Since 1.5 came out I have noticed that if you are surfing on a site, and reading a page, and then click on a page that has popups, just from clicking on text it will activate the popup.

I know this is not Mozilla or Firefox behavior, those browsers have never done something like this that I am aware, and I'm afraid something odd is going on with K-Meleon causing this issue.

Right now as of the date of this posting if you go to this site, and click on any of the text below the title, 'Charles takes a bite of Dracula country' you will cause a popup to appear.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article641451.ece

Ok I don't know what happened but the link I posted if I go to it and try clicking on any of the text I can't get the popup to appear again, so let me know if it's working for anyone else, maybe once it's seen me visit the site by a cookie it's not giving it to me again...

No pop-up for me.

This seems to be some sort of new hidden targeted adverizing skeem. I have had this occur with both KM 1.5a1 and 1.5.0 as well as IE6. I have only seen this occur while huvoring over text while moving the mouse which is very annoying. I immagine eventually some one (perhaps the KM Dev's) will develop a counter measure, then the advertisers will create an counter-counter measure. This kind thing just goes on and on while there is potential to make money.

Perhaps clearing the caches and cookies will help.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/23/2008 04:14PM by caktus.

KM 1.5 is the only browser I have seen this happen in.

I'll highlight and click on text and a popup appears, I'll just click on text, or there is a form to fill in info, and when clicking on this a popup will occur also.

Now that I think about it, I think this kind of advertising first came about shortly after the fly-in ads which fell by the wayside as they too were so anoying.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

This not happend to me in 1.5.

K-Meleon in Spanish

So is this some new way of popups or is there a bug with 1.5?

THANKS

I tried it and not happend this popup problem in my 1.5.

Can you reproduce it always, and in others browsers like Firefox and before K-Meleon versions?

K-Meleon in Spanish



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/25/2008 09:03PM by desga2.

Quote
desga2
I tried it and not happend this popup problem in my 1.5.

Can you reproduce it always, and in others browsers like Firefox and before K-Meleon versions?

I did not see this happen in Firefox, or any other browser, but I'm only using K-Meleon at the moment, and this happens all the time.

What Windows version are you using?
What special settings have modified in your K-Meleon?

K-Meleon in Spanish

Quote
desga2
What Windows version are you using?
What special settings have modified in your K-Meleon?

XP Pro SP2

I just installed 1.5 and started using it, I haven't touched anything in the settings.

I found a site that is causing these popups for me:

http://www.convertunits.com/from/km/to/miles

With your last url i can see the popup that you says.
But this happend also in Firefox2, but only the first time that you select text and click over it.

It's strange i clicked over popup blocker icon in status bar and reply NO to ask "Do you like show popups from this site?" and now i can't reproduce this problem.

K-Meleon in Spanish



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/27/2008 12:04PM by desga2.

charlie is right, it's a javascript hover-pop type.. usually used for advertising but sometimes for displaying quick tips or external links, they have been there for a while now.

i'm guessing the reason why some weren't able to reproduce it; is because adblockplus blocks them out and perhaps that's why you didn't get them in firefox if you have adblockplus installed there.

noscript will also remove them if you have the target site added.

Quote
disrupted
.....adblockplus.....noscript.....

I've found it amazing what these two can accomplish, once I figured out how to install them on KM.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

I never had adblocks installed on FF before.

Anyhow I went back to that conversion site and I'm still getting the popup.

By the way I adblock is for blocking 'Banner Ads, not popups, that's why it's called 'AD' block, ads are banners, and popups, well windows that POP UP!

Here's a screen shot of this damm popup again:

http://img139.imageshack.us/img139/8977/66419639zu4.jpg

I just tested FF 3.0.1 and it is not getting the popup, in FACT FF said it blocked the popup, and K-Meleon is not blocking it.

I thought K-Meleon blocked popups by default, and it's not doing a good job of it.

@ DasFox

How does a person use the imageshack site to store a jpg file? I think I uploaded one for this subject, but all I have received back so far is some dumb music service.

I tried the upload to Imageshack again and I think it worked this time.

When I go to the units conversion site that DasFox mentioned on 8/27 I don't see a popup until I leave. I did a right click on the link in this thread and opened in a new tab. When I clicked back on the first tab, this forum, I got a popup. This has happed twice so it is repeatable. This is how my screen looked when I returned to the first tab.

James, or anyone for that matter, just click in the KM box to do a conversion, or click on any of the text below the boxes and you'll get a popup, this does not happen on any other browser this is a bug in 1.5 causing this, BECAUSE this is a popup window and KM is suppose to block the popup and it's not.

