All pop ups being blocked

Question

All pop ups being blocked

I have run into an odd situation. Normally, people WANT to block pop ups from appearing, but I have a site where if a link is clicked, a pop up window is supposed to appear (so this is a requested pop up). Under these conditions, even with Pop Up Blockers turned on (whether it be Safari or FireFox), this window is supposed to open. Normally, this works just fine.

I have heard of a few cases where people click on this link, and no window opens, in ANY web browser. This problem does not seem to happen to just Safari, but the same issue has been seen in FireFox and IE, also.

I'm suspecting that either something is corrupt with the Mac OS, or there is a third party program which is preventing all pop ups from appearing, even if they are requested.

Could Norton Utilities cause this problem? Has anyone heard of any other utilities? From what I've heard, there are no tool bars installed (Google, Yahoo tool bars, etc.), but I could be wrong.

400 MHz Gigabit G4 PowerMac, Mac OS X (10.4.5), 1088 MB RAM, JBL Creature, 15" Apple Display

Posted on May 1, 2006 1:29 PM

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Answer 1

May 1, 2006 3:10 PM in response to Chad Armstrong

Hello Chad:

I am not directly answering your question, but if you have Norton Utilities installed on your system, TRASH it now!

NU is a DISASTER for Macs running OS X. Symantec has dropped NU support for macs almost two years ago. I (and many others) were clobbered by NU. The stuf is invasive and causes real problems. If you want to get rid of it, go to Symantec's web site and use the uninstaller there (the one on the CD does not work, so I understand).

After you do that, run repair disk from yoru software install DVD.

Barry

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Answer 2

Tom Graves

Level 7

20,615 points

May 1, 2006 5:42 PM in response to Chad Armstrong

Popup blockers are not perfect and sometimes ones you want are blocked, although this happens less as blockers have improved. With such a site, you either need to toggle popup blocking off by either pressing Command-K or by going to Safari > Block Pop-up Windows. Another alternative would be to install the shareware enhancer PithHelmet which will let you set preferences on a site-by site basis.

At least one browser, OmniWeb, has the ability to set page-specific preferences built in. I have not really paid attention to see which other browsers have or do not have this feature.

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Answer 3

May 2, 2006 8:06 AM in response to Tom Graves

Yes, but the odd thing here is that this problem does not seem specific to any one particular browser. The issue is affecting all browsers we've tested. One person had this problem on one Mac, but another Mac was just fine. Odd...

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Answer 4

Tom Graves

Level 7

20,615 points

May 2, 2006 8:09 AM in response to Chad Armstrong

Is this problem happening with a particular site? If so, can you give us the address so we can take a look?

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Answer 5

May 2, 2006 11:13 AM in response to Tom Graves

I believe one place a user was having problems was on www.creatas.com. When the 'Sign In' link is clicked, a login window should appear. A few people have reported that this will not open, under any browser.

If I remember correctly, they also went to other sites with pop ups (like cnn.com), and nothing appeared, when a pop up window generally appears asking for a user's preference.

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Answer 6

Tom Graves

Level 7

20,615 points

May 2, 2006 11:28 AM in response to Chad Armstrong

With http://www.creatas.com/ I am getting the sign-in popup using Firefox, OmniWeb and Safari. Popup blocking is enabled in all three browsers. I don't recall having problems with CNN, but I don't use it very much.

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Answer 7

May 2, 2006 12:09 PM in response to Tom Graves

Thanks for checking. This is normally not an issue, but I have heard of a few cases where the pop ups are not appearing at all, whether the browser is blocking general pop ups or not. I'm still suspecting some other application is the root of the problem.

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Answer 8

Tom Graves

Level 7

20,615 points

May 2, 2006 12:21 PM in response to Chad Armstrong

Do you now of an sites directly? Third-party reports can be unreliable if only because we don't have all the information needed to check something out.

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Answer 9

May 2, 2006 1:51 PM in response to Tom Graves

I found the application Norton Privacy Control, which comes with the Norton Internet Security package, and this "Blocks JavaScript pop-ups as well as other types of Web ads". This might be what is causing the problem. I'll have to check into this.

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