So… is there any market research to support the idea that advertising that EVERYONE HATES is effective in selling a product or service?
Because when a popup ad really pisses me off, I make a point of never buying the &%$# product.
I love the google toolbar. I have started visiting porn websites just so it can block more ads. I’m at 43 blocked now.
Count me in as another Mozilla user. The advantage Mozilla has over most other popup blockers is, because it’s integrated into the browser, it knows what you’ve clicked on and what you haven’t. That way it can distinguish between pop-ups you’ve actually requested and those you haven’t, meaning it doesn’t break web sites that rely on Javascript to open new windows but it still blocks pop-up ads with (for me, anyway) 100% accuracy. The pop-up blocking is one of two major reasons I use Mozilla (tabbed browsing being the other).
I hate paying for software, so I use all the free/open source software I can possibly get my hands on. I did find it worthwhile to pay for AdSubtract Pro, though. It also has the ability to block popups but is plagued with the problem I mentioned above, so I don’t use that feature. I just use it to block banner ads. The 1-time $20 purchase price (I got a promotional discount) was worth it for unlimited access to their frequenty-updated ad-blocking database. I could probably get by with one of the free products out there (maybe even AdSubtract Lite, or whatever it’s called these days) but since I paid for AdSubtract Pro I’m sticking with it for now.
I hate ads. I really do. I hate banner ads, pop-ups, TV commercials (god I hate TV commercials)… just about anything you can think of. I deal with TV ads by owning a Tivo - the greatest thing to ever be hooked to a TV.
Oh, and for those of you plagued by pop-ups that don’t have close buttons, alt-F4 is your friend. As long as the pop-up is the currently selected window alt-F4 will close it.
One ad = simple advertising
More than one bombarding my screen like dingos on a baby = evil
If not Alt+F4 will close it simple enough (as long as it’s your active window, which it usually is, if not kill it thru Task Manager).
If you’re comfortable with minor file editing, try doing something like this to your Hosts file to block pop-ups forever*.
*YMMV
Alt+f4 doesn’t always work either unfortunately. Some of the popups are actually download confirmation boxes which sometimes close with altf4 and sometimes don’t. I had my popup killer that I used to use before switching to Mozilla (it is a great browser. More people should use it) would get stuck on a loop and freeze the rest of the machine because the popup killer wouldn’t close it on its own nor would the alt+f4 work.
Troy McClure SF at home: “Mmmm… Safari…”
Troy McClure SF at work: “Mmmm… Google toolbar…”
I never click on a close button within a pop-up - I always kill the window from the frame (which is basically what Alt-F4 is a shortcut to).
When sites are really bad (or I’m using a site that I know has pop-ups), I turn off java before I visit it. Not what I would prefer, though, because some sites have good uses for java that I don’t want to skip.
I’ve been googled… thanks everyone!