All other browsers using a popup blocker will not get this popup...

When can we get this fixed please?

THANKS

Since the site mentions "Convert your car to run on water" about which I have done some reading, my first thought is SCAM-RUN LIKE HELL! But, it could just be a sloppy attempt at "helpful" advertising. But when it comes to my money I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Perhaps the site has placed a cookie on your system. Have you tried deleting cookies, temps, etc?
Have you thought about adding (http://www.convertunits.com) or the url of the popup page to your HOSTS file, or a cookie blocker if you have one (the free version of winpatrol has one plus some other helpful goodies.) I would even add the url to restricted sites and Adblock plus to see if that may help.

Update: Now I'm getting the damn thing!!
I just haaad to click on it! I've added the above url as well as (http://b.casalemedia.com, the url of the popup it self) to the things i've mentiond above and so far so good.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 08/29/2008 12:16AM by caktus.

i was finally able to regenerate those popups, i had to change some of my settings but in the end, it was a very educative experiment.

first, i disabled adblockplus but i still got nopops.. so i thought i'd disable popups in kmeleon, still no popups and then i thought maybe it was HOSTS that's blocking them out.. and indeed it was.. even though it doesn't make sense because HOSTS is supposed to only block the servers and has nothing to do with how the windows are called using javascript or else but it seems that those popups originate from the ad servers themselves and not from the visited site.. it's a very crafty script that all browsers just helplessly display the popup warning while the windows keep opening anyways.

i made a new empty hosts file and the popups kept popping everywhere however:

kmeleon without adblockplus and without hosts, successfully blocked the first popup that is called as soon as you enter the page, but the more sophisticated script that gets called when you type in the convert buffer was initiated.


ie6 was the most vulnerable(with scripting enabled) opened 2 popups immediately as the site was loading


opera opened one popup:


arora popped one but was immune to the input buffer:


sleipnir whatsit using the gecko engine opened 2 windows and behaved just like ie:


now to the interesting part, firehog without hosts and with adblockplus was immune to all popups including the input buffer one:


but when adblock was disabled, it became a popup frenzy and it wasn't able to block anything:

it just kept displaying the blocked warning without being able to block them.

conclusion:
1. kmeleon in fact has the best popup-block feature of all browsers tested, it was the only one immune to the intial windows popups(the ones the open right-away when you enter the site) but the input buffer popup is very crafty and browsers do not see it as a popup because it was called from a user's input(when you try to click or enter text) so browsers think you just clicked a link and the popup is legit.. which brings us to conclusion no. 2

2. arora, for some strange reason was immune to the input buffer.. the only browser at that.. arora is alpha and still quite raw, so i'm not sure if it actually has a smart pop-block.. or is it related to webkit in general, or is just lacking some function that made it immune and not recognise the window call.

3. it seems that adblockplus has better integration with firefox than it has with kmeleon, which may explain why you never got those popups with firefox or perhaps you have noscript installed there and not with kmeleon..

also, for some odd reason those popup windows were never able to load on my computers..i mean the pages remained blank without ads even though i had no hosts, i think i have some of the major ad sites in my proxy pac file redirecting them to bogus servers..also i have a freebsd machine working as a firewall i'm not sure if it has something to do with blocking those pages .. i'll have to look into that later

finally, it doesn't seem that there's any bug with km when it comes to popup blocking but it appears that when adblockplus is sufficient to block some crafty popups in firefox, kmeleon needs a combination of adblockplus and a good hosts file.

i've uploaded my hosts file if you need it.. with adblockplus, i gurantee you those popups are gone forever:

just save to
xp: c:\windows\system32\drivers\etc\
9x: c:\windows\

p.s. some adult/dating sites are blocked in this hosts file.

This is not a cookie issue, host file, or adblockplus, it's none of the above, why?

Because when I use FF 3.0.1 there are no cookie issues, I use FF the same way I use KM, cookies on, and deleted when I shut down. I also don't need to use a Hosts file for FF, so why would you think someone would need it for another browser? You don't... I also don't use adblockplus in FF, and as I mentioned before this is a 'POPUP' window, not an 'AD', the point of adblockplus is to BLOCK ads, not stop popups, that's why browsers have a feature of their own by default to block popups...

You can use a Hosts file to do what you are suggesting, but it is not the proper way to do this, afterall, how are you going to go around blocking everysite you run across?

Simply put in a nuttshell, KM is not blocking popups like it should, and I submitted a bug post on this in the forum bug section...

