Monday, February 21, 2005

pop-up advertisers have finally defeated the pop-up blocking functionality found in many browsers. The Return Of The Pop-Up Ad. SYFer writes "Shortly after upgrading my Macs to OS X 10.3.8, I noticed that I was getting pop-up ads on Safari. It had been so long since I'd seen a pop-up, I completely forgotten how annoying they can be. I went over to Apple's Support site to see if there was a relationship, but learned that the timing is just a coincidence (even though there's a lot of the usual FUD and flailing of arms in the discussion forums). In fact, it turns out that the pop-up advertisers (what's the proper denigrating term here?) have finally defeated the pop-up blocking functionality found in many browsers. MacFixIt is running a front page article on the topic and says 'Contrary to initial reports, this problem isn't limited to Safari; subsequent reports have noted pop-under ads victimizing a number of browsers that provide pop-up-blocking features, including the latest versions of Safari, FireFox, Mozilla, OmniWeb, and Camino.'" [Slashdot] [Privacy Digest: Privacy News (Civil Rights, Encryption, Free Speech, Cryptography)] I've just started to see popups making it through from certain sites in Firefox, although the AdBlock extension has thus far removed the ads, leaving just empty popups. The Slashdot discussion includes various tips on how to deal with these ever more insidious ads. 5:12:38 PM    comment () Cabir mobile virus found in U.S... Cabir mobile virus found in U.S.. Virus appeared in two phones in a Southern California shop window, possibly infected via Bluetooth wireless. [CNET News.com] [Privacy Digest: Privacy News (Civil Rights, Encryption, Free Speech, Cryptography)] Part of my job at Symantec is providing configuration management support for our wireless products group, which develops software for (among other things) virus protection on Symbian-based phones from Nokia. 5:02:30 PM    comment ()

© Copyright 2006 Ken Hagler. Last update: 2/15/2006; 2:04:41 PM.