a good pop up killer please !

[E. MORSE]

What's a good pop up killer ?
Want to stop those idiotic pop up advertisements.

tks

[Jet II]

I use Pop-Up Stopper from Panicware (http://www.panicware.com/product_pshelp.html/)

It does not use much in the way of resources and is easy to use. Above all its FREE!

[fobotcso]

I've recently cleaned out a mass of spyware from Gator, AdAware and Panicware from a couple of laptops. The stuff was residing in readily readable Folders and when the users were on line these programs were quietly communicating with home base

Other than that, I don't know much about the subject, but when something is Free I usually wonder why.

Cancelling pop-ups is much less work than cleaning out a mess of spyware. Keep an eye on your task-bar to see what is going on behind the page you are looking at and stealing your precious bandwith.

[Tinstaafl]

I use a combination of 'Opera' which has much better security & privacy options than Micro$h!t, and 'Proxomitron' which acts as a proxy server on your machine removing lots of unwelcome intrusions.

Periodically I run Ad Aware but haven't found anything for ages.

[Mac the Knife]

I've been running McAfee's Internet Security suite for the last 3/12 - combination firewall, virus scanner and hostile activity watcher. The security seems pretty tight and it stops almost all popups. The auto-update feature works well though I did have one glitch that I had to go to the McAfee users forum to find an answer for (easy solution). Since the machine I'm running it on acts as an internet gateway for 2 other machines tweaking all the right permissions was a bit of a chore. I think it's good if you like the ease of use of an integrated solution. Bit pricey tho'....

Tinstaafl's solution is a good one. I run Ad Aware periodically and it occasionally finds something, usually from Aureate.

[Dr. Bunsen Honeydew]

http://www.meaya.com/

Popup Ad Filter: this has been an excellent program for me for a couple of years - stops all ads, but allows small windows to appear as some sites require. Other programs I tried worked on the principle of limiting the minimum size of windows opening, but this was the only one to work properly in those days...$25 and worth it!

[pinkie]

There's a good programme called Webwasher, that I've been using for a while, and it seems to work quite well. It is available free from www.webwasher.com

[Llademos]

Guard iehttp://download.com.com/3000-2144-8638510.html - worth every penny, very easy to control and lets you adjust the 'annoyance factor'

[Nightrider]

fobotsco, are you talking about AdAware or about Adware as this will make some difference.
My friends at Lavasoft went almost ballistic when I asked them about hidden "gadgets" in their packages....

[ooizcalling]

I subscribe to a newsletter on Computer Issues called 'Langa List'. There's a free version - with ad's (not pop-ups) and a subscribe version with extra data and no ads. They have had quite a few articles on the subject in recent times, so if you want to check out the pro's and con's of different anti pop-up programs you could read a few of their articles. Go to www.langa.com and do a google search of the 'site' (not 'web') with the subject 'pop up' and read all about it ... or just click here; http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=site:www.langa.com+pop+up

[fobotcso]

Nightrider, good question!

Can't remember now, I'm afraid and the Laptop in question has gone on its way back to its treadmill. All I can say with certainty is that the Ad...something program was paralysing its Master and when deleted the poor overworked Pentium 266 was so relieved. I remember LavaSoft was there. Who are they?

[Nightrider]

fobotsco... you may want to have a look here Lavasoft (http://lavasoft3.element5.com/) and it may explain why it is certainly not AdAware which was any of the culprits.
Give it a try...you will be surprised how easy and good this program is:cool:

[Ronbmy]

There are quite a few 'pop-up killers' around and most do a good job of stopping the windows from opening.

These programs can give the users a false sense of security.

To keep this machine clean I use the fiollowing:

BlackIce Firewall

PC-Cillin 2000 anti virus

SpyStopper

I bought this last piece of software on 23rd August and so far it has stopped:

Ads 17,306
Bugs 3,150
Cookies 4,987
Scanners 1
Scripts 564
Spyware 2
Stylesheets 103
Websites 9

from getting into my pc.

As a customer I can say it is well worth the cost.

On top of this give the system a scan with ad-aware every 2 weeks and no problems.

