Pop-up ad
Online Advertising
Pop-up ad
Popup generators | Hover Ads
Dozens of pop-up ads cover a desktop.Pop-up ads are a form of online
advertising on the
World Wide Web intended to increase
web
traffic or capture email addresses. It works when certain web sites open a
new web
browser window to display
advertisements. The pop-up window containing an advertisement is usually
generated by
JavaScript,
but can be generated by other means as well.
A variation on the pop-up window is the pop-under advertisement. This
opens a new browser window, behind the active window. Pop-unders interrupt the
user less, but are not seen until the desired windows are closed, making it more
difficult for the user to determine which Web site opened them.
Background
For early advertising-supported web sites,
banner ads
were sufficient revenue generators, but in the wake of the
dot
com crash, prices paid for banner advertising clickthroughs decreased and
many vendors began to investigate more effective advertising methods. Pop-up ads
by their nature are difficult to ignore or overlook, and are claimed to be more
effective than static banner ads. Pop-ups have a much higher click rate than
web banner
ads do (about every 14,000th popup ad is clicked on).
Pornographic web sites are among the most common users of pop-up ads. Some
particularly vicious types of pop-up ads (again, most often seen in connection
with adult entertainment sites) appear to have either been programmed improperly
or have been specifically designed to "hijack" a user's Internet session. These
forms of pop-ups sometimes spawn multiple windows, and as each window is closed
by the user it activates code that spawns another window -- sometimes
indefinitely. This is sometimes referred to by users as a "Java trap", "spam
cascade" or "Pop-up Hell" among other names. Usually the only way to stop this
is to close the browser.
Another variation of pop-up, commonly called "mousetrapping", particularly
fills an entire screen with an ad or Web page, in the process removing any menu
bars or other on-screen icons by which the user can close the window. This
problem mainly affects users of the Windows version of Internet Explorer. Often,
access to other open windows and Web pages is denied. One way for PC users to
close these ad windows is via the control-alt-delete command, which can result in all active IE windows
(including those not connected to the pop-up) closing, and another way to close
the mousetrapping window could be to hold down the Alt button and press F4 to
close the active window. Another variant, a "static image ad", is a pop-up ad
that stays in a fixed position of a window of an ad-supported program. This kind
of ad does not distract the computer's concentration of a program window like a
traditional popup ad does. One example of an ad-supported program that uses a
static image ad is
KaZaA.
Non-browser pop-up ads
Processes other than the Web browser can also display pop-up ads, or can
direct the browser to display them. Many
spyware
programs do this, as well as some
advertising-supported software, although the line between the two is
sometimes thin.
A different sort of pop-up ad can be sent via the Messenger service in
Microsoft's Windows operating system. These pop-ups appear as Windows dialog
boxes with a textual message inside, usually directing the user to a Web site.
Claims have been made that this type of pop-up has been used to commit
extortion. Threats of legal action against the company D Squared Solutions has caused them
to stop using this technique.
Pop-up blocking
Opera was the first major browser to incorporate popup-blocking tools; the
Mozilla browser later improved on this by blocking only popups generated as the
page loads. In the early 2000s, all major web browsers except Internet Explorer
(then the most popular browser and still as of 2006) allowed the user to block
unwanted pop-ups almost completely. In 2004, Microsoft released Windows XP SP2, which added pop-up blocking to Internet Explorer. Many
users, however, remain unaware of this ability, or else choose not to use it.
Many others are not able to use it at all, as they do not use Windows XP SP2,
but older versions of Windows. Some users install non-Microsoft ad-blocking
software instead.
Most modern browsers come with pop-up blocking tools; third-party tools tend
to include other features such as
ad
filtering.
Browsers that block pop-up ads
The pop-up blocker included with Internet Explorer 6.0 SP2
America Online 9.0
Avant Browser
Crazy Browser
Enigma Browser
Gecko-based browsers
K-Meleon
Mozilla
Mozilla Firefox
Netscape 7 & 8
Camino
Galeon
Epiphany
SeaMonkey
Internet Explorer (with Windows XP Service Pack 2)
OmniWeb
Opera
Maxthon
Netcaptor
Safari
Slim Browser
Smart Bro
Konqueror
Add-on programs that block pop-up ads
Google Toolbar
Yahoo! Toolbar
MSN Toolbar
KillAd -- freeware
NoAds -- freeware
Super Ad Blocker
Pop-up Stopper
Pop-Up Sentry!
Proxomitron
Bayden Systems Popup Blocker
Problems with pop-up blockers and non-advertising 'pop-ups'
Cyworld
is one of the largest Korean communities on the web, with approximately 11
million users. Each user has a home page, pre-designed and the same size, but
customizable. The home page itself, however, is technically a pop-up as it is
less than the size of a typical browser window (a so-called mini hompy,
or miniature home page). After Windows XP SP2 was released, there was a flurry
of activity as Cyworld changed its front page to explain to its 11 million users
(nearly a quarter of the population) how to get past the pop-up blocker.
Circumventing pop-up blockers
Advertisers continually seek ways to circumvent such restrictions. Many of
the latest pop-ups are created using
Flash and have extensive animation and trickery; others use DHTML to appear
in front of the browser screen.
A form of advertisement that combines elements of a pop-up and
web banner
is a
Flash animation superimposed over a webpage in a transparent layer. The flash
animation links to the advertiser's site or product. This is a new form of
advertisement, created in response to the growing popularity of pop-up blockers.
Because the advertisement is an embedded flash object, it can be blocked, but
with more difficulty, as most programs would view it as part of the content of
the page. Methods of removing these are by using CSS, or third-party extensions
such as Adblock.
On the other hand, the so called
Hover Ads
or DHTML pop-ups are based primarily on the JavaScript browser capabilities.
Certain
popup generators utilize JavaScript code that creates DOM object elements
organized in a system that uses CSS and mostly the position attribute, but not
solely, to produce emulative behaviors and visual effects resembling windows
with chrome, content and other attributes and effects unavailable for the old
fashioned and blockable popups. This technology and approach of creating popups
seems to be hardest to block, as it is a fluent part of the browser's HTML and
DHTML content. A way of blocking hover ads is by disabling JavaScript of the
browser, but this action leads to crippling the browser and is unacceptable.
External Links/Sources:
See also
References
External links
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Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.
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