How to block those "gray out" web popups

[Red Squirrel]

Not exactly windows specific but not sure where else to put this. This is a Firefox question.

I am getting fed up of these stupid "gray outs" that so many sites seem to have now, it will gray out the page and block you from doing anything until you X out of it. It's like a popup but is part of the same website.

Is there an extension, or even something at my gateway I can do to completely irradiate all forms of these things? It is impossible to research anything online without these stupid things coming in my face for every search result. It seems like these things are a fad now. Worse is the ones that are delayed.

Noscript would probably work, but then half of today's terribly coded sites wont even load altogether without having to allow like 30 URLs so I spend more time fiddling with that then actually viewing the site.

Any way to completely block this crap?

 

[lxskllr]

The only thing I'm aware of is NoScript. It's a little work, but worth it for the security/privacy. Once you get a good blacklist setup, picking out the essential parts of websites will become easier to choose.

 

[MongGrel]

Yeah, I use NoScript myself.

Can be a pain but it works.

+1

 

[code65536]

+1 for NoScript.

Also, DOM Inspector is awesome. There are some sites that have the gray disabling overlay coded in directly (i.e., not added in by a script) or if the site is one I can't disable JS without breaking too much, and if there isn't a way to close it (if it's a site that asks you to register/pay and won't take no for an answer), then that's when I fire up the DOM Inspector and delete the gray disabling DIV right out of the document hierarchy.

 

[Morbus]

I use Firebug, cause I'm a web dev, and whenever some site obscures the content with some element, I just press F12 and delete the element.

I like to think that's incredibly cool, but it's just nerdy as frack. It works for me 100% of the time.

It's a temporary fix, of course, but if a site obscures the content with that crap, I don't come back anyway.

 

[lxskllr]

I use Firebug, cause I'm a web dev, and whenever some site obscures the content with some element, I just press F12 and delete the element.

I like to think that's incredibly cool, but it's just nerdy as frack. It works for me 100% of the time.

It's a temporary fix, of course, but if a site obscures the content with that crap, I don't come back anyway.

If it was a site you wanted to regularly visit, you could probably block the element with Stylish.

 

[Morbus]

If it was a site you wanted to regularly visit, you could probably block the element with Stylish.

Yeah, I use that too, of course, but that will require you to know some very basic CSS, and that might be a bit harder than hiding an element.

And truth be told, gray outs or not, pretty much all the websites I regularly visit are tweaked one way or another with stylish and greasemonkey.

Benefits of being a web developer

 

[manko]

Element Hiding Helper for Adblock makes it easy to block most of these popup overlays.

 

[FeuerFrei]

I think that's just the way Firefox handles your average modal Javascript dialog these days. I'd say it helps the user understand he has to address the prompt before interacting with the webpage behind.

[URL="javascript:alert('Surprise!');"]javascript:alert('Surprise!');[/URL]

hey who put <b> tags in my url?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Actually is there a way to download white/blacklists for noscript? If I could whitelist known good sites by default it would sure make things easier. Would also be nice to white/black list specific types of javascript, can it go down to that level?

 

[pyonir]

You wouldn't need a blacklist for noscript since everything is blocked by default (except for a few automatically whitelisted sites, like google).

I'm not sure what you mean by whitelist known good sites by default. The first time you visit a site, you whitelist it by allowing the scripts on that site...and as long as you don't choose to only temporarily allow that script/site it'll stay whitelisted for as long as you have that profile and/or noscript installed (or you remove it from the whitelist).

I can't answer your question about specific types of JS. I don't know. Why not install it and play around with it? I'm sure if there is a way to do what you want, it's already been discussed here: http://forums.informaction.com/viewforum.php?f=3

or the guys there would help you figure it out if it's possible.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Well I meant more of a white list. If I install no script I need to spend the next months constantly adding sites, is there a white list I can download so common well trusted sites are allowed be default? What I hate about noscript is that browsing the internet suddenly becomes a huge chore because each site that I load I need to figure out what to white list.

I had it before, and uninstalled it, it was just too much work. I'm looking for something that will be more automated, maybe uses some kind of AI to block specific scripting that does not serve any good purpose.

 

[lxskllr]

I "trust" very few sites, and have a very small whitelist due to convenience. Anything can turn malicious, so I prefer to browse with as few scripts as possible. I've been slowly adding to my blacklist as the mood strikes, so that removes some of the clutter when I'm deciding which scripts to temporarily allow.

Sometimes I choose to not view a page. The sites with the most scripts tend to have the most frivolous content, so exiting out is better for the brain. It's more work, but I'm used to it, and get the benefit of faster browsing. Some sites don't need scripts at all, or only for functionality I seldom use. When I want that functionality, I can temporarily allow scripts.

 

[pyonir]

Well...good luck. I guess unless someone has some magic program you have to decide if it's worth working with noscript or dealing with the "popups". To me, it's worth it to use noscript.

After about the first week or two of browsing with a fresh install, I rarely touch noscript.