Safari pop-up blocker doesn't work?

[d.aneaston666]

I often find a random safari window showing some advert or something and have worked out that it's imdb.com - go there and browse and it craftily opens a window behind the active one.

Does that mean my pop-up blocker doesn't work?

 

[Makosuke]

Well, it's not just Safari--Camino, which is Gecko-based (though I don't know if it uses Firefox's popup blocking system) also generates popups on IMDB. Of course, in its case the popup code keeps dropping the main window behind other open ones, which is fantastically annoying.

I'm not going to dig into the code, but I assume it's doing some more advanced trick with the pop-behinds to bypass blockers. They're not foolproof--after all, there is usually an "ok" way to open a popup in direct response to a click. Maybe IMDB is opening the popup in direct response to the click, then subsequently redirecting the original window and trying to bring it to the front.

And actually, ironically, just yesterday I had Safari being overly draconian blocking popups without warning to the point it broke a legitimate site that was trying to open appropriate popups.

 

[Jethryn Freyman]

Popup blockers aren't 100% effective. Sites can use javascript to open them, often when you click on a link. Firefox with the NoScript addon stops this.

 

[PeteB]

The popup blocker with Firefox has a safelist of sites that can be confgured to allow popups to appear.

I can't see anything similar for Safari, but I guess the same thing must be happening.

 

[yashrg]

There is this plugin called better popup blocker that works to block popups. Unfortunately also breaks a couple of things on sites.
http://optimalcycling.com/other-projects/better-pop-up-blocker/

 

[jhakam]

Popup

It appears that cookies are being used to get around Safari's popup blocker. If you go to Safari Preferences/Security/show cookies, you will find a list of all of the cookies on your machine. The first thing to try is to type in popup in the cookie search window. If anything shows up I would delete all of it. If you know or have a clue as to who is creating that popup, then I would search on that name and delete it also.

I was noticing that MacKeeper was creating popups even though I had the popup blocker turned on. When I deleted their cookie the popup's stopped.

 

[tug]

in with keeping this old thread alive, you need this;


http://safariadblock.com/


works perfectly in lion, i never see any ads on any site i visit.

 

[GGJstudios]

I was noticing that MacKeeper was creating popups even though I had the popup blocker turned on. When I deleted their cookie the popup's stopped.

I recommend you uninstall the MacKeeper garbageware if you have it installed. You don't need it. You really don't need "cleaner" or "maintenance" apps to keep your Mac running well, and some of these apps can do more harm than good. Most only remove files/folders or unused languages or architectures, which does nothing more than free up some drive space. It will not make your Mac run faster or more efficiently, since having stuff stored on a drive does not impact performance, unless you're running out of drive space.

Mac OS X does a good job of taking care of itself, without the need for 3rd party software.