295559 - There should be a Preferences item and method to block IntelliTXT popups

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Michael C. Berch]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X Mach-O; en-US; rv:1.7.8) Gecko/20050511 Firefox/1.0.4

There is an intrusive ad-serving technology called "IntelliTXT", from the vendor
Vibrant Media.  It is explained (partially) at the URL 

http://www.vibrantmedia.com/whatisIntelliTXT.asp

and appears to be based on JavaScript. It generates popup mini-windows similar
to so-called "ToolTips" but containing advertising.  Based on Mozilla/FF's
policy of providing tools for users to control the browsing experience, and
considering that FF provides a Preferences item and implementation of popup
blocking, this is a request for user-preference-based IntelliTXT blocking. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Select a web page with IntelliTXT, like (for example):
http://www.drugs.com/PDR/Ocean_Nasal_Spray.html
2. On that page, mouse over the green, double-underlined word "Sodium". 
3. A popup ad appears. 

Actual Results:  
A popup ad for some herb vendor appears. 

Expected Results:  
There should be a method, based on user preference, of suppressing the popup ad
(as popup blocking is provided in FF preferences). 

Possible related issue, <a
href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=270441">BugID 270441</a>

Comment 1

[Steve England [:stevee]]

*** Bug 295560 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 2

[José Jeria]

This sounds like extension material

Comment 3

[zug_treno]

See bug 283976 for a workaround with the Adblock extension.

Comment 4

[José Jeria]

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 283976 ***

Comment 5

[José Jeria]

Sorry, i just realized this is an enhancment for the preferences, reopening to
let others decide its fate

Comment 6

[Michael C. Berch]

Thank you, this was definitely intended as a RFE for Preferences.

Philosophically, though, an argument can be made that this belongs in the
Adblock extension (or other content-management extension) rather than the browser. 

Comment 7

[scratch]

try this:
user_pref("capability.policy.default.Window.itxtInited", "noAccess");

Comment 8

[Scott]

Along with the one mengtioned, you can add these as a block for it.  It doesn';t
disable the links but stops the popup.  This won't be full proof since they have
already made a couple of variations on the ID.  These are the two others I found
as well.

user_pref("capability.policy.default.Window.iTTT", "noAccess");
user_pref("capability.policy.default.Window.iTt", "noAccess");

Comment 9

[Robert Claypool]

The links are generated by a javascript that seems to always come from a site specified as so: hostsite.CountryId.intellitxt.com There is a checkbox for enable Javascript, but there is no way to create exceptions for specific sites. The Advanced tab disables certain javascript features for all sites. BTW Hardware and OS should be changed to "All"

Comment 10

[Scott]

Perhaps I may suggest an option that says, do not allow javascript to run from a specific location.  This would be similar to the cookies, except we could add the site "*.intellitxt.com" or "intellitxt.com" to a no-run list so that the javascript would not be downloaded or ran from this site.  Also the item could also be made to simple not allow any content whatsoever to be ran from this site; kinda like a black list of a sort that the user could configure in the preferences.

If we ignore this, then it won't be long before other intrusive people start doing he same thing with javascript and the adblocker will be useless.

I also suggest the ability in this feature to block shockwave files that are downloaded as well from ad servers.

Comment 11

[Steve England [:stevee]]

*** Bug 326952 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 12

[Jesse Ruderman]

*** Bug 349124 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 13

[Samuel Sidler (old account; do not CC)]

Confirming as a valid RFE. Recommend WONTFIX. This is really the job of extensions.

Comment 14

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Agree with comment 13 - this isn't something that we're going to add to Firefox.