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why is the pop-up blocker not working at all now?

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and furthermore, I see that almost all the question threads asking about this have been closed. I've downloaded the suggested add-on, but my question is ..what changed? Firefox was the best at blocking popups but now it's as if the popup blocker is nonexistant. I have not changed settings, but popups started becomming increasingly abundant, I have checked and unchecked and rebooted with no improvement. It's not an occasional popup ad, literally every third click I make (even within one window) causes some popup ad to appear....I've counted. Has something happened to firefox or have the ad guys just gotten smarter about going around popup blockers in firefox? Either way, PLEASE FIX THIS. Otherwise, why have the option of checking a popup blocker in Options? Thanks!

and furthermore, I see that almost all the question threads asking about this have been closed. I've downloaded the suggested add-on, but my question is ..what changed? Firefox was the best at blocking popups but now it's as if the popup blocker is nonexistant. I have not changed settings, but popups started becomming increasingly abundant, I have checked and unchecked and rebooted with no improvement. It's not an occasional popup ad, literally every third click I make (even within one window) causes some popup ad to appear....I've counted. Has something happened to firefox or have the ad guys just gotten smarter about going around popup blockers in firefox? Either way, PLEASE FIX THIS. Otherwise, why have the option of checking a popup blocker in Options? Thanks!

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Thank you for your help. Your suggestions did lead me to discover items in the control panel that I didn't put there....extra and annoying toolbars, etc. I have removed them and now I'm not getting the extra windows popping up with ads like I had been. Thanks again!!

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All Replies (20)

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hello, this sounds like a problem possibly caused by malware on your pc. please go to firefox > addons > extensions & remove any suspicious entries (toolbars, things that you have not installed intentionally, don't know what purpose they serve, etc). also go to the windows control panel / programs and remove all toolbars or potentially unwanted software from there and run a full scan of your system with the security software that you have in place and different other tools like the free version of malwarebytes & adwcleaner.

Remove a toolbar that has taken over your Firefox search or home page Troubleshoot Firefox issues caused by malware

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Firefox's built-in popup blocker looks for a specific thing, which is a new window generated by a script in the page that isn't in response to an action you took (such as clicking a link or button). There are many others ways that a new window, or an overlay in the page, could be opened that doesn't count as a pop-up. If you describe the type of popups you're seeing in more detail, I think you could get some additional suggestions for solutions.

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Chosen Solution

Thank you for your help. Your suggestions did lead me to discover items in the control panel that I didn't put there....extra and annoying toolbars, etc. I have removed them and now I'm not getting the extra windows popping up with ads like I had been. Thanks again!!

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I have checked my extensions and all that are there are one I wanted, AVG Toolbar, Morning Coffee, and Norton. There is one disabled Addon for CitiBank Virtual Card Number, but it is disabled.

I still get that problem.

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Hi wsgross, what kind of pop-ups, overlays, or other annoyance are you getting, and is it site-specific or on all sites?

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It's a mix of not wanted stuff. As I came back to this site, one from "filesonar.com" popped up. There was a dialog box "RECOMMENDED BROWSER In Order to improve your web experience, please install this free recommended browser. CLICK OK TO CONTINUE.

I removed and reinstalled Firefox as part of the process. Oh, wait a moment. I had just installed a Severe weather notification widgit. I happened to notice at the very bottom of the Popup "This ad served by Severe Weather Alerts. Click Here to learn more."

I think I'll uninstall "Severe Weather Alerts" to see what happens.

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So far so good.

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I shredded severe weather alerts. No change.

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Hi maxxmayhem, what kind of pop-ups, overlays, or other annoyance are you getting, and is it site-specific or on all sites?

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It was the severe weather alert one. After some more thorough digging, I found a few instances of the program in my user file, and all user file, as well as registry entries and deleted them all, along with "conduit" which seems to be connected with these. Problem solved.

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I haven't done anything to catch any ad-ware in a download. Only updated Firefox - guess what? Every stinking time I try to set the marker somewhere to either click or type - I get a POP-UP! It's all from games to banking to health to UPDATE FIREFOX! No - I don't have any unwanted Add-Ons and I have all blockers settings staying put to block everything but still - I'm INVADED! I have run scans and fixes for everything in the book and what hasn't been written yet - and nothing helps. I used to LOVE Mozilla for how well their blocker worked, and now it's none existent. SAD. What to do to fix it?

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@Mimmitroll, please open a new question and include your troubleshooting information, thank you!

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I noted in small print at the bottom of one of the pop ups that it was "provided by severe weather" free version. That was the clue verifying the source. I uninstalled (not shredded) the severe weather routine and no more pop-up problems.

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Please note that many of my popups are for Firefox or java updates - which I know are not needed. oh... and my arrest record. I did find a game arcade .exe which I disabled and am now removing and I'm going back in to check for strange tool bars. For those of you angry at Firefox, this has always been the best and most secure browser on the net. It is only in the last couple of months that this has been an issue.

Modified by BottomTime

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BottomTime wrote Please note that many of my popups are for Firefox or java updates - which I know are not needed.

I hope you are not suggesting that the Firefox and Java updates are not needed. Holding back on Firefox updates completely is bad thing to do. https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html

You may as well uninstall Java if you are not going to keep it up to date and are not really using it as even the current versions are potentially vulnerable.

Modified by James

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The thing that bollocked firefox was the "severe weather" application. When I deleted that little darlin' everything ran fine.

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That was not at all my suggestion. Only that my browser and java are completely up to date so there is no need for these "reminders" which I know are false.

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well I have removed everything - spotify, readers digest, yahoo tool bar, google tool bar and I'm still getting pop ups, and a thorough Norton scan. The only left to do is a good malware/adware scrubbing then possibly a Norton deep scrub. *sigh*

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I'm so sorry to hear that you have this problem now.. I honestly got RID of mine! This is what I did: First I ran through the "RegCure" and had that take care of all none needed stuff, and then I ran a "AdAware" that found 3 different Ad-cookie Trojans that it quarantined and took away. After that I restarted the machine and ran the Norton Full System Scan (Took me about 8 hrs to do) and since that - no more annoying "Pop-Up's" whenever I click on something on the screen.. Try it - AdWare2 is the most common "thief" in this, and it target certain browsers and pages to affect. All the removal mumbo jumbo about AdWare2 does NOT work.. If you happen to loose any component needed for the Mozilla - just do an update of version and you are good to go again.. Hope this helps!

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Hi BottomTime, when do you get the pop-ups: Randomly? Initial start-up? When you launch a new window or new tab?

Could you also check your connection settings? By default, Firefox will piggyback on your IE connection settings on Windows.

orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced > Network mini-tab > "Settings" button

I'd try "No proxy" and see whether that makes a difference.

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