Steve Reporter
	Description • 9 years ago

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:41.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/41.0
Build ID: 20151014143721

Steps to reproduce:

Years ago we put a popup blocker in Netscape. 
There is still a setting to block popup windows, and that has changed the world, there are no more popup windows, at least done by miscreants for evil purposes. 

They are no longer used since everyone has them blocked. 

Now, we have modal windows instead, where the screen goes gray and a window appears asking you to subscribe, or something. Enter an email, anything. 

It's obnoxious. 
We need a popup blocker to block these, to change the world. Like we did before. 

These are blockable with adblock plus. But each site seems to need individual treatment.  We need a better solution. 

Here's a web developer discussing this in light of web traffic and conversions, which is the whole reason for these: 
http://mattkorostoff.com/article/popup-ads-are-back

Here's a discussion. 
http://superuser.com/questions/433613/how-to-disable-javascript-modal-popup-ads

Here's the search term I used to research this issue. 
https://www.google.com/search?q=block+modal+windows&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8



Actual results:

Javascript modal windows block the screen. Block the content I came for, and require me to close them.  
At least I *can* close them.  Mostly. 


Expected results:

These should be able to be banned in a setting so web developers would stop using them like they did popup windows years ago. 

This is a request for enhancement.

	Steve Reporter
	Comment 1 • 9 years ago

Has everyone noticed how much worse this has gotten in the last couple months? The reason is because this type of popup is easy to program and when the screen goes gray the user has no choice but to interact with the popup. 

I just had a blaring video play in the background, while the screen was gray and the popup was in front. 
I couldn't close it quickly enough. 
I am sure there is no problem verifying this, since you can't really surf the web without encountering these. So unconfirmed is pretty silly. 

This should be prioritized. So here you go, advocacy.  Everyone else who advocates the same, please weigh in on this one, and lets get the popup blocker enhanced to address this so developers will stop using them, like they did with the old popups.

	Justin Dolske [:Dolske]
	Comment 2 • 9 years ago

We don't currently have plans to block these (other than, perhaps, what might happen as a side effect of Tracking Protection). You should used Adblock, as you've already noted, or prefer sites that don't use this annoyance.

The original popup blocking only targeted popup windows (actual browser windows). Those have a clear demarcation line (window.open), and were the result of websites using a browser feature in an extremely annoying way. Javascript dialogs (window.alert and friends) are tab-modal in Firefox, you can close/navigate the tab without interacting with the dialog.

Many sites are still using interstitial dialogs -- but it's pure website content and a design decision on their part. There's no clear way for browsers to block that (other than duplicating what AdBlock does).

	Steve Reporter
	Comment 3 • 9 years ago

And I have tried to use adblock plus on this, but I have not been successful. I read their forums, and as far as I can tell this would be domain specific.  

So adblockplus would not work. It would result in the user having to analyze the window and figure out what has to be blocked for each domain.  You could do that every day and you would never be done. 

If the smart guys can't address this can you give me a setting in about:config that will just quash modal windows?  I can't see one but that doesn't mean there isn't something.  That's all pretty complicated. 

If there is a way to put a setting, that would be the preferable solution. If enough people like that setting websites will stop using them.

	Steve Reporter
	Comment 4 • 9 years ago

Do you notice all the sites that have a window popup in the middle, website in the back grayed out? Sign up for our emails, take this poll.  It's everywhere and more every day. 

We do need to be able to block this. Can anyone suggest a setting to block these modal windows?  Adblockplus cannot do it, I have been using it but it seems to be domain specific.