Richard said in news:
[email protected]:
HI, I have XP Home, on cable modem. I keep getting popups
telling me how to cut monthly bills, etc etc etc. I have
tried popup stoppers of msn, aol, yahoo, google, and
several free stoppers. But still I get them. I have
Adaware and Spyware Blaster. All are used and up to date.
But still I get popups. Any suggestions. Also, the
windows messenger service is shut down. Thanks
Google Toolbar (free); disable the advanced functions (Page Rank and
Page Info) if you are concerned about security (all links in the found
articles go through their server to update their statistics). I think
the Yahoo Companion Toolbar has it, too, but it has the nuisance of
polling for ads to put into its toolbar. Panicware has a freebie one
(obviously crippled). I have Norton Internet Security which has an
option to disable popups (but don't use it since I have better
software).
I use PopUp Cop (popupcop.com). Costs $20.
- Lets you define multiple irritation levels that adjust what you want
to block (and it can block more than just popups). I'm still waiting
for the author to let users assign irritation levels to sites so users
can lockdown a known site to the degree they want (apparently I'm the
only one that has requested this).
- Provides cookie whitelisting to keep only the ones you want and kills
all the rest. I really like this feature (and the author listens as
this is was a user request and really not a popup blocker function).
- Provides added protection against ActiveX downloads rather than just
kill them off.
- Lets you whitelist those sites where you do want to allow popups, but
then also lets you specify particular popups even at that site to block
(so you can get most of them at the "good" site but get rid of the
occasional nuisance ones, like "please take our survey").
- Can optionally ignore sites you list in the Trusted zone.
- Can optionally ignore https:// sites (i.e., secured sites, like your
bank).
- Will let you see a blocked popup in case you really needed to see it
because it was functional to whatever operation you need to run (like a
click on a help link that opens a new window so you don't lose your
current site navigation). You don't always know when to use Ctrl-click
to temporarily disabling popup blocking.
- Lets you enable/disable Messenger service (although doing so in
services.msc is easy, too).
- Has a web update check. Doesn't waste resources running a continual
check, so it is manual but is easier than finding the site and hunting
around.
- Although IE has an option to empty its temp file cache on exit, often
it doesn't work but the option in PopUp Cop does work.
- Can delete other lists, too, like History, typed-in URLs, Favicons,
recent documents.
- Gets rid of Geocities ad-squares.
- Can block Macromedia Flash content. Some sites are now using Flash to
display menus to bar web crawlers from stealing their content. Like the
"Show me that last popup", you can show the Flash movies on the web page
if they got blocked. You can also whitelist which sites will not get
blocked.
- You can block animations, or allow them to run just once.
- Blocks an attempt by a web page to change your home page.
- Only runs when IE is loaded (because it runs as an extension, so it
only works with IE). You don't waste resources running a background
application when you are not even browsing the web. It loads as a
toolbar. The toolbar isn't cluttered with icons but instead using
drop-down lists to keep the toolbar neat and small.
- One picky aspect of many popup blockers is that they will also block
javascript used as a shortcut in your Links toolbar. I use javascript
commands in a shortcut to open a new browser window when wanting to use
something on-the-fly, like Sneakemail to generate a new e-mail alias, to
use SnipURL to shorten the length of links included in posts, and to
otherwise open a new window to a web page so I don't lose my navigation
in the current window. Clicking on a shortcut in my Links toolbar that
was a javascript would trigger the other popup blockers. This took a
few revisions with the author to get fixed.
- A quick click on its toolbar lets you disable it for those times when
you need no blocking on a site.
- 30-day free trial.
Those are the functions that I've used. There are more. This is a
combo program that blocks popups and also adds some security functions.
For $20, and after using it for awhile, I think it was cheap. You can
go with freebie popup blockers and not get much. Obviously this is the
one with which I am familiar. After trialing many, this is the one that
I chose.
See
http://snipurl.com/6bfw for a C/Net review. If anyone has an
independent product review of all or most popup blockers, and
importantly including PopUp Cop, then I'd be interested in reading it to
see if there was something better (and just as cheap). I paid for
PopUpCop but am always willing to entertain trailing better products. A
big table showing which had what features would be great. I see [the
paid for version] of PanicWare's product includes ad blocking but I get
that with Norton Internet Security and don't need to duplicate
functions. Otherwise, adding ad blocking would be on the top of my list
of enhancements for PopUpCop. PopUpCop blocks based on behavior, not on
constantly downloading and updating lists (over which you have no
control) of suspect ad source sites. Many of those can be killed using
a customized hosts file or blocking them in your firewall (either
because it includes ad blocking or by add URL filters).
