Web Advertisement in 2011: JavaScript Popups

By Xah Lee. Date:

has anyone noticed? The ads are getting much worse in the past year. Now, when you go to major sites, for example, time mag, washington post, etc, they have JavaScript based pop-ups that cover your screen for 5 or more seconds.

remember pop-ups? in ~2000 to ~2008, pop-up are real pop-ups, of a little window in front of your window. Then, browsers started to have features to prevent that, lead by Firefox and followed by everyone else. These pop-ups are frowned-upon by the industry.

but now, the JavaScript based screen-covering ads. For one, it is technically near-impossible to prevent. For two, i think there is much less hostility towards them then as with pop-ups. I don't seem to have seen any complaints about these ads. Why's that? perhaps people got the idea that there's nothing really free. But also, i think Google, which is the major company that sell ads with a no-evil halo, seems to have sold us the idea that ads are ok.