Anyone know how to adblock this crap?

The Hungarian Conspiracy

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Aug 10, 2009, 9:57:33 AM8/10/09

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I was browsing and came across this one site that snuck something past
ABP and popup blocking, some sort of overlay that covers most of the
page you're trying to read and makes it unreadable. It has some sort of
"skip this" on it, but when I do a google search and go to a hit I want
to read the actual content google found for me and not make extra mouse
clicks that for all I know will actually just load the advertiser's
page. I have a general policy of never clicking any part of a popup.

I couldn't find any external .js file to block with ABP to make it go
away, and view source turned up the culprit code. Apparently they've
stuck the script for this crap in each page's html, separately, to
defeat easy adblocking of it:

So, any clue how to block this sort of crap, short of disabling JS? I
already tried ABPing
http://www.nowpublic.com/sites/all/modules/np_htmlbox/np_htmlbox.css
which had no effect -- either the crap doesn't depend on loading that to
do its dirty work of rendering the page unreadable, or else ABP doesn't
work on things loaded by script.

The obvious line of attack is to find out where "Drupal.extend" is being
loaded from and block that, but there's no clue here as to its source.
Web searches indicate it would normally be loaded by a file named
"drupal.js" but this site has cleverly renamed it to make it harder for
people annoyed by their popup to block it.

I think though that what's really needed is a Firefox feature that
allows suppressing of all popup-like effects, no matter how achieved.
Not just true popups, but ANY attempt via Javascript to simulate one by
generating a page element that overlaps page content instead of being in
its own flowed-around bounding area. (These are often worse. A true
popup has a close box you can trust, as it's browser/OS UI instead of
supplied by the advertiser, and can also be sent to the back of the
window stack. These pseudo-popups have neither property and make the
page they're on unreadable unless you take a gamble on clicking the
advertiser-supplied close box, which as likely as not just sends you to
the advertiser's site -- and the surest way the advertiser can maximize
click-throughs and thus revenue is to make it do exactly that.)

--
Scheming to take over the world since 1979.

Ralph Fox

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Aug 12, 2009, 6:55:30 AM8/12/09

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On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:57:33 +0000 (UTC), in message <Xns9C6365...@94.75.244.51>
The Hungarian Conspiracy <no...@spam.is.bad.com> wrote:

> I think though that what's really needed is a Firefox feature that
> allows suppressing of all popup-like effects, no matter how achieved.
> Not just true popups, but ANY attempt via Javascript to simulate one by
> generating a page element that overlaps page content instead of being in
> its own flowed-around bounding area.

A pull-down menu on an HTML page is also a page element that overlaps

page content instead of being in its own flowed-around bounding area.

For an example, see http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
This page has its own menu bar
Products Add-ons Support Community About
When you hold your mouse over that menu bar for 3/4 of a second,
it is Javascript which causes the pop-down menus to appear.

--
Regards
Ralph

The Hungarian Conspiracy

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Aug 12, 2009, 12:41:08 PM8/12/09

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Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid> wrote in netscape.public.mozilla.browser:

The difference is, it doesn't do it automatically on page load and it
cancels if you move the mouse away from it.

Ralph Fox

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Aug 15, 2009, 12:24:29 AM8/15/09

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On Wed, 12 Aug 2009 16:41:08 +0000 (UTC), in message <Xns9C6581...@94.75.244.51>

The Hungarian Conspiracy <no...@spam.is.bad.com> wrote:

> Ralph Fox <-rf-nz-@-.invalid> wrote in netscape.public.mozilla.browser:
>
>> On Mon, 10 Aug 2009 13:57:33 +0000 (UTC), in message
>> <Xns9C6365...@94.75.244.51> The Hungarian Conspiracy
>> <no...@spam.is.bad.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I think though that what's really needed is a Firefox feature that
>>> allows suppressing of all popup-like effects, no matter how achieved.
>>> Not just true popups, but ANY attempt via Javascript to simulate one
>>> by generating a page element that overlaps page content instead of
>>> being in its own flowed-around bounding area.
>>
>> A pull-down menu on an HTML page is also a page element that overlaps
>> page content instead of being in its own flowed-around bounding area.
>>
>>
>> For an example, see http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
>> This page has its own menu bar
>> Products Add-ons Support Community About
>> When you hold your mouse over that menu bar for 3/4 of a second,
>> it is Javascript which causes the pop-down menus to appear.
>
> The difference is, it doesn't do it automatically on page load and it
> cancels if you move the mouse away from it.

A. If you are asking just for the one site which you named, then
use a web filtering proxy such as one of the following, to
modify the HTML as it is downloaded and to remove the script.

Proxomitron .... http://www.sankey.ws/proxomitron.html
Privoxy ........ http://www.privoxy.org/
BFilter ........ http://bfilter.sourceforge.net/

B. If yours is a more generic request, then your latest post
adds new conditions which you did not state before.

In addition, your latest statement now differs from many other
similar-looking requests. These other requests do want to
remove popup-like effects which do not appear automatically on
page load and which can be made to disappear by moving the
mouse.
Example request: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.support.firefox/browse_frm/thread/32ea586d7d91a957
Example site: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc04615a-8858-11de-82e4-00144feabdc0.html

If yours is the more generic request, can I suggest that you
identify and articulate all these conditions up front. The
biggest cause of software projects not meeting expectations is
that the requirements are not defined and articulated up front.

--
Regards
Ralph

"A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine."