I seem to be getting these annoying "your computer may be infected with adware/spware" popups from firefox lately. I have the popup blocker enabled and no allowed sites.

Anyone else getting popups in firefox or is it just me?

I believe I got that once (it had a black background with white text), but pop-up blockers aren't perfect, so I ignored it.

it may not be firefox, it may just be actual spyware, have you run a check?

I know the ad you're talking about. It's one of those trick ads. The one that looks like it's a windows alert type thingy so you click it, but it's just an advertisment. I'm guessing it just got past the ad blocker? You might want to run ad-aware to be sure though

I've been getting that lately too. Don't know how it could be spyware, I just reformatted the computer recently and was getting them the same day, within minutes of installing Firefox.

i've got it too. it only comes up on certain sites tho, not all of them.

I just switched from IE today,but I know what you're talking about.

One thing you can do to check if it is an ad or a Windows alert is to put your mouse over it. If your cursor turns to a hand no matter where you put it, it is a trick ad and clicking anywhere will lead you to the site advertised, however if you don't get a hand it's not an ad.

Is it possible that the Mozilla corporation is allowing people to pay them to advertize their sites as popups o.O?

One thing you can do to check if it is an ad or a Windows alert is to put your mouse over it. If your cursor turns to a hand no matter where you put it, it is a trick ad and clicking anywhere will lead you to the site advertised, however if you don't get a hand it's not an ad.
you don't even have to do that much... if it has a title bar then you know it's a pop up.

Is it possible that the Mozilla corporation is allowing people to pay them to advertize their sites as popups o.O?
No, that's not it.

If you check the MozillaZine (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=221068) forums (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=220377) or even BugZilla (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=253831), you'll see it's been noticed (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=220441) by quite a few (http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=220836). It's just spammers trying harder to sneak around the popup blocker. For instance:
They're using a script to launch a 1pixel x 1 pixel Flash "movie" which then launches the popup. Firefox can't block the popups launched through Flash, so you'll have to disable Flash or javascript, or try using adblock to filter them.

It seems it can be controlled by adding these ad sites (i.e. fastclick.net) to your blocked list in AdBlock (http://adblock.mozdev.org/) & cookie management in the Options menu, though blocking unnecessary cookies & known adservers in Adblock are just good habits to get into anyway.

Nice info zetsubou :)

I know the ad you're talking about. It's one of those trick ads. The one that looks like it's a windows alert type thingy so you click it, but it's just an advertisment. I'm guessing it just got past the ad blocker? You might want to run ad-aware to be sure though

yeah, i often get them aswell. they aren't a pop-up, just a layer on a webpage like those ads that geocities has. That's why they get past the pop-up blocker :)

I wouldn't worry about them that much, just click the X in it, that's atleast what i always do :)

Love,
Mirna

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=220836
^Places are getting smarter to get around pop up blockers.

I wouldn't worry about them that much, just click the X in it, that's atleast what i always do :)


Sometimes even the X is a link though. If that is true, try refreshing the page.
:)