Blocking Popups

Movie Monster doesn't host video. Playback comes from third-party embedded players, and those players fund themselves with advertising — the popups included. We don't write their code, don't choose their ads, and aren't paid a cent by them.

We used to run the players inside a browser-enforced sandbox that stripped their ability to open new windows or redirect the page you're on. It worked, and they noticed. Now they detect the sandbox and show “Please Disable Sandbox” instead of your film — so we've had to lift it. A player that works beats a player that blocks popups and shows you nothing.

So an ad blocker does the heavy lifting now, not us, on every player here. We'd rather say that plainly than let you assume you're covered when you're not. The steps below take about two minutes and stop the popups properly — better than our sandbox ever did, since a blocker also kills the ads drawn inside the player, which we could never touch.

And nowhere can we touch advertising drawn inside a player — banners, overlays, anything before the video starts. A browser rule called the same-origin policy stops our code from reading or changing another site's player. It's the same rule that stops a malicious site from reading your bank tab: it protects you, and it limits us. An ad blocker isn't bound by it, because it runs above the page rather than inside ours.

Ads are how these players stay alive, so some detect blockers and refuse to load rather than run without them — the same reflex that made them reject our sandbox. If a title won't start, switch the player source in Settings. The sources are independent, and one being difficult says nothing about the rest.

None of this is permanent, either. Ad blocking is a moving target: the players change tactics, the blockers respond, browsers shift the rules underneath both. What works today is very good, but expect to see the occasional thing slip through.