Pop-ups Must Die

Apr 4, 2005 06:28 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla Foundation is making noticeable progress towards the security of their own products, unlike the main competitor, Microsoft, which has a slow response time even when the problems needed to be solved are clearly pointed out.

This time, Firefox has a new and improved pop-up blocking solution. Because in the last time new ways for infiltrating pop-up and pop-under messages have appeared, Mozilla has taken measures to protect its users.

Messages are launched once certain sites containing Flash or other plug-ins are accessed.

FireFox is able to block this type of pop-ups, but until FireFox 1.0, the option was not automatically activated because there was no guarantee that legitimate Java and Flash websites will function correctly.

Considering the speed with which spammers have adopted this new display of unwanted advertising messages, Mozilla has begun testing this pop-up blocking solution and the impact it will have on sites which offer Flash and Java content without advertising messages. The solution has been found and it only takes a tick to allow viewing of these sites.

The Pop-ups Must Die! Extension can be downloaded from the address http://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/nightly/experimental/popupsdie/, and after it will be tested and using the provided feedback, the developers will be able to improve the efficiency of the extension.

The creator of the solution is especially interested in the behavior of the blocker in the case of websites that automatically display supplementary messages through plug-ins. Some are blocked by Internet Explorer and Win XP SP2, but not by FireFox (if the Pop-ups Must Die patch is not installed!).