Hacker News Reader

What is the technical explanation of the invisible window mentioned? Do all browsers allow it? Will an ad blocker stop it?

"A user often has no idea this is happening in the background, and in some cases porn sites load the pop-under as an invisible window that can’t be seen."

View on HN

It's not terribly complicated JavaScript. A pop-behind is generally done by calling Window.open() to open a new window, then Window.focus() to re-focus the original window. Another method I've seen is opening a pop-up with the original site, then redirecting the original window to the advertising site. The MDN page for Window.open()[0] actually mentions some of the restrictions around opening windows and focusing other windows that have been added to browsers.

[0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Window/open

Reply on news.ycombinator.com