in Firefox, how can I prevent new tabs from being opened automatically?

Question

I've had webpages that would repeatedly spawn new tabs with various ads, each using a lot of memory due to the flash player plugin. once in a while Skype would do it too, when it opens the browser to display an add(which happens every so often, not sure if those are still in rotation today but they were a couple days ago) and that adpage would also exhibit this browser based forkbomb. I don't want to disable Javascript completely, so noscript or turning off the JS feature would be a bit extreme. is there a way to prevent new tabs and windows from being opened like this?

Solution

Adblock Plus has been around since 2006 and is reliable for blocking all kinds of nastiness. I use it with the subscriptions

• EasyList
• EasyPrivacy
• Fanboy’s Social Blocking List

Comments

[and31415]

There's a privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins setting in about:config which can help preventing plug-ins from opening unrequested windows/tabs. Did you try tweaking it already?

[ZCoder]

ABP does not seem to help this problem. it doesn't stop popups from desktop applications, nor does it stop the particular JS based popup ads I'm plagued with. I use it, but it only blocks banner and sidebar ads.