Internet advertising is vital for blogs, forums and sites of all kinds, because otherwise they would have no source of income for the work done and for the content offered. While the presence of banners is definitely tolerable, what makes you nervous is invasive advertising that disturbs browsing and reading a website, viewing a streaming video or downloading a file.
In this article we see how to block all pop-ups and automatic redirects on websites, leaving the user the possibility to enable them only for some sites, where the pop-up box instead is needed (for example file hosting sites).
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1) How to recognize dangerous pop-ups and automatic redirects
In fact, many sites (to increase earnings) place advertising pop-ups or worse than automatic redirects, where you just have to click anywhere on the page to open a new browser tab automatically; the latter are definitely the worst, because they often hide redirects to dangerous pages (full of viruses) and of dubious morality complete with a warning message of the browser in the foreground (which prevents the closure or the change of tab until you reply, but its rapid reappearance brings us into a sort of infinite loop).
Blocking pop-ups is decidedly simple, while for redirects it could be slightly more complicated, since they still use legitimate browser features.
In any case we will show you both the systems to block this type of invasive advertising on Chrome and Firefox using the tools made available by the browsers themselves and the extensions that we can use for the purpose.
2) How to protect yourself from pop-ups and redirects on Chrome and Firefox
In Chrome you can activate the pop-up blocker by going to the Settings menu (three dots at the top right) -> Advanced -> Content settings -> Pop-ups and redirects and ensuring that the check mark on the right is not selected (i.e. the lock is active).
This option does not work well in blocking the popups and redirects generated by Javascript (i.e. 95% of the contents of this type).
On Firefox we can protect ourselves from pop-ups and redirects by clicking on the three horizontal lines at the top right and opening the Options -> Privacy and security menu and make sure that the item Block pop-up windows is active.
Again the block is quite light and pop-ups and redirects generated by JavaScript can escape.
3) Advanced protection
To better protect ourselves from pop-ups and redirects, we will have to make some changes to browsers, so as to prevent the appearance of redirects and warning windows (which allow us at least to immediately close any eventual tab suddenly opened by a wild redirect).
On Google Chrome simply type in the address bar chrome: // flags to open the advanced settings menu.
Once inside this menu we look for the enable-framebusting-needs-sameorigin-or-usergesture item, click on the Default item and select the Enabled item.
We restart the browser as suggested in the bar below to make the changes effective.
If we use Mozilla Firefox as a browser to surf the Internet, we type in the address bar about: config to access the advanced settings menu, then we look for the entry accessibility.block autorefresh and click on it to change the value from False to True .
Now just restart the browser to make the changes made to the Mozilla browser effective.
4) Extensions to block pop-ups and redirects
To have a full and effective block in any situation we must install an extension on our browser.
On Google Chrome we can install Pop up blocker, available as an extension from here -> Pop up blocker .
The extension blocks pop-ups and redirects on all sites preventing them from appearing and warns the user when this happens directly on the extension icon.
If the block concerns a function of the site or web application and it is not advertising, you can press the button of the extension and put that site among the exceptions, allowing popups to appear.
For example, on Navigaweb.net there are no advertising pop-ups, but the extensions block the sharing boxes that appear by pressing the Facebook and Twitter buttons at the bottom of the article.
To share articles on Navigaweb.net or other sites with the same setting, just add them to the whitelist.
The block can also prevent the print or download buttons of the files thus giving protection that, in some cases, does not allow lawful operations to be enabled manually.
This extension is perfect instead with the terrible popups of streaming sites, where with a simple click of a mouse we ruin the browsing experience on our PC.
On Mozilla Firefox the only truly effective extension is Popup Blocker, available for download from here -> Popup Blocker .
By installing this extension we will block any tPopup or window that appears above the site.
If a site is reliable and safe, it should immediately be included in the list of exceptions managed by the extension (by clicking on the TRUSTED symbol in the extension window) so as not to have to click on it every time to provide permissions.
With dangerous sites or sites of dubious morality, however, the extension behaves very well, blocking all pop-ups and redirects before they can appear.
We can also temporarily disable the extension for a single tab or for the entire browser for a limited period of time, so as to have more control over legitimate pages.
Finally, to browse the Fire Stick TV by blocking pop-ups that can disturb the viewing of videos on some sites, you can use Amazon's excellent Silk browser
If you are interested in testing new blocks on Chrome and Firefox without waiting to visit a "annoying" page, just use this test page -> Automatic test redirects .
