The easiest and cheapest way to stop pop-ups is to install the Google menu Bar (as one of the chapses suggested above briefly) from the Google.com website . Then deselect everything you don't want using the 'options' tag. This will leave you with a search box for google and a POP-UP control button to turn it on and off (with noise and counter if your heart desires). Remember that some websites you want to open pages from - like on-line banking - will need you to select the POP-UP blocker OFF in order to open the respective pages. The latest version of Internet Explorer is better for pop-ups also if you haven't already downloaded it from Windows Update.
