MANY websites I visit will “pop-up” a screen asking to enter your email address, often in exchange for a coupon code or the like - is there any way to stop them?
I am using Chrome 50.0.2661.94 with the “Do not allow any site to show pop-ups” setting enabled on OS X 10.11.1, with Adblock Plus installed.
(I am guessing these are not “pop-ups” in the conventional sense - if not, what are they called?)
I’ll just offer a handful of ideas:
[ul]
[li]Have you actually subscribed to a list of filters in adblock plus? Without a list, the extension itself does nothing.[/li][li]Try something like ghostery which blocks a lot of the widgets and scripts sites use to track you (I’ve had good luck with this in the past)[/li][li] With one of these pages loaded, launch the adblock interface that lets select items on a page to block. Then look for a script with a name containing “signup”, “email”, or something like that[/li][/ul]
If some of these ideas seem insultingly obvious, I apologize. I’ve always found it best to under-estimate a persons skill level when assisting with tech.
To your second question, What you’re seeing is likely an iframe (short for inline frame) created by a script. The term “pop-up” refers to a new web browser window (with a border, scroll bars, etc.) that appears over top of the current one. If the window just opens but doesn’t steal focus (i.e. become the focus of mouse/keyboard input) it’s called a pop-under. BOth of these are increasingly rare because they’re so commonly blocked
Thanks for the reply -
No offense taken - I think I’m moderately competent, but certainly could be missing something obvious…yes, I am subscribed to the EasyList filter under Adblock Plus, and generally do not see typical web ads.
I have used the “Block Element” feature of Adblock Plus successfully for other ads, but it does not work on these sorts of features (which, to confirm, do not open a new browser window.)
To give you an idea of what I’m talking about, I was just looking at the Road & Track magazine website (roadandtrack.com) and the screen was taken overlaid by a message (which in the corner said “Powered by Bounce Exchange”) asking for an email address to sign up for savings on a subscription or whatever…I am seeing these constantly on various sites (and can’t think that others are not experiencing the same) and am wondering if there is a general way to stop them.
I am unfamiliar with ghostery but will look into it.
I use adblock and a script blocker. The script blocker kills a lot of popups but it also breaks a lot of web sites. I enter exceptions for sites that I use (like the SDMB).
If you are getting the same or similar popups on different sites I would suspect malware.
Since they just use code on the site that can be easily used for more legitimate things, there’s no real way to block them other than to get a list.
I subscribe to the Fanboy Annoyances list in my adblocker, which has a list of some of them, but some get through. The list is built in as an option for uBlock Origin. If you use Adblock Plus, you can install it from here.
Though, at this point uBlock Origin is pretty much just as functional as ABP.
I use a script blocker which blocks most everything. I have to right click to add exceptions as I go to see stuff I want to. It’s annoying at first but once I’ve logged the exceptions I need it’s great.