Not because I would be dumb enough to click on one, you understand, but because every time I see one I wonder how many clueless folk see these things and think “Oh my God, my computer may have critical errors!!” and blithely click “Yes - please download Christ knows what kind of executables and malware onto my system”.
When these things first appeared, they were pretty poorly done – they still had the usual browser taskbar at the top and so on, plus I was using a Mac so it was pretty funny to see fake MS Windows alerts popping up all over – but they’re getting more devious. Newbies, old folk and the gullible could easily be taken in by them. Sure, they have the word “advertisement” somewhere on them in 4-point 61% grey text on a 60% grey background (so that’s OK then), but seriously… if you need to actively trick people into clicking on your fucking lame product, then you need to take a look at your product.
I’ve told my mum, who is fairly new to the internet, that she can basically disregard anything claiming to be an error message or alert, and should close them using Alt-F4 but of course that means that some genuine ones fall by the wayside. Why do fuckwits constantly try to make people’s online experience so frustrating and potentially hazardous?
(Incidentally, I almost never get these at home, as I have decent pop-up blocking, but here at work they are a constant nuisance. “Your system clock may be wrong!” “Your IP address is being broadcast!!” “Your flies may be undone!!! Click here to install ZipCheck[sup]TM[/sup]”…)
My parents freaked out the first time they saw one of these pop-ups. Fortunately I have them trained and they call me when they see an error message instead of clicking blindly at every OK button that comes along.
Disable Windows evil messenger service (that’s not MSN Messenger) and you’ll never be bothered by those pop-ups again. It was designed to let people on a network send each other quick messages, but was co-opted by spammers in approximately the time it took to shrink-wrap XP.
Type “services.msc” (no quotes) in the Start>Run box
Find messenger
Right click on it and select properties
In the “Startup type” dropdown box select “Disabled”
Google “disabling windows services” for loads more info about stuff you can play with to make Windows run faster/better.
In another thread someone recommended downloading Microsoft’s beta adware eliminator. I did and it seems very, very good. One of the first things it recommended to me was that I disable whichever MS messenger service was running.
It’s just a variation on the old protection racket. “Do you get annoying messages like these? Are you plagued with errors? Download our software now and you won’t get any more messages or error messages from us!”
Just want to add for those enduring souls like myself whose companies still have 'em on Windows 98 or earlier: you can’t disable it. How d’ya like those apples!
Yes, yes, I hear you, and I never get pop-ups at home thanks to a combination of Norton Internet Security and Firefox (unfortunately many of my most frequented sites don’t render properly in Firefox). But at work we have no pop-up blockers and are forced to use the standard software.
Sorry. Open the control panel and click Add/Remove Programs. Click the Windows Setup tab. You want to uncheck “WinPopUp” – on Windows 98 you’ll find it under “System Tools” – on Windows 95, it’s under “Accessories.” (Select the appropriate category and click Details.)
Life was difficult until I learned how to do that.
I was setting up a PC at work that had been seeing the router for about thirty seconds before ads began poping on it.
