Unrelated to aviation: annoying webpage popups

[Will]

It seems that more and more websites are launching popups. Not opening new browser windows, but showing some kind of big box over the content that blocks the content and offers you the opportunity to subscribe, or click for special offers, or something like that. Usually the popups happen after 20 seconds on the site, or after you start scrolling down.

Can someone recommend a combination of browser + add-on that disables these?

Also, is there a name for them? I'm saying "popup," but I don't mean launching a new browser window, which I think are also called popups. So I may be using the wrong term for these annoying events.

Thanks!

[Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers]

Firefox out of the box blocks most popups; it is baked into the browser itself.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/pop-blocker-settings-exceptions-troubleshooting

On top, I run NoScript to stop most stupidity before it even has a chance to load.
Lastly, the uBlock Origin tracker blocker add-on solves most other issues.

Caveat: this means that many web sites malfunction as they intentionally WANT me to watch their stuff. So the important sites you will need to let have a go at it, which is easy.

[Phil Bunch]

As always, I agree with Hoppie's recommendations.  I hope my additional info regarding Apple's gadgets is helpful.

For iPads, iPhones, etc, I have had good luck with the following settings and ad-blockers:

In Settings, find the line that is dedicated to Apple's Safari browser, and do the following:

1.  set the slide switch to "green" (i.e., "on") that is titled:  "Block Pop-ups"

2.  Turn on the switches for selected "Privacy and Security" settings, still in Safari:

     Prevent Cross-Site Tracking
     Fraudulent Website Warning

3.  I turn off default access to "Motion & Orientation Access" and for "Camera and microphone access", and havn't noticed anything not working that I care about.

4.  Also, I acquired the following ad blockers from the Apple App Store, and installed them into Safari.  The Firefox Focus and general purpose Firefox browser seem to have most of this stuff built in.  The Chrome browser by Google is probably much less available for doing a lot of blocking.

     AdGuard (there seem to be 5 flavors of this but I only activated the 'General' version), Crystal, Firefox Focus (this becomes available after you install this specialized browser app), Purify,

Some important web sites make you turn some of this stuff off to use their web page but I haven't had too much trouble with my setup.

I hope this helps...I am unsure if it applies to anything other than Apples' iPads, iPhones, iPod Touch, etc. 

Similar things are available for many general purpose PC browsers, but as Jeroen says, they are either pre-installed or readily available as add-ons in Firefox.  There was a short period of trial and error to get my commonly visited web pages to work.  Some of the add-ons let you selectively disable them only for specific web pages.

[Phil Bunch]

The NY Times recently published an article on how to manage this complex situation for one's PCs, etc:

https://www.nytimes.com/guides/privacy-project/how-to-protect-your-digital-privacy

I hope this helps...I fear that the hackers and trackers have most or all of the advantages!

[United744]

For a while I used dev mode (F12) source view to delete the offending boxes that overlaid the content. I haven't needed to do it for a while, so I'm thinking I'm not the only one doing that.

It also works for sites where you disable JS completely and the box appears anyway to disable the site.

The browser devs are run by the ad networks which is why the browsers are pretty poor at blocking this junk on their own.

[RRVyper]

In Chrome, right-click on the banner, select 'Inspect' and delete the highlighted element. It's not perfect but is usually enough for me to see what I need to see.

Randy