Mark said:
I keep getting a pop-up message window telling me about
stopping popups. And refers me to a site called endads.com
I was told that this was a windows issue and I could
disable it in windows.
There are two aspects (apart from the particular people using the thing
to sell their own product).
Pop-ups can arise from items linked in web-sites that are supported by
ads. There are pop-up stopper programs that handle these - mostly
cheaper, and I would not go for one using these techniques to promote
itself anyway. The Opera browser at any rate has a facility to inhibit
them inbuilt. So does the Pro version of the Zone Alarm firewall
program, though that can overdo things.
And there are ones that appear as originating through 'Messenger
Service'. Do not confuse this with Windows Messenger - the Instant
messaging utility. The 'Messenger Service' which is used on networks
for their Admins to broadcast things like 'Server closing in 5 minutes'.
is the one involved in popups, through a hole in the NetBIOS networking
which is being exploited. Either use a firewall and set it to a level
that blocks NetBIOS, or disable this Messenger Service, at Control Panel
- Admin Tools - Services; double click Messenger and first click Stop,
then set Startup type to Disabled and Apply, ready for next boot. But
that is a palliative for the symptoms, the firewall will prevent other
things that come in through those ports, one of which BTW is the Blast
worm
