Monday, March 22, 2010

Pop-up blocker

This document explains all of the settings available in Mozilla Firefox for controlling pop-ups.

Table Of Contents


What are Pop-ups?

Pop-up windows, or pop-ups, are windows that appear automatically without your permission. They vary in size but usually don't cover the whole screen. Some pop-ups open on top of the current Firefox window, while others appear underneath Firefox (pop-unders).
Firefox allows you to control both pop-ups and popunders through the Content panel in the Preferences window. Pop-up blocking is turned on by default, so you don't have to worry about enabling it to prevent pop-ups from appearing in Firefox.
When blocking a pop-up, Firefox displays an information bar, as well as an icon in the status bar.


When you click either the Preferences button in the information bar or the icon in the status bar, a menu is displayed with the following choices:
Blocking pop-ups may interfere with some websites: Some websites, including some banking sites, use pop-ups for important features. Blocking all pop-ups disables such features. To allow specific websites to use pop-ups, while blocking all others, you can add specific websites to the list of allowed sites. Blocking pop-ups doesn't always work: Although Firefox blocks most pop-ups, some websites may show pop-ups using uncovered methods, even when blocked.

Pop-up Blocker Preferences

To access the Pop-up Blocker settings:
  1. On the menu bar, click on the Firefox menu, and select Preferences....
  2. Select the Content panel.
In the content panel:
  • Block pop-up windows: De-select this preference to disable the pop-up blocker altogether.
  • Exceptions: This is a list of sites that you want to allow to display pop-ups.

    The dialog has the following choices:
    • Allow: Click this to add a website to the exceptions list.
    • Remove Site: Click this to remove a website from the exceptions list.
    • Remove All Sites: Click this to remove all of the websites in the exceptions list.
Note: Blocking pop-ups may not always work and may interfere with some websites. For more information about blocking pop-ups, see What are Pop-ups.

Pop-ups not being blocked

Is the pop-up coming from Firefox?

The pop-up may not actually be coming from Firefox. You can determine where the pop-up is coming from by the icons it has and the title at the top.
  • A Firefox icon and "Mozilla Firefox" in the title: keep reading below.
  • Everything else: you may have malware on your computer that causes the pop-ups. Scan your computer for viruses and spyware.

Is the pop-up blocker on and enabled for this site?

  1. On the menu bar, click on the Firefox menu, and select Preferences....
  2. Select the Content panel.
  3. Make sure the Block pop-up windows checkbox is checked.
  4. To the right of Block pop-up windows, click the Exceptions... button. A dialog will appear that shows all the sites that are allowed to show pop-ups.
  5. If the site that's opening pop-ups is in the list, select it and press Remove Site.
  6. Close the Allowed Sites - Pop-ups window.
  7. Close the preferences window.

Is the pop-up shown after a mouse click or a key press?

Certain events, such as clicking or pressing a key, can spawn pop-ups regardless of if the pop-up blocker is on. This is so that Firefox doesn't block pop-ups that websites need to work.

Is it a true pop-up window?

Sometimes ads are designed to look like windows, but really aren't. Firefox's pop-up blocker can't stop these ads.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)