Pop-ups and pop-unders
A window only opens when a real click asked for one. Everything else is refused before the page's own code runs.
FUTURE HISTORY LABS_ PROJECT 01 / WORKING BETAFREE POP-UP BLOCKER / NO ACCOUNT_
NOT IN
THIS HOUSE.
A free pop-up blocker for people who watch everything in a browser. It stops the window you did not ask for, and the invisible link over the play button that opens one anyway.
FREE. 45 KB. NO ACCOUNT. NO SIGN-UP. WORKING BETA, INSTALLED IN FIVE STEPS BELOW.
++++
FREE FOREVER / 001
FREE FOREVER / 001POP-UPS ✦POP-UNDERS ✦CLICK TRAPS ✦DIALOG SPAM ✦DRIVE-BY DOWNLOADS ✦BACK-BUTTON TRAPS ✦CONSENT BANNERS ✦POP-UPS ✦POP-UNDERS ✦CLICK TRAPS ✦DIALOG SPAM ✦DRIVE-BY DOWNLOADS ✦BACK-BUTTON TRAPS ✦CONSENT BANNERS ✦
DON'T TAKE OUR WORD_
Run the torture test.
Every trick a pop-under script uses, in one page, with no ad networks and nothing to install. Run it now and watch what your browser does on its own. Install Mut0mb0, come back, and run it again. The page keeps score.
WHAT IT STOPS_
Six kinds of
interruption.
Every one of them is something that gets between a person and what they came to watch. Nothing else is in scope.
Click traps over the player
The invisible link stretched across the video, so your first click on play opens an ad instead. It gets stripped on sight.
Dialog spam
Two alert boxes every ten seconds, then silence. The run of twelve you have to click out of one by one stops being possible.
Drive-by downloads
An installer or script a page starts on its own gets cancelled, with one click to allow it if you actually wanted it.
Back-button traps
The page that stuffs your history so the back button never leaves. Capped at a dozen entries every two seconds.
Consent banners
Reject gets clicked when a reject button exists. When there is none, the banner is hidden and nothing is clicked. Never accepted for you.
HOW IT HOLDS_
Three ideas do
most of the work.
No secret list of sites, no rules to keep up to date, nothing that expires. It works on pages nobody has ever seen.
One window per real click
A trusted click or keypress grants exactly one credit. Opening a window spends it. That single rule is most of a pop-up blocker, and almost nothing else needs to be guessed at.
A refusal hands back a decoy
Pop-under scripts check what they got back. When it is nothing, they redirect the tab you were watching instead, which is worse than the pop-up. Mut0mb0 returns a stand-in that absorbs everything, so the script believes it won and moves on.
The trap is usually not a pop-up
On most video pages the damage is a transparent link over the player, not a window at all. Mut0mb0 looks for links that cover the video, sit on a layer above it, and cannot be seen.
INSTALL IT_
Five steps,
about a minute.
Mut0mb0 is not in the Chrome Web Store yet, so this is the manual route. It is the same install a developer uses, and it works today.
- STEP 01Download and unzip it
You get a folder called mut0mb0. Put it somewhere you will not delete by accident, like your Documents folder.
- STEP 02Open your extensions page
Paste
chrome://extensionsinto the address bar and press return. On Edge it isedge://extensionsinstead. - STEP 03Turn on Developer mode
The switch is in the top right corner. This is what lets a browser run an extension that is not from a store yet.
- STEP 04Choose Load unpacked
A button appears on the left. Click it and select the mut0mb0 folder you unzipped.
- STEP 05Pin it to the toolbar
Click the puzzle piece next to the address bar and pin Mut0mb0. The icon shows a running count of what it stopped today.
FREE. 45 KB. NO ACCOUNT. NO SIGN-UP. WORKING BETA, INSTALLED IN FIVE STEPS BELOW.
What it collects
Nothing. Counters, settings and trusted sites live in your browser's own storage. No analytics, no telemetry, no account, no identifier, and no list of what you watched.
Mut0mb0 has to be allowed to run on any page, because a pop-up can come from any page. It reads nothing and it sends nothing.
WHERE IT IS_
- NOWWorking beta, installed by handAVAILABLE
- NEXTTested against the worst pages on the open webIN PROGRESS
- THENChrome Web Store, one-click installSUBMISSION PENDING
- AFTEREdge add-ons, then a Firefox portON THE ROADMAP
THE ENGINE IS PROVEN AGAINST THE TORTURE TEST. THE REAL-WORLD PASS IS STILL BEING RUN. THAT IS WHY THIS SAYS BETA AND NOT FINISHED.
JOIN THE TRANSMISSION_