Uh oh... ZoneAlarm's adblocking feature

[feeblethorp]

When I place ZoneAlarms ad-blocking feature on "High" (which blocks banner ads), thumbnails do not show (except for the latest addition to an album). When ZoneAlarm is set at "Medium" (blocks animated ads) of course they display correctly:

http://letterheadfonts.com/gallery/index.php

I noticed the Coppermine demo located on this site does not have this problem with ZoneAlarm.

This leads me to believe one of the changes I made in modifying the script has lead to this conflict. I have attempted to replace all files with the default files one at a time, but that doesn't alleviate the problem.

I know this sounds silly, but does anyone know of something located in one of the scripts that I might have eliminated or changed that would cause ZoneAlarm to behave this way?

Guesses and theories are welcome.

Thanks,
--Bob

[Joachim Müller]

try to determine if it's your modified theme's fault or possible changes to the coppermine core code you did by browsing your page with another theme selected, e.g. http://letterheadfonts.com/gallery/index.php?theme=eyeball
Can't tell you more, since I don't use Zonealarm. Another suggestion is to disable blocking of banner adds in Zonealarm (there's some sort of "advanced config" in Zonealarm if I remember this correctly) and get a pop-up blocker as separate add-in for your browser (the most recent google toolbar has such a pop-up blocker as well as many other browser-extensions).

[off topic]
I used to recommend personal firewalls a while ago to end users, but I have changed my mind on this, as they cause more problems than they solve imo. They also lure users in a false feeling of "safety": there is nothing like a "real" firewall (in hardware, usually very expensive and difficult to administer, only recommended for company admins) - although recently, many companies have introduced budget equipment for home users with firewall functionality (like dsl routers or cable modems with "sort-of" firewall/stealth configurations) - this is what I recommend using instead of "personal firewall" software like Zonealarm, especially since you seem to be a "power user".
[/off topic]

GauGau

[feeblethorp]

Okay, the issue was with this a modification I made to theme.php. Per this suggestion:
http://forum.coppermine-gallery.net/index.php?topic=3958&highlight=seperate+window

I changed this:
<a href="{LINK_TGT}">{THUMB}<br /></a>

to this:
<a href="{LINK_TGT}" target="_blank">{THUMB}<br /></a>

ZoneAlarm didn't like that and detected it as a banner popup. This might be helpful to someone else attempting this modification. If you want people using ZoneAlarm with adblocking on "High" (which most do I bet) to see your images-- don't do the above mod.

--Bob

[Joachim Müller]

The thread you're refering to actually is not a "mod", but just an answer to someone requesting scripting help...

epsilon, who originally posted the feature request you're refering to is actually running an "adult site" (porn), where having endless pop-ups is quite common. My guess is that by requesting this feature (new window) he wanted to force surfers to disable their pop-up blockers to be able to browse his gallery; this way he's able to server his pop-up ads as well.

Generally speaking it's not a good idea imo to have links pop up in new windows - usually users know how to do "right-click" - "open link in new window" if they actually want a new window, so it's not a good idea to fiddle with a link target at all.

For site owners with "clean" content (like yours), new windows should not be an option, you'll lose visitors instead of binding them to your page imo, so the removal because of third-party software like "Zonealarm" only comes as coincidence.

GauGau