Block pop-up video

[solomod]

Several sites - such as the Daily Mail UK newspaper - display a pop-up running video when clicking on a link and displaying in a new tab. I find it very irritating but despite searching the net and trying various solutions nothing seems to stop these pop-ups. I also run Malwarebytes Premium.

I have just installed Browser Guard - I wonder if it is possible for Browser Guard to kill these video pup-ups.

David Solomon

[exile360]

Greetings,

Unfortunately unless the pop-ups happen to be ads or are hosted on blocked servers they probably won't be blocked by Malwarebytes Browser Guard, however you are more than welcome to try visiting the site with Malwarebytes Browser Guard enabled to see if it makes any difference.

With that said, I have seen some browser extensions designed to block things like persistent pop-ups and auto-playing videos on websites, however having tried several myself I can tell you first-hand that they seldom work very well, at least based on the sites I've tried to have them block similar videos on.

There is another option however, and that would be to use something that allows selectively blocking individual content on the websites you visit such as uBlock Origin or Adblock Plus, both of which should have this capability (in fact I use uBlock Origin myself and just tested it on the site you mentioned and I was able to create a rule to block videos from playing on the site, though I'm not sure that it worked for all of their videos and it might only block for individual videos or videos hosted on particular servers and they possibly use several meaning you may need to block multiple videos for it to finally block all of them.  I couldn't find a way to generically block all videos on the site, but perhaps if I got more creative I might be able to find a more robust solution (such as blocking all of their video streaming servers via HOSTS file entries or custom IP block entries in the Windows Firewall), however since I don't really frequent news sites and I don't live in the UK I don't really have a need to go to all that trouble, but perhaps this information might help you in finding your own custom solution.

I'm sorry that I couldn't be more helpful, but I hope that at least some of the information and suggestions I provided will prove useful to you somehow.

[solomod]

Thank you very much for your reply - it seems to me we will probably have to wait until the video pop-up  becomes unpopular. I used to visit the Daily Mail site for a bit of light entertainment but I don't bother now. So perhaps lack of clicks will eventually signal their demise.

I have just visited the Daily Mail site and Browser Guard blocked 64 trackers etc which is more than Privacy Badger - my previous adblocker - at 29. But then - we don't pay for these sites so they have to pay for them somehow. And they are employing some very clever programmers.

Many thanks and enjoy the day. I live in France and it's pouring down.

David

[exile360]

You're welcome, I'm sorry that I couldn't be of more help to you.

Yes, I suspect that given how popular ad blockers and privacy extensions are becoming, that it is only a matter of time before websites begin to use different tactics rather than relying strictly on ad revenue and visitor data collection.  In fact, even Google, one of the worst offenders when it comes to mass data collection, tracking, targeted advertising and social manipulation is preparing to provide a means to better obfuscate browser traffic in order to protect users' privacy on the web; and as the article I linked mentions, so is Mozilla, the makers of Firefox.  That is not to say that I necessarily trust Google of all entities to cease their bad habits since after all that is how they generate the vast majority of their revenue and traffic, but at least it is a step in the right direction and a sign that these companies and browser makers are paying attention to the public outcry for better privacy on the net.