Website requiring email address to access site - popups with no close option - I hate them!!

There seems to be more and more sites using a pop-up page where they offer "discounts" or savings and they request an email address on this pop-up. There used to always be a little "X" of "close" link somewhere on the popup where you could continue into the site, or maybe you could click a link that says something to the effect "I don't want to sign up for great discounts or savings - enter the site", but more and more, there isn't any option other than entering an email address AND accepting the cookies it places in the browser.

Now some of you will say "get an ad blocker" well I've tried about 8 different ones along with other plugins that work on a deeper level and they don't get around this on many sites. The only way to do it w/o giving an email address is to know some web programming and go into the "inspect element" and knowing what element to delete and even then it's maybe 20-40% chance of it working and it may hamper the use of the site in some way. The thing about the inspect element is that it can be used to access pay sites like newspapers/media sites that have a subscription popup - it allows you to remove the popup and see the content! Yaaaa!

So these sites that request the email address with the popup don't have a close link anywhere (I've looked at the coding of many of them) and it seems ridiculous when it is a commerce site where I'm just trying to see if they have the product I want. These aren't little no-name sites either, some are larger "national" (whatever that means these days) stores that are doing this. I refuse to use any site that does this or makes it very difficult to access the site.

Do these sites really think they aren't making people angry by doing this? By giving your email you will inevitably get flooded with advertisements and then have to go through steps to remove yourself from mailing lists (which can be a major PITA on some sites, some are easy though..). There really should be a law similar to physical mail that restricts sending any bulk email unless a customer SPECIFICALLY signs up for them through it's own process, not an "add on clause" when submitting an email to access a site.

I ignore them.

Whenever sites have pop ups or redirects to giveaways I just close the browser and never look back.
0 tolerance for that bullsnip.

I just use uBlock Origin, right click on the annoying popup and select Block Element, make sure it's got the entire thing (it will highlight) and poof, it's gone. And unless they have random element ID's it will stay gone.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I hear you and it gets extremely annoying. We all pay to have internet service and cable/satellite service. Consumers should have a right not to have their services interrupted or be expected to disclose our email, only to get our mailbox inundated with spam.

Today consumers are being taken advantage more than anytime in history. Years ago, we had 2 minutes of commercials now we have 5 minutes worth! Like you said, we used to have annoying pop up ads we could easily "X" out of. Now we're forced to watch them and no way to "X" out of them! Where is the consumer's right to privacy in their own home?? If consumers solicited their interests in retail stores and other businesses, we would be arrested for trespassing or pay a fee to advertise in their businesses.

As always, our representatives in congress could care less about the privacy of it's citizens.

originally posted by: musicismagic
I ignore them.

Kind of like the body of the OP? The whole point is that for many sites YOU CAN'T ignore them. There is no option to access the site, no way to close the pop-up, nothing. Even going to a sub-page on the site gives you the popup. If you don't have the cookie, you get the popup no matter what, with no option of closing it.

Let's see you ignore the popup if you can't use the site at all.

originally posted by: SummerRain
I just use uBlock Origin, right click on the annoying popup and select Block Element, make sure it's got the entire thing (it will highlight) and poof, it's gone. And unless they have random element ID's it will stay gone.

I'm not sure if I've used that plugin but I've found some sites that have beaten all the ad-block apps I've tried. The element seems to be integrated into the site where i've gotten either a blank screen afterwards or a 403 after deleting the element. These sites aren't as prevalent and many seem to not use this yet, but if this "tech" spreads, then people are going to find ad-blockers not working like they used to which is going to be a major PITA.

originally posted by: SummerRain
I just use uBlock Origin, right click on the annoying popup and select Block Element, make sure it's got the entire thing (it will highlight) and poof, it's gone. And unless they have random element ID's it will stay gone.

You seem knowledgeable about IT from what I've seen in other threads, maybe you can tell me what you think about this, as I can't explain it at all and I've had this happen on at least 5-6 sites in the last 2-3 months.

Something odd I just found on a national appliance retailer site, I couldn't close the pop-up. No close box or "X", deleting element didn't work, nothing - so I decided to close the tab. After reading some replies I decided to look at the page again and this time, NOTHING there. No popup nothing. I tried 3 browsers and it wasn't on any of them. Now that is strange.

I am wondering if some of these pop-ups are some kind of hacking attack, something like a MITM/phishing combo. The popups do have the company name on them so they look "legit" but I guess they could be a malicious injection of some type, which would give reason to why there is no "opt out", no "X" or close link and no way to enter the site. That would make sense that there was no other way to access the site either. If the Ad-block wasn't working and the delete element as well, that seems to leave few other options than some kind of malicious attack from a 3rd party vector.

I would think that it would be fairly easy to make a malicious pop-up that had the retailers fonts/colors/banner/etc but was being injected from an outside source, possibly even spoofing the source IP so it looks like it is coming from the retailers IP. This might be why the normal route of inspect/delete element isn't working.

