JavaScript Popup Blocker for Chrome takes care of popups on sites like LiveTV

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The majority of modern web browsers come with popup blockers that take care of several common types of popups that you may run into on the Internet.

You may encounter sites and services that use different techniques to spawn popup windows in the browser that are not blocked by the default popup blocking mechanics.

One basic example are popups that are launched as soon as you click anywhere on the site.

These popups are usually created using JavaScript and while browser extensions such as NoScriptmay help as they prevent JavaScript from being run by default, they may also limit the site's functionality at the same time.

JavaScript Popup Blocker

Chrome users can install the JavaScript Popup Blocker extension which adds advanced popup blocking capabilities to the web browser. While there is no guarantee that it will take care of all popups that you may run into on the Internet, it takes care of several annoying forms of popup windows including popups that are spawned when you click on a page element on a website.

The extension displays an icon in Chrome's address bar that highlights the number of popups that it has blocked on the active website.

You can click on that selection to see all those popups, which can come in handy if you need to open one of them. Some websites use popups for certain features, such as downloads, and if you block them, you won't be able to use those functionality.

A site that bombards you with popups is the live streaming website Livetv which not only uses them to launch the player window, but also to spawn a lot of popups regularly while you are watching the stream.

You will notice that the Chrome extension blocks the streaming window popup on the site as well, but that is easily fixed by launching it manually with a click on the extension's icon and the selection of the right blocked popup window from the list.

Popups are not spawned anymore in the player window and while you will still see lots of ads, it is less annoying than having to deal with ads and popups on the site.

JavaScript Popup Blocker ships with options to whitelist websites, so that popups are allowed on those. You can use wildcards * when you add websites, which may be useful for sites that use popups for part of their functionality.

If you do not like the "block all" approach of the application, you can alternatively switch to a blacklist only setting. Here only popups that you have added to the blacklist are blocked, while all others are allowed.

Verdict

JavaScript Popup Blocker is a handy extension for the Chrome browser that gives you better control over popups in the browser. The whitelist approach is probably best for the majority of users, as it blocks all popups except on pages that you have explicitly whitelisted in the options.

Since it is possible to open any blocked popup window with a click on the extension's icon, you are not losing any functionality in this regard. And if you run into the same blocked popups regularly, you can easily whitelist them to make things more comfortable for you.

Fan Canvas visualizes a YouTube user’s video history

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If you follow a couple of video producers or people who upload videos on YouTube you may have encountered situation where you want to browse the latest videos released by them, or videos released in a particular time period.

While you can do so with a couple of clicks, the interface that YouTube provides you with is not well suited for that task, as you have to browse from the latest videos all the way down to the videos that you want to see.

That may result in a lot of clicks for you depending on when the videos that you are interested in have been published to the account.

Fan Canvas is a new third party service that lets you browse a YouTube user's video history visually. All you need to do is type or paste the username of the YouTube user in the form on the main page on the website to get a visual representation of all public videos that were uploaded to YouTube by the account.

Note: The service seems to limit the total number of videos that it displays in the timeline to 25. That's a severe limitation that reduces the service's usefulness significantly. There are no configuration options to change that, and it is not clear if the limit will be removed in the future.

Fan Canvas

The service displays a timeline of videos at the bottom of the browser window, and the actual videos that you have selected on top of it. You can scroll the timeline by holding down the mouse button in the timeline interface and drag motions to the left or right, or by using the back and forward buttons up top.

You can play any selected video right away on the screen, and also read the description that was posted along with it.

Depending on the upload frequency of a user, you may want to compact or extract the timeline. Compacting will increase the time interval that is starting with days, so that you will end up with a monthly view in the end. This can be useful if a user has not uploaded that many videos to the site.

The opposite is true if you select to extract the timeline, as you will have greater control over timelines that display a lot of videos.

There is also a bookmarklet available that you can make use of.

Verdict

The limitation makes Fan Canvas an interesting proof of concept service. It will remain that unless the video limit is removed by its developers.

While it is still good to get a quick overview over the latest videos uploaded to a particular account, it cannot be used currently to browse the complete history of a user on YouTube

How to disable SkyDrive in Windows 8.1

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The Windows 8.1 operating system is a step in the right direction for Microsoft for the most part. While it does not get rid of all the annoyances that shipped with Windows 8, it takes care of some and improves the system's usability in many ways.

Not everything has improved though, and one of the areas where you may notice this is Microsoft's file synchronization service SkyDrive.

Unlike before, SkyDrive is now part of the operating system and if you are using a Microsoft account, you are having access to storage automatically.

While that sounds great in theory, the integration does not replicate all the features that the desktop version of SkyDrive offers. One missing feature is the remote fetch option, which you can use to retrieve files from a remote computer provided that it is connected to the Internet.

Another SkyDrive's Smart Files feature which displays virtual representations of files on Windows 8.1 instead of the files themselves. While that includes metadata that will be used in searches that you perform on the system, you will have to download the files when you want to access them. It is possible to make all files available offline, but that requires manual work on your part.

If you do not use SkyDrive on the system, you may want to consider disabling its functionality completely to free up space in File Explorer and hide it from dialogs in the operating system. Windows 8.1 ships with options to disable SkyDrive completely on the system, so that it cannot be used anymore as storage.

Note: Even if you disable SkyDrive in Windows 8.1, you won't be able to install the SkyDrive desktop application on the system. The installer will run and exit shortly after that without installing the desktop app on the system.

Disable SkyDrive in Windows 8.1

You have two options to disable SkyDrive in Windows 8.1. The first requires access to the Group Policy Editor, which is not available in all versions of Windows 8.1, while the second uses the Registry to make the change.

Group Policy Editor

If you have access to the Group Policy Editor, do the following to launch it and turn off SkyDrive:

1. Tap on the Windows-key to go to the start screen interface if you are not already there.
2. Type gpedit.msc  and select the first result from the list.
3. This opens the Local Group Policy Editor.
4. Navigate to the following folder: Local Computer Policy > Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > SkyDrive
5. Locate "Prevent the usage of SkyDrive for file storage" and double-click on the entry.
6. Switch its state from "not configured" to "enabled" and click ok.

To turn it back on, repeat the process but switch the state from "enabled" to "disabled" or "not configured" instead.

This policy setting lets you prevent apps and features from working with files on SkyDrive.

If you enable this policy setting:

Users can't access SkyDrive from the SkyDrive app and file picker.

Windows Store apps can't access SkyDrive using the WinRT API.

SkyDrive does not appear in the navigation pane in File Explorer.

SkyDrive files aren't kept in sync with the cloud.

Users can't automatically upload photos and videos from the camera roll folder.

If you disable or do not configure this policy setting, apps and features can work with SkyDrive file storage.

The Registry

If you do not have access to the Group Policy Editor, you can make the same change in the Windows Registry instead.

1. Tap on the Windows-key to go to the start screen if you are not there already.
2. Type regedit and select the regedit.exe result.
3. Confirm the User Account Control prompt that is displayed.
4. Navigate to the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Skydrive
5. You may need to create the Skydrive folder here. If you do, right-click on Windows and select New > Key and name it Skydrive.
6. Right-click on SkyDrive and select New > Dword (32-bit value) and name it DisableFileSync.
7. Double-click the new parameter and change its value to 1.
8. Sign out and back in again.

If you want to enable SkyDrive again, change the value of the parameter to 0. (via Windows Club)