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Why does Safari allow window hijacking?

senseless

senseless

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 23, 2008
1,885
257
Pennsylvania, USA
I've encountered 2 websites this week that captured my Safari window and would not allow me to close it. One was for MacKeeper and another was some other scam site telling me I needed to "upgrade my browser". I did not want to click on their pop up windows at all and was unable to get the window from reappearing without resetting Safari.

How does this happen and why doesn't Safari block this? I have "Block Popup Windows" checked in preferences.
 
APlotdevice

APlotdevice

macrumors 68040
Sep 3, 2011
3,145
3,861
The built in setting is very basic and doesn't recognize all pop-up scripts. I advise installing adblock. (but white list the sites you visit regularly so they can get their ad revenue!)
 
Last edited:
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,136
15,597
California
senseless said:
I've encountered 2 websites this week that captured my Safari window and would not allow me to close it. One was for MacKeeper and another was some other scam site telling me I needed to "upgrade my browser". I did not want to click on their pop up windows at all and was unable to get the window from reappearing without resetting Safari.

How does this happen and why doesn't Safari block this? I have "Block Popup Windows" checked in preferences.
Click to expand...

The answer is those sites are circumventing the popup blocker by using Javascript on their pages to do this. You can use some of the blockers mentioned, or just turn off JS in the browser. This may disable some legit functionality in other websites though. There is a javascript blocker Safari extension that also does a good job stopping these.
 
senseless

senseless

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Apr 23, 2008
1,885
257
Pennsylvania, USA
Weaselboy said:
The answer is those sites are circumventing the popup blocker by using Javascript on their pages to do this. You can use some of the blockers mentioned, or just turn off JS in the browser. This may disable some legit functionality in other websites though. There is a javascript blocker Safari extension that also does a good job stopping these.
Click to expand...

Thanks; Javascript is now off. I'm still curious why Safari hasn't been able to prevent this, unless it's a new thing.
 
APlotdevice

APlotdevice

macrumors 68040
Sep 3, 2011
3,145
3,861
senseless said:
Thanks; Javascript is now off. I'm still curious why Safari hasn't been able to prevent this, unless it's a new thing.
Click to expand...

Since pop-ups aren't nearly as pervasive as they once were, Apple probably doesn't consider it important enough.
 
Dave Braine

Dave Braine

macrumors 68040
Mar 19, 2008
3,990
352
Warrington, UK
This should do the trick:
http://www.adwaremedic.com/index.php

I was getting websites opening in new tabs when I clicked on links in other sites. Opening topics in this site was a favourite way of doing it. As well as the topic page opening, I'd get a page for MacKeeper or similar opening. It was starting to drive me nuts!

It found a load of stuff on my Mac and the problem has gone.
 
A

arcureo

macrumors newbie
Jun 26, 2009
22
0
Padua - Italy
same here... any suggestions?

Hi, I've recently encountered the very same problem, but since it started happening both in Safari and Chrome, I'm afraid it's something IN THE COMPUTER, not on the browsers.
I start looking at video streaming sites... ya' know... tv series and stuff :rolleyes: and after a few minutes the page I'm looking at gets redirected to an alert page saying that "my browser is not updated" and such. And that I should download stuff. Yeah, right, nice try.
Fact is, it's impossible to watch anything, now. Ok, YouTube, right... but you get my point. I want to fix the problem.
Any suggestions? I don't think it's just a browser issue...

Thanks...
 
Weaselboy

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,136
15,597
California
arcureo said:
Hi, I've recently encountered the very same problem, but since it started happening both in Safari and Chrome, I'm afraid it's something IN THE COMPUTER, not on the browsers.
I start looking at video streaming sites... ya' know... tv series and stuff :rolleyes: and after a few minutes the page I'm looking at gets redirected to an alert page saying that "my browser is not updated" and such. And that I should download stuff. Yeah, right, nice try.
Fact is, it's impossible to watch anything, now. Ok, YouTube, right... but you get my point. I want to fix the problem.
Any suggestions? I don't think it's just a browser issue...

Thanks...
Click to expand...

You may have inadvertently installed some adware on there. Also check your extensions to see if you have any odd ones there that might be hijacking your browser.

Try running this adware removal tool and see what it turns up.
 
Dave Braine

Dave Braine

macrumors 68040
Mar 19, 2008
3,990
352
Warrington, UK
Hi, I've recently encountered the very same problem, but since it started happening both in Safari and Chrome, I'm afraid it's something IN THE COMPUTER, not on the browsers.
I start looking at video streaming sites... ya' know... tv series and stuff and after a few minutes the page I'm looking at gets redirected to an alert page saying that "my browser is not updated" and such. And that I should download stuff. Yeah, right, nice try.
Fact is, it's impossible to watch anything, now. Ok, YouTube, right... but you get my point. I want to fix the problem.
Any suggestions? I don't think it's just a browser issue...

Thanks...
Click to expand...
Read the post before yours. :D
 
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