FreeRepublic is about the only thing my IPad has been able to do for a couple years.
Malware is everywhere including web sites...many (most) of these sites rely on third party advertising engines/hosts that accept ads from dodgy characters.
If your iPad is recent enough try installing an adblocker like OneBlocker.
Get a PC.
(Sorry, couldn’t resist!)
At some point you would think Drudge would make an app that does not allow popups. It is annoying when a site sends popups on a mobile device. I use hardware popup blocking https://pi-hole.net/ on my home network. I need one of those for when I am on the road and then I will be set.
To get out of a locked popup you can double press the home button and then slide the app up.
My Gen I and Gen II both choke all the time now.
IMO the main problem is instead of a static ad,etc they are now videos.
It’s maddening. ESP the ones that run in the right hand margin and no way to stop them.
That can be a real hassle. I’ve been getting that for about a month on my iPhone 5s. The only solution I have found is to disbale JavaScript if you want to view the page (Drudge), or if it happens with a specific article from a site (I see this a lot).
On your iPad got to Setting>Safari>Advanced>JavaScript. Toggle it off to read or access the site without the popup.
Sometimes when you get the popup on one page it will happen several times for the same ad on different websites ad nauseum.
To get rid of the annoyance, got to Settings>Safari>Clear History and Website Data.
Of course this will erase your browser history and log you out of all sites, but it gets rid of the problem.
This is less of a popup and more of a script within the webpage that hijacks the page. Popup blocker will not kill this off. If you are on a Mac, you can set up a white list that redirects these kinds of sites into a black hole in your laptop so you never see them, but not on mobile or tablet devices that are locked down.
Remember to turn JavaScript back on once you’ve read what you need to or your browsing experience will be rather limited.
Hope this helps, and good luck.
AdBlocker is your friend. It’s an easy free download from the App Store. You can also clear the “cache” by quickly double-clicking the Home button then “swiping” the pages you see upward to get them out of cache.
We do this a couple times a month and never have any lock up problems.
Presuming you have the latest iOS installed...
1. Click the “Settings” app.
2. Scroll down to and then click on “Safari”.
3 Make sure the “Block Pop-ups” option is set on.