
I think all of it comes down to the fact that it they were written without the notion of ever having to implement something like this and all the implementations so far are (more or less) lousy hacks. A completely new browser implementation will probably be required with that as a design criterion before it's fixed.
I can't help but be reminded of thousands of arguements about policy enforcement vs. functional implementation in the Linux kernel. What's worked over and over again is to provide a new layer or interface for policy decisions and not try to extend pure functionalness to make special case decisions. Especially in a program like a web-browser there's no way any one engineer can understand all the myriad ways users will want the thing to behave.
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#270195 - 28/11/2005 20:40
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: wfaulk]
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carpal tunnel
Registered: 10/06/1999
Posts: 5916
Loc: Wivenhoe, Essex, UK
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You then also have to add in the fact that in some cases popup windows uncommanded by the user are in fact what is desired.
As an example I write complex IE based Intranet apps, that are designed to look like and behave like "normal" Windows applications. Two of the features in the main app I have been involved in are Reminders and Messages.
Both these features need to be able to pop up a new window when a note worth even happens (i.e. a reminder occurs or a new message arrives).
The first thing you have to do when running the application in question is disable popup blocking for the web server it runs from.
P.S. admittedly we could implement the functionality slightly differently, by displaying a message in the main window when an event occured, for the user to then click on (though that wouldn't give quite the immediacy).
When we designed the app a few years ago however there were no such things as annoying popups and popup blockers
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#270196 - 29/11/2005 01:09
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: Mataglap]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 19/09/2002
Posts: 2494
Loc: East Coast, USA
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Quote:
there's no way any one engineer can understand all the myriad ways users will want the thing to behave.
Maybe the engineer, supported by their manager, could make options for the questionable functionality. Checkboxes allowing the user to choose which types of popups (or other functionality) to allow. Maybe options are not profitable enough (re: commercial coder salary or open-source coder time).
/me kicks the Orinoco wireless driver and SpySweeper client and server which wasted his whole day at work because they didn't have that I needed.
Bitt, don't worry, I bet IE 7 will be a "total rewrite", so all those hacks will be fixed.... and thousands more hacks introduced. (a MS rep spoke at my work a while back, proclaiming that something (Longhorn?) was a "total rewrite", met by the groans of the audience.)
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#270197 - 02/12/2005 04:54
Re: Please explain. What's so F*CKING HARD about blocking popups?!
[Re: RobotCaleb]
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pooh-bah
Registered: 06/04/2005
Posts: 2026
Loc: Seattle transplant
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Quote:
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
Very cool. Lovin' it seriously.
Updated version just released Nov 30.
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