I've also found that I get a pop-up that doesn't go away, no close option, reloading page doesn't work, deleting element doesn't work (and disables site), but if I close the browser window and come back maybe 10 mins later, there is no pop-up - using the same browser. That to me doesn't seem like normal behavior for popups and to me seems like some kind of malicious attack.

What do you think?

originally posted by: WeRpeons
a reply to: DigginFoTroof

I hear you and it gets extremely annoying. We all pay to have internet service and cable/satellite service. Consumers should have a right not to have their services interrupted or be expected to disclose our email, only to get our mailbox inundated with spam.

Today consumers are being taken advantage more than anytime in history. Years ago, we had 2 minutes of commercials now we have 5 minutes worth! Like you said, we used to have annoying pop up ads we could easily "X" out of. Now we're forced to watch them and no way to "X" out of them! Where is the consumer's right to privacy in their own home?? If consumers solicited their interests in retail stores and other businesses, we would be arrested for trespassing or pay a fee to advertise in their businesses.

As always, our representatives in congress could care less about the privacy of it's citizens.

Seems Youtube doesn't want to listen to its customer base any longer. Something new will come along, like it always does.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Aren't you in the tech industry? Write some js or good old f12 dev tools.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

What you're describing sounds malicious in nature.

The popups are likely infecting your computer with malware, trojan horses, worms, etc. or at worst, using your computer/phone's unused processing power to mine for blockchain currency. The mining is often associated with the popups that are hard to close because they want to use as much of your power as they can.

Also, those third-party popup programs are often rife with security vulnerabilities and subject to MITM attacks among others.

a reply to: DigginFoTroof

Yep... block element should work and btw I'm fed up with these pop-ups too. I've got 2 ad-blockers on my browser, they do their best but the odd one does still get through.

A lot of free sites offering to watch tv free have these pop ups all over them... as if that will make the person trying to access the tv all happy.

Annoying as hell.

a reply to: wtfatta

Don't they need to install something onto your comp to lay trojans or malware?? So that's only if you allow access to install or download whatever. . At least that's what i think happens, they can install onto your browser maybe

I keep a special email [email protected] for just such an occasion. Having your own domain with unlimited emails makes this a non-issue.

Note: my domain.com is not my domain and is used for example only.

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

With PHP, and to a lesser extent JavaScript, all they need to do is get you to run the script which you have when the popup loads.

The more nefarious crackers (there's a huge difference between hackers and crackers) will actually write a php script into an image so that when the image loads, a script is automatically run.

As most images are cached into your temp internet files on your device, the file already exists in your file system thus making it easier for crackers to do what they want.

There are preventive measures put in place by the OS and browser to overcome known vulnerabilities, but, as with everything, if someone built it, someone else will find the weak point and break it.

I need to stress again to everyone that there is a huge difference between crackers and hackers.

Hackers look for vulnerabilities just to test their skills. Malice doesn't enter into it. Often times a hacker will inform their targets of the vulnerabilities and how to correct them which often leads to a job with said victim.

A cracker is someone who wants your credit card numbers, personal info, install viruses, use your system to mine blockchains and generally cause havoc.

a reply to: wtfatta

ok, thanks for that info. I do get a message in yellow come up telling me that a script is trying to load on the page, do i want to wait or close it? I usually ignore those or just hit 'wait' and that message then goes away, that's most often on sites like daily mail or facebook. Sites which should be trustworthy with their ads and scripts! Sites I visit which aren't secure, I don't run those scripts!

a reply to: TruthxIsxInxThexMist

It depends on the site, and there are several things that can cause a program to freeze. Often times on those larger sites, it's due to a cache problem or scripts that needed to run in a certain order where one is stuck waiting for information that can't be processed until the other script runs but that cant run until the first script finishes. On "safe" sites, those "Page has become unresponsive" warnings are usually solved with a force refresh (CTRL+SHIFT+R or COMMAND+SHIFT+R for Mac). I use quotes because nothing is ever truly safe. If someone wants in or just wants to mess your day up, they will find a way.

Mobile is a different beast.

On smaller unsafe sites and definitely on popups, you should close it immediately and if that's not possible, shut the browser down and run a virus scan. There are several good free ones available for both desktop and mobile though if you find your device is slowing down or the battery is draining quickly you can disable it. I often have mine off unless I need it and just run with the default system protections, but that's because I have a number of other tricks to deal with pesky people.

My suggestion is to put linux on everything you can. It's the best of both apple/mac, android and PC plus it's free and community supported so the people who love to hack are actively keeping themselves, and by extension you, safe from crackers.

a reply to: wtfatta

I also use ad blockers which prevent pages from loading quickly so it's damned if you do and a damned if you don't scenario, they can also interfere with scripts!

But yeah, I'm pretty well stacked in protection online browsing and have also just installed avast anti-virus to run alongside windows defender.

originally posted by: TruthxIsxInxThexMist
a reply to: wtfatta

...it's damned if you do and a damned if you don't scenario...

Lol my thoughts exactly