I hate pop-up ads. That’s pretty ironic isn’t it? Who better than me to understand the value of advertising. After all, my salary is paid by advertising. Yet there is something smarmy about pop-up and pop-under ads. Maybe it’s the fact they somewhat hidden – or their origin is hidden. It’s like dialing a phone number and then when someone answers, hanging up.
Whatever the case I have been a pop-up stopper since the Google toolbar came along. Then, when Microsoft introduced pop up controls in Internet Explorer, I went with that. Now that most of my browsing is done with Firefox, I let it stop the pops.
Nearly everything had been going along fine¹ until a few weeks ago. All of a sudden pop-ups were back. This is not to say they’re there in the same numbers as before, but the camel’s nose is in the tent. That’s not good.
At the moment, I think I have them under control again. I downloaded an ‘extension ‘ for Firefox called Adblock. With it, I can exclude all sorts of sites that serve up the advertisements.
I’m afraid web surfers and advertisers are currently facing a weapons escalation not unlike the US and Soviet Union facing off during the cold war. Both will continue to fortify their positions until one side gives up.
I hope that’s not me I’m talking about.
¹ – Even when all the other pop-ups had been stopped, Drudge had found a way to fool the browsers. I often wondered what he knew that no one else did.