Monday, February 21, 2005

Popup revenge

In the last week or so, the scourge of pop-up and pop-under ads have returned to portions of the web. Essentially, some folks have figured out tricks to defeat the pop-up blockers that are nowadays de riguer in any serious browser (even Windows IE, since XP SP2). I can't help you on the IE side, but I can give you tips that will help if you're a Safari (Mac) or Firefox (any platform) user:

Safari: Download and install PithHelmet, a wonderful plug-in for Safari that patches WebCore to give Safari all sorts of neat ad blocking capabilities.

Firefox: From the Firefox "Tools" menu, select Extensions, then in the window that comes up click on "Get More Extensions". Once you're at the Mozilla Foundation's official site (where that menu selection takes you), you'll find Adblock under "Most Popular" - that one's a must-have. There's also an extension called "FlashGot", which gives you control over the use of Flash on pages.

Between these tools, you should have little trouble sending these sleazy pop-under weasels back to the netherworld from whence they came. Enjoy!

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