Summary
Pop ups are annoying, but I am sure we have seen them at one time or another, but how can we stop them? Before discussing how to stop them, it is important to know how they occur. There are two different types of pop ups- those caused by websites that you have visited and those which will occur even when you don't have a browser window open. There are caused by different things, and i will explain each below...
Browser Pop ups:
Browser popups come from websites that you are visiting, and then can be pop ups, pop unders, pop on close windows etc etc. Pop ups are normally advertising or pornography, and there are two easy way of combating these that i would recommend:
1. The latest versions of Internet Explorer, dependent on the security settings you enable, may deter popups. You can also install the google toolbar available from
http://toolbar.google.com. This automatically blocks popups from sites, and has a button which you can click if you need to allow popups from a particular site (eg your internet bank). There are many other toolbars that you can use which do similar things, for example the msn toolbar from
http://toolbar.msn.com or the yahoo equivalent-
http://toolbar.yahoo.com.
2. You may also want to consider using an alternative browser. Mozilla Firefox has an inbuilt popup blocker, which again can be set to allow popups from particular sites. There are also various modifications and hacks that can be installed to block advertisements. Firefox can be downloaded from
www.mozilla.org .
Other popups:
You may also find that popups open even when you are not using your internet browser. These are caused by spyware or adware infecting your computer. These things are similar to viruses, but may do things such as track your usage, cause popups or change your homepage. There are several programs that you can use to combat this.
Firstly, Adaware is a program recommended for it's ease of use. Simply download it from
www.download.com and then Install the program, open it, check for updates and run a full system scan. You may need to reboot the computer to allow adaware to remove all spyware.
Spyware Blaster available from
www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.htm will run in the background and prevent a lot of spyware from getting on your pc in the first place. Use this in conjunction with Adaware to ensure that you get rid of any spyware that does slip through the net.
Spybot S & D available from
www.download.com is similar to adaware but it may find some things that adaware doesn't, and conversely, adaware may find things that spybot doesn't. It is a good idea to use both of these.
If you are still having problems with pop ups, it is quite possible that you still have spyware on the computer. If you are using any peer to peer software, bear in mind that many of these have spyware bundled with them- Kazaa and iMesh are good examples. Try to avoid using this, investigate other software that does not contain spyware.
Originally posted by Monkeybreath
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