Has anyone else started seeing more popups in the Firefox browsing experience? Over the past month or so, I have seen an alarming increase in the number of pop-under ads that have appeared while using Firefox. It seems that the marketing nere-do-wells have noted that Firefox does allow plugins to launch popups in an unimpeded fashion. Consequently, a lot of ingenious marketeers have launced their nefarious payloads in seemingly inocuous Flash or Java apps. When a Firefox browser comes along, the popup is launched through an already “approved” extension.
Well, Asa Dotzler and the folks at the Mozilla foundation are working on improvements to the popup blocker. While there is little “new” code in the beta patch, it seems that the Mozilla folks saw this one coming and had a patch already in the offing (and code alredy latent in previous distros). If you are interested in the gory details, go check out Asa’s weblog. But if you are a trusting soul, you can download a signed patch from the Mozilla team.
Happy hunting!
-CyclingRoo-