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Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn't work as well as it used to

Martin Anderson


It's a 1990s revival, as the intrusive world of pop-up ads fights its way back through your defences...

Published on Feb 5, 2009

You may have noticed that a lot of sites are managing to launch pop-up windows that can penetrate any standard blocker built into a web-browser these days, and pretty much all proprietary blockers too. What's going on? The innovation creeping in to return us to the God-awful 1990s is Adimpact, which charges its clients a rolling fee to feed DHTML-based pop-ups to their sites. There seems little protest around on the web, though a quick search will find various PRs and sellers eulogising the technology. Adimpact was launched in 2006, but seems to have finally attracted some higher-profile clients such as the IMDB.

The company behind Adimpact got a little too carried away in the early days and advised that placing Google Adsense ads in one of these irritating and unwelcome intruders was good marketing. Google disagreed:

"Publishers are not permitted to alter the behaviour of Google ads. This includes implementing the AdSense ad code in a floating windows. We therefore ask that you do not use www.adimpact.com to place your Google ads in floating windows. We appreciate your cooperation and understanding."

Shawn Collins affiliate marketing blog describes how the 'Instant Attention' tech on offer "works around Microsoft SP2 Update, Google Toolbar Blocker, Symantec’s Pop-Up Blocker and more...The Dynamic Popup Generator can create pressure pop-ups, unblockable DHTML pop-ups, PictoPop-ups, conditional popups, instant opt-in pop-ups, and rotating pop-ups".

This technique seems to work beautifully for pop-unders too. We can only await the Kryptonite.

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Users Comments

Re: Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn't work as well as it used to
Posted By PushLatency 1 February 5, 2009 04:02:47 PM

Does "NoScript" (FF add-on) foil DHTML floaters?

Re: Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn't work as well as it used to
Posted By cynicalB 1 February 5, 2009 04:34:41 PM

They don't work with NoScript enabled.

Re: Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn't work as well as it used to
Posted By twosheds 1 February 5, 2009 04:57:56 PM

NoScript is very attention-demanding. In the few days I tried it out, it made browsing the web intolerably burdensome, and it was a relief to me to remove it.

Re: Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn't work as well as it used to
Posted By phinn 1 February 5, 2009 06:35:39 PM

NoScript is a great example of using a "white list", rather than a "Black List." By choosing what to let in, rather than what to keep out, it lets you keep a better idea of what's going on with your traffic. Generally, if you read the instructions and have normal browsing patterns, you can get it stream-lined within a day or two. I understand that some people don't like having to work for security and feel that keeping people out of your system is a pain, but the alternative is a) create a proprietary browser with heavy emphasis on genetic algorithms to analyze all windows as they open, b) invent a new internet that does not use html, c) stop using the internet. It's not just NoScript, MacAfee, Symantec, and all the others have to be set to an adaptive whitelist to truly function effectively.

Re: Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn't work as well as it used to
Posted By twosheds 1 February 5, 2009 07:25:21 PM

I have had to reformat my entire hard drive to poor internet security, back in the 90s. Even that experience can't send me back to No-Script. It's like having a bad date and deciding that henceforth you will only go dating in a deep-sea diving suit. In a Web 2.0 age, NoScript blocks an absolutely absurd amount of the internet by default. A blacklist suits me fine, and that I have by other means. I'd even rather have the new pop-ups than the web experience NoScript delivers. Sorry. It's got plenty of fans, so why worry about my opinion? But I've tried it, and it IS an informed opinion.

Re: Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn't work as well as it used to
Posted By jasonx 1 February 6, 2009 04:50:40 AM

I tried NoScript for a week and had to remove it after 3 days. Too many sites weren't working and I often had to reload the page many times each day to see the page properly (NoScript requires that you reload the page). The deal breaker was when I filled out a form on some page and on the last page it said that it needed Javascript enabled and when I reloaded it I lost all the 5 pages of data I had already filled in.

Re: Geek tech: Why your pop-up blocker doesn't work as well as it used to
Posted By denofnubs 1 February 6, 2009 02:04:07 PM

Anyone whining about NoScript is just plain lazy, all it takes usually is one right click on the icon and a selection of the website you are currently on. You can turn off the notifications too, which I do immediately. Ads are much more intrusive and irritating; we'll see how long you put up with it once they come back in full force.
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