How to Prevent Pop Ups from Invading Your Browser

Click...Click...Click... sound familiar? That's you clicking all those pop up windows closed 1 by 1 as another one opens up to annoy you. Oh you know why you are getting them? Want to get rid of them? Want to keep them gone for good? Well in the article we will discuss why you get pop ups, which ones are the most annoying and how to lower the amount that you get for good.

Ok first we will talk about where pop ups come from. There are 3 origins for pop ups.

1. Pop ups that the web site designer creates. Here is the most safe pop ups where if you click on a link the next window that opens is a little box that pops up. Its there for you to input information, tell you more information about the link you clicked, or gives you directions on where to go on the site next. They are usually user driven and need user input to execute. These are the only types of pop ups that you want because they are not meant to annoy you but are there to help guide your way through the web experience.

2. Pop over/under/advertising pops. These are much more annoying because they are triggered by just going to the web site or leaving the web site. They are programmed into the web site to boost advertising dollars for the web designer. Some sites trigger 3 pops and some trigger as many as 10 depending on the site you visit. Sex sites, hacker sites, cheat code sites, and gambling sites fall in this category because that's the main way the advertiser gets paid. These too though are user driven. All you have to do is not go to these types of sites and you should be ok. If you happen to find yourself here be prepared to do a LOT of clicking to get away.

3. Now comes the most devastating pop ups of them all, the SPYWARE popper. These are not user driven and are executed by a program downloaded to your computer that was installed without your permission. Once these programs begin you can get so many pop ups going off all the time that internet explorer will actually crash. Cable modem and DSL users usually are the victims of these pop ups because of the always-on connection. You can run spy ware remover software to eliminate the cause of the pop ups, but remember that these are very hard to get rid of and sometimes require a reinstallation of windows just to fix the problem. If you web browser starts going to web sites without you controlling it and no matter how many you close the more that open, your pc could have the cancer in it and needs to be reinstalled. Another symptom of this is if your web browser start page keeps going to the same site even though you changed it manually every time.

Now that you know the problem, here comes the solution

1. Kill the Messenger service. For windows 2000/XP machines there is an NT service that was used in the late 90s that helped network administrators communicate better with the users called messenger. (Not related to the windows messenger that you chat with). Hackers have found a way to manipulate this service to send you pop ups of their advertising that is immune to any repellent software. To check to see if the service is running, click start/control panel/administrative tools. From there look for the icon called "services". Once there scroll down til you see the messenger service. First stop the service from running, and then disable it. That will stop that open port from giving you pop ups

2. Pop up stopper programs- there are a lot of these here but let me tell you the top 3 programs that I have seen work. These are automatic stoppers but you can customize them to your liking. Pop up stopper, ad subtract pro, and POW! These will stop about 80 % of the pop ups even on the multi pop sites. To make them even stronger, you can buy the full versions and add any site you want to the block list.

3. Search bar pop up blockers. Ironically enough, the spy ware will give you a search bar on your browser that you can never get rid of, but the cure actually does the same thing! Yes, Google and Windows Live have created navigational toolbars that also include pop up blockers. Once installed these will protect you from about 90% of the pops HOWEVER all the pop ups will be blocked, including the good ones. They all though have a mechanism to allow some pops ups to appear.

4. Your own ISP. Other companies using the toolbar solution are EarthLink, AOL, yahoo, and net zero. These have proven the most effective solution so far so contact your internet service provider on which solution they have available for you. In 2004 Internet explorer will be upgraded to service pack 2 and one of the 2 main features will be a built in pop up blocker and an active x blocker. Active X scripts are the main causes of spy ware attacks. For a built in pop up blocker now you can download and install mozilla whose users do not have this type of problem.

This was just a brief look in the world of the pop up monster. As we get more information in about how to prevent them for good we will pass it along to you. Until then, I am popping out!