[fobotcso]

Nightrider, fair enough and thanks.

I guess I'm a bit hooked on having as few processes running in the background as possible and something like Ad-aware comes into my "nice to have but not essential" category. That's what comes from being brought up on DOS and 386 architecture. :D

Just occasionally a pop-up is intentional and required; for instance when you are looking at a product in a Commercial Web-Site on-line catelogue and request more information about the product. Do these pop-up killers stop those as well?

[PaperTiger]

Adaware isn't running in the background. You fire it up when you want to cleanse, it does its thing, you look at the log and shut it down.

[olderairhead]

E. MORSE may I suggest a few programs that will assist.
All are free and all will protect you from Ads, Popups and Spyware.
They are:

Free Surfer (http://www.emsproject.com/FS) which will stop all popups in Internet explorer.

Ad-aware (http://lavasoft3.element5.com/) which is really an anti track ware solution.

Spyware Blaster (http://www.wilderssecurity.com/spywareblaster.html) which will protect you from spyware being installed on your computer without your knowing.

These 3 free little gems are indespensible.

Cannot recommend them enough!

Cheers

[Ausatco]

My recommendations, FWIW...

webwasher (http://www.webwasher.com). It's a great ad and popup filter that stops everything in every version of IE that I have used from 5.0 up to the current 6.1.

Fobotsco wrote
Just occasionally a pop-up is intentional and required; for instance when you are looking at a product in a Commercial Web-Site on-line catelogue and request more information about the product. Do these pop-up killers stop those as well?
Filters that disable the unwanteds in a website will in all probability disable some of the wanteds. In removing the c r a p, Webwasher will interfere with some desirable functions of a website, but it is easily customiseable as to the degree of filtering and is also easily switched on and off as required. It is free to non-commercial users. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

At the risk of loading up the 'puter with background tasks (I take your point, Fobotsco, but I'm not a power user and my new PC has enough grunt to cope with the overhead) I also use Pest Patrol (http://pestpatrol.com), Zone Alarm Plus (http://www.zonelabs.com) and PC-Cillin 2002 (http://www.trendmicro.com/en/products/desktop/pc-cillin/evaluate/overview.htm) all running concurrently in the background.

(Just to top it off, my ISP does optional serverside virus screening and Baysian spam filtering, which I tidy up with Mail Washer (http://www.mailwasher.net).)

Edited to add...

I used to use AdAware (http://lavasoft3.element5.com/software/adaware/) occasionally to screen for adware, but found Spybot Search and Destroy (http://security.kolla.de/) to be more comprehensive and more frequently updated.

Cheers

AA

[fobotcso]

Ok, I'm missing something here.

This thread is about killing pop-ups. How can a process that is not running in the background kill pop-ups as they arrive?

[Ausatco]

Ummm ... I went beyond the topic.

Webwasher kills the popups as they arrive and must necessarily run in the background. The other stuff I referred to deals with other pests.

If Webwasher kills something you don't want it to kill, you can switch it off and reload the page. Also, it is quite configurable. You can set it up so that you don't have to switch it off so much, but then, of course, it lets more junk through. Horses for courses, your choice.

It is an excellent program, IMO.

AA

[PaperTiger]

The thread wandered a bit fobotsco into spyware. And then into popup killers that may be spyware and then into anti-spyware and some anti-spyware that may be spyware itself. And then into active and passive anti-spyware :confused:

AdAware was accused of and defended from being spyware. It doesn't have anything to do with popups.

Of course, simply disabling JavaScript stops them all.

[fobotcso]

Got it!:D

I think I thought that Ad-aware was naughty because it was loading during startup on one of the laptops I mentioned earlier - along with some genuine spyware - and the poor beast was crippled.

Back to my cage. :O

[Santro]

Someone mentioned it earlier, but the best answer imo to this problem is simply Opera. It leaves IE floundering in its wake and has a selection of popup options on a "quick preferences" menu.

Can't recommend it enough.

Screenshot (http://www.kaiten.barrysworld.net/uploads/opera_screenshot2.jpg)