# What are these pop-ups I get on Gmail? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [December 8, 2006, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-pop-ups-i-get-on-gmail/383332 "2006-12-08T13:26:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-pop-ups-i-get-on-gmail/383332/1 "2006-12-08T13:26:09Z")
This only seems to happen on my work PC, but at frequent intervals when I’m on Gmail, I get the message from my pop-up blocker saying that it has blocked a pop-up. If I click to allow the pop-up, it comes up as a window with a plain white background and black text that appears to be a long hexadecimal string. Here’s an example: > [@](#): > > 7cca69475363026330a0d99448e88d23ce95e222591126443015f5f462d9a177186c8701fb45a6ffee0daf1a168fc0f58cd309308fba7e6f011ac38c9cdd4580560f1d4560a84d5ca0355ecbbed2ab715a3150fe0c479050640bd0e77acec90c58c4d3dd0f5cf8d4510e68c8b12e087bd88cad349aafd2ab16b07b0b1b8276091217a44a9fe92fedacffff48092ee693af Since I started typing this post, six of these pop-ups have appeared, all with the same string – which makes me think it may be specific to my account or session. (For that reason I have made a few minor changes to the string quoted above). Any idea what is causing these? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-pop-ups-i-get-on-gmail/383332/2 "2006-12-08T17:06:31Z")
Nobody? ---
**Author:** ![stpauler](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@stpauler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stpauler)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-pop-ups-i-get-on-gmail/383332/3 "2006-12-08T17:08:34Z")
WAG here, could it be the gmail chat client? ---
**Author:** ![wasson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/4da419/32.png) [@wasson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wasson)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-pop-ups-i-get-on-gmail/383332/4 "2006-12-08T17:30:14Z")
What browser are you using at work? My guess is that Gmail’s fancy JavaScript/AJAX stuff isn’t cooperating with your browser version for some reason. I’d maybe hit the basic HTML formatted Gmail while at work. Less cool, but I’ll betcha no more pop-ups. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-pop-ups-i-get-on-gmail/383332/5 "2006-12-08T18:38:06Z")
What pop-up blocker are you using? ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2006, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-pop-ups-i-get-on-gmail/383332/6 "2006-12-08T20:19:26Z")
The browser is IE but there’s no version number on the browser. I guess it’s a stripped-down version, as certain features are disabled. The OS is Windows XP Professional. The pop-up blocker also has no name, it appears to be built-in. Sorry if that’s not much help, but our office IT systems are very much “look but don’t fiddle” so I can’t get into the menus to check version numbers etc. ---
**Author:** ![Kevbo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e47774/32.png) [@Kevbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kevbo)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2006, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-are-these-pop-ups-i-get-on-gmail/383332/7 "2006-12-10T19:07:31Z")
[QUOTE=wasson] . I’d maybe hit the basic HTML formatted Gmail while at work. Less cool, but I’ll betcha no more pop-ups. [/QUOTE] The HTML is quite a bit slower, however. The Java stuff doesn’t load a whole page over the net, just the new information(compressed at that) , and formats it on the fly. Another alternative is to use your preffered mail client and the gmail POP/SMTP interface. This seems to work fine with outlook and the Opra mail client (only ones I’ve had occasion to try)