Stop Pop-Ups
Sunday, November 2, 2003

Few things can be more aggravating than having to repeatedly click off all those annoying pop-up ads.
Tired of seeing ads for webcams, low-rate mortgages and travel sites pop up each time you surf to your favorite Web page?

One easy solution is to use a free pop-up blocker available from search engine Google as part of its Toolbar feature. The toolbar (toolbar.google.com) is available to Windows users who view the Web via the Internet Explorer 5.5 -- or newer -- browser. The widget even lets users decide whether they want to see pop-up windows or ads on certain sites but not others.

Some users suggest opting out of certain advanced features in the Google toolbar that make it possible for the search company to track what users are looking for and which sites they visit.

Depending on your comfort level with using alternative browsers, there are other free options as well. Apple's Safari browser (www.apple.com/safari), Mozilla (www.mozilla.org), Opera (www.opera.com) and the current version of Netscape (channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/download.jsp) all offer easy ways to dump pop-up ads.

Some Internet service providers also offer to block pop-ups; EarthLink and America Online, for example, have options that let users block pop-ups (and pop-unders). Or you can buy a more sophisticated program to selectively whack those ads, such as Pop-Up Stopper from Panicware Inc. (www.panicware.com).

Though most Web surfers don't ever bother to install such software or turn on such features, it seems as if some Internet advertisers have started to come up with a counter-response: Many sites, such Salon, the Onion and, er, The Washington Post, are selling new types of built-in (or pop-in?) ads that fill up the screen before serving up what Web surfers requested.

People running Windows 2000 and Windows XP may see a different kind of pop-up, in the form of plain gray boxes with only text that appear whenever they're online. These exploit a component of Windows called Messenger Service (no relation to instant messaging, it's intended for use inside office or campus networks). To stop these, all you need to do is run a firewall program or turn off Messenger Service itself, which serves no purpose on a home computer; Web sites such as Stop Messenger Spam (www.stopmessengerspam.com) have the details on how to do this.

-- Mike Musgrove



WPTech
© 2003 The Washington Post Company