I believe what you are dealing with on this page is a "web bug" - also known as an invisible GIF. Actually, it is setting up quite a few javascripts to google-syndicated ad pages (and compiling a profile of your browser, cookies, history, etc,). Since you need the javascript to do the calculation, turning off javascripting defeats the purpose of visiting the web page. The following are a partial list of the agencies involved. I didn't include the the urls:

pagead2.googlesyndication.com
rmxads
cpxinteractive
ctxt.tribalfusion
expo9exponential
edge.quantserve.com
adrevolver
casalmedia
_gettracker
google_ad_

In my opinion there is no bug in K-M. You can defeat this kind of web bug by installing Ad Muncher. It is not free, but it will not break the bank either. It installs into Windows and works for all the browsers you have installed.

you're saying it's a bug in kmeleon that it couldn't block a popup when infact all those other browsers were not able to block them out either?
and kmeleon did block the popup ads..infact it was the only browser that successfully blocked all popups that generate when the site is visited.. it did not block the popup that gets called when you enter text in the convert buffer and that's not a bug because:
1. a browser is a program not AI, it can not tell if this is actually a popup or a link the user willingly clicked on
2. firefox also did not block that popup (if we're comparing geckos.. and discluding other browsers)

think of the input popup in this way: it's a link on the page and you clicked on it.. should the browser consider it a popup?

i don't know why you're not getting those popups in firefox .. but i suggest this, make a new profile in firefox with bare default settings..without noscript (and i know you have noscript installed in ff) and then check if those popups run.. i'm pretty certain that atleast the convert buffer popup will go through.

you don't have to block every site you go to in hosts.. i didn't update this hosts file in like 3 years and it still works effectively.. it blocked your popups and i didn't even know it was the one doing that.. there're certain big advertisers on the internet from where all ads originate.. once you add them to hosts..that's it, you don't have to worry about it anymore.

firefox4 out-of-the-box (no extensions, no plugins)

with hosts:


without hosts:


ff4 behaves exactly like kmeleon i.e. initial popups were blocked, input buffer popup was not.

update: arora doesn't block the input buffer due to smart popup-blocking. i checked the script and webkit doesn't understand it. it doesn't interpret it into a window call.

Quote
disrupted(unlogged)
i didn't update this hosts file in like 3 years and it still works

Same here. Yesterday after I started gettig hit with this popup, I edited the HOSTS file for the first time in quite a while.

And as for having to as many ad url's to the HOST file, I started bu downloading a pre-configured file from MVPS.org
and have never even updated until now. This Hosts file is 557KB so it helps to disable the DNS Client. From there, the file rarely needs to be touched.

If I am not mistaken, the HOSTS file is in play regardless the browser in use. Although some types of spy/adware are designed to maliciously edit or disable the HOSTS file. Though I have not seen this occur in a few years.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

FF blocks them, I said it does, and it does so on a fresh install of FF with no addons added, no ad blockers or anything.

FF sees these as popups and blocks them as simple as that.

There have been many styles of popup windows in the past, and this is just another style.

I thought KM was based on pretty much the same code as FF, so if FF can block these KM should too...

Other browsers block this but KM, that's why I'm calling it a bug, because if the other major browsers can handle it and KM can't then there must be an issue here...

The end-user doesn't need to configure or do anything, the KM developers just need to figure out the issue and deal with it...

Quote
DasFox
This is not a cookie issue, host file, or adblockplus

After clicking on it I too began getting the popup. However, after adding the the settings I mentioned in

"Posted by: caktus (IP Logged)
Date: August 28, 2008 11:22PM " above,

I no longer get hit with the popup. So, apparently one or more of these items are (is) in fact blocking it. And still, so far so good.

Charlie

~~If it ain't broke, why screw it up?~~

Quote
caktus

Quote
DasFox
This is not a cookie issue, host file, or adblockplus

After clicking on it I too began getting the popup. However, after adding the the settings I mentioned in

"Posted by: caktus (IP Logged)
Date: August 28, 2008 11:22PM " above,

I no longer get hit with the popup. So, apparently one or more of these items are (is) in fact blocking it. And still, so far so good.

Well we shouldn't have to make any changes, or edit anything, especially adding in URLs to the Hosts file...

Simply stated, the popup blocking is not working correctly.

http://www.dummysoftware.com/popupdummy_testpage.html

http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest1.html

http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest12.html

http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest2.html

http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest3.html

http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest14.html

http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest9.html

http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest11.html

http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest5.html