The other day I was looking for information on Willie J. Dennis, the guy who stomped the head of a mentally-challenged man who claimed Jesus taught him Kung Fu.
When I clicked on a google link a page came up, and then another page that said I had to download something. Of course Safari said that the file contains an application, and asked if I wanted to continue. Of course also, I declined. Then another dialog box popped up with the only option being ‘OK’ to download the file. No way to get out of it, other than to force-quit Safari.
How do I configure Safari to disallow auto-downloads?
How do I get out of the situation described without doing a force-quit?
Sounds like Apple needs to upgrade it’s pop-up blockers. But, in most cases, clicking the OK button will not actually download the file, as it isn’t a proper dialog box, but one created by the web page. Safari should then ask you about downloading the file again, which you can still say no to. But even if it didn’t, it’s unlikely that the program would run by itself, and, if you are on a Mac, it probably won’t work, anyways.
Still I understand your desire to play it safe. Fortunately, the situation you described is rare unless you do a lot of hardcore porn searching, or engage in illegal activities. Closing out Safari is probably the safest thing you can do in that situation, as the site you are on is likely unsafe, anyways. Unless there is now adware that targets Safari…
I saw a situation like this with someone searching for Cash for Clunkers. There was a particularly evil site with a background image that looked like a windows app performing a virus scan and finding several viruses. Popped up over that image was a dialog box prompting you to download their “anti-virus” program. There was no apparent way to get rid of the box other than clicking Ok. And this was on Firefox.
When you get into a situation like that only thing you can do is close the browser.