I'm old enough that I remember pop-up ads and pop-up blockers. Pop-up blockers weren't controversial and were seen as necessary to combat the scourge of malicious advertisers. As a consequence, browses gained pop-up blocking by default and pop-up ads died out.
Chrome didn't exist yet.
@endrift @rrwo Folks now don’t appreciate that those pop-ups spawned entirely new browser windows and most browsers didn’t sequester them into tabs in the same window.
When JavaScript learned how to manipulate the elements of the HTML page delivering it and HTML learned how to layer elements on top of each other, we got the modern “pop-up” experience of everything in the same window that’s harder to differentiate from legitimate “web app” behavior.
endrift 🏳️‍⚧️
Mark Gardner