The particular way popups annoy.

You are typing a URL, but you are not a perfect touch typist so you are looking at the keyboard as you type. You look up to find that it’s been cut short by a damn popup changing the focus. Frustrated you right click the popup on the start bar with the intention of pressing ‘close’ as quickly as possible. But it doesn’t close, it just beeps at you… because another popup has interrupted that task.

What particular way, other than the above, do those evil little bastards annoy you?

Existing.

I have noticed that popups are now being draped over the screen…you know you are reading, then all of a sudden an ad for some orange juice or Crest Nightstrips forms across the screen. I have had to hunt for the little X to get rid of it. ARRRRGGGG!

Also the pop ups that never stop like on porn sites but these are not porn sites. They are usually like magazine sites (marie claire, allure, better homes and garden,etc). That really gets on my nerves.

Them little buggers that spew their crap all over imdb and ESPN without little Xs so one’s unable to shut them up and is forced to watch and wait… and wait… and motherfucking wait. And my computer is pretty slow so I can’t catch and close them whilst they’re loading, instead I have to wait till they’re done and close them one by one from the taskbar.

I’ve given up on porn sites altogether; I now stick to porn, um, forums, which don’t jizz out 10 popups per page.

You guys still get pop-ups??? :confused: What type of crappy browser are you using??? I use Firebird, and haven’t seen them in over a year.

…the ones that hover right over the middle of the damn screen. “No, you’re not going to get to see what you came here to see. You’re going to look at ME, at least long enough to examine me and find out where to click to get rid of me.”

I think it’s funny as hell that Bladder, above, has given up on porn sites due to their insanely aggressive advertising. I have long since sworn I will never, never buy any product I see advertised in popups, simply due to the annoyance value of the form of advertising.

Wonder if the people who MAKE popups are in any way aware of this phenomenon?

What I hate is when pop-ups manage to slip past my pop-up blocker!!! :mad: I also hate it when I have several Explorer windows lined up in my taskbar, knowing that some of them are from pop-ups. In my haste I try to kill off all the pop-ups and inadvertantly end up closing the window for the web page I was in the middle of looking at.

Master Wang-Ka: They know. It is a marketing ploy. Because of pop blockers, most pop ups dont get viewed. The splash across the page ad can get through most pop ups.
dwc1970: I do that all the freakin time and I hate it too.

Master Wang-Ka: They know. It is a marketing ploy. Because of pop blockers, most pop ups dont get viewed. The splash across the page ad can get through most pop ups.
dwc1970: I do that all the freakin time and I hate it too.

I second DreadCthulhu. There is no reason to subject yourselves to pop-ups.

Mozilla, Firebird and Opera, and even Netscape 7.1 all have built-in mechanisms to reject pop-ups, unless they are requested. In my Opera browser, this means unless I click on a link and the web designer has decided the result of that click is another window. Annoying pop-up ads hijacking my session? Nope. Hasn’t happened in a couple years.

You are Windows users. You’re willing to download Ad-aware and SpyBot and the Google toolbar and a dozen other free downloads to protect yourselves against weaknesses in Microsoft’s browser and operating system. That’s fine. You like Windows. It feels comfortable. But if you are willing to download all the bandaids, why won’t you use a different browser?

I see the complaint threads. I see the threads about hijacked home pages and runaway pop-ups and spoofed urls and I just can’t understand why you won’t use a different browser.

Mozilla, Firebird and Netscape are free. Opera is free if you are willing to have the banner ads and $39 USD if you want those gone (well worth the money). All of these browsers have more features that Internet Explorer. And less of the annoyances.

Please. At least consider it. A free browser that will eliminate the majority of your web-surfing annoyances.

Firebird and Opera

Take a peek.

Mozilla and Firebird froze up my computer. I like IE for the most part.

As for spyware. I have a computer program that destroys it. So I am not worried abou that. Besides I don’t acess stuff that no one else can see.

Invest in a quality firewall and you will never have any popups and can still use IE. I use Norton utilities and I never get any popups. No band aids needed here.

A well-tuned “hosts” file also works wonders. Just direct your browser to look for the crap-spewing servers at 127.0.0.1 and 99% of the stuff will never appear.

I really hate EXIT popups… esp if it’s just a stoopid poll. Exit pop ups get through some times, because the user did something on the page… they left!

The ad that takes the cake for me, is a Pop-Up that is advertising a POP UP blocker. Sheesh!

How much did you pay for Norton though? :slight_smile: There are free programs that can do everything Norton can, and better. That and Firebird,(and Opera as well) have other features that IE lacks. Tabbed browsing for one. Really, it makes browsing much easier - especially message boards like this one - I can go through a forum and open up a dozen threads at once with no clutter.

IIRC, Spybot Search & Destroy’s “Immunize” function does exactly that for you automatically - it modifies the host file to point hundreds of spyware programs to 127.0.0.1 .

I love my NS 7.1 (I believe) with popup blocker and tabs. Tabs are SWEET.

I always hated IE. Always always always. When I first got a comp/internet (abooooout . . . well, crap, I forget the year. I graduated in 2001, and got a computer in 8th grade. 6 or 7 years ago.). I used both equally at the time, but I just ended up preferring NS over IE, and have ever since. Anything I ever thought was cool abut IE was always out with the next NS release.

-Irish
Popup free and loving my tabs.

I got the Google tool bar, and I don’t think I’ve gotten one pop-up since.

leenmi- I think the reason many people don’t use a different browser is that they take too long to download with a dial-up connection. When I was using dial-up, I had IE, and the popups annoyed me. So, when I finally got DSL, the very first thing I did was download opera for the sole purpose of blocking pop-ups.

That is a damned good point. Thank you. I forgot that not everyone has access to high speed internet connections.