In What’s Up With Popup Ads? Cecil talks about two programs that block popup ads on the Windows platform: built-in blocking in IE6 under Windows XP SP2 and the Google Toolbar. There are two things I’d like to add:
(1) The open-source browser FireFox has popup blocking as well as tabbed browsing. Several security experts have recommended Windows users switch from Internet Explorer to FireFox because FireFox is not tied directly into Windows and will not allow dubious sites to infect a Windows machine.
(2) There’s more than just Microsoft Windows out there. Linux and Mac OS X users have never had to worry about spyware and adware - mainly because advertisers stick to the less secure (yet more widely used) Windows platform. There are a number of browsers available on these platforms (Safari and OmniWeb on the Mac, FireFox on both Linux and Mac, to name a few) that block the dreaded popup ads.
Netscape also has built-in popup suppression with an exception table for those few annoying sites that can’t be accessed or navigated without popups. I’ve been very happy with how it works, and it kills pop-under ads, too.
Lots of people around here use Mozilla’s products, including me. The Google toolbar isn’t bad, but Mozilla browsers totally destroy all popups, like Godzilla trashing Tokyo. Not bad for a free and fast download.
I’ve noticed a recent trend in the content of these popups, which I find more annoying and loathsome than in the past. I’m referring to those popups that look like Windows dialogs, and say things like
This seems to be the message of the majority of the popups I see lately. I don’t know where clicking them takes you, but I suspect it’s some sort of despicable scam. I hate them will all my being.
Another thing with Mozilla or Firefox is that you can run the Flashblock & Adblock extensions, which allow you to get rid of almost every type of ad you may run across. Instead of annoying flash ads, all I get these days are boxes with buttons that say “Click to play”
Seems to me that 1,600 objects to be deleted is rather high, and indicates a web surfing pattern of :dubious: proportions. Cecil, where the hell are you going? Does your mother know you go to those sites?
Addaware calls cookies from tracking sites as one these objects. While it is good that they are deleted they are definitely not on the same order as spyware. so the fact they it found 1600 objects that could just mean that people go to a lot of different sites not that they are infested with spyware.
[FONT=Georgia]Mozilla Firefox ROCKS! I downloaded it about a month ago and have yet to see a pop up, pop over, pop whatever! You can even import all your favorites from your old IE – definitely worth a try. [/FONT]
The important thing about Mozilla/Firefox and other browsers with integrated pop-up blocking is that they’re smart - they can distinguish a pop-up window that’s trying to pop because you want it to (i.e. because you clicked a link) from one that’s just popping up “unrequested.” If pop-up blocking isn’t built into the browser there’s no way for such a distinction to be made. So sites that rely on the ability to pop windows under certain user-controlled circumstances continue to work. I use Mozilla pretty much exclusively and there are no sites I can think of off the top of my head that don’t work properly with its pop-up blocking. I know there are sites out there which are IE-only, or which Mozilla’s pop-up blocking breaks, but for whatever reason they’re not the sites I encounter (and I do a lot of web browsing).
Another thing that looks like pop-ups has infested my computer. When I turn it on a good ten or twelve pop-ups appear over several minutes. They do not come from the internet (zone alarm tells me so) and are therefore resident in my computer. Adaware and Spy bot cannot find them and I cannot get rid of them. What would these be called and how can I remove them. I believe they are related to something called Ibis and/or Ezula.
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