Pop-ups

Hi! Ok, my brother asked me this question and I didn't know the answer so I thought I would pass it along to you...

He wondered if there was a tool available for preventing pop-ups when you view web pages... any web pages. I wasn't sure because I know that the web page creator writes the pop-ups into the web page code but maybe I'm wrong.

Any suggestions?

Oh, and can someone tell me, what is "Spywear?" Is it good or bad from a common, web-user's perspective?

 

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There are tools and utilities that get rid of both pop-ups and banner ads - though I am not sure where you can find them...... or if they are free (if you went to a warez site, you could get them for free - though I don't know the addresses of any warez sites, nor would I condone visiting them).

Earthlink internet service supposedly has a pop-up blocker tool that gets rid of almost all pop-ups.

I think I heard Stryder say you could filter out certain IP address, those of advertising companies whose sole purpose is to cause pop-ups.

 

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A spyware is a way to track you on the web : where are you, where do you come from, what did you do there, what have you got on your PC... ? So, that's bad !
In fact that's nearly illegal... but there's law and Law

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It can be a software installed by you with a shareware, a registry key, cookies...

You can find those spies with Ad-aware. That's a good stuff.

About pop-up, I saw some softwares that were able to do it, but I don't remember where.

 

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I have Earthlink and their ad-blocker works better on banner ads than pop ups. Many banner ads become something like a frame in IE and display "page cannot be found." As for pop ups, they are still present in everyday suffering, but I've noticed a decrease in them. Like that one for the X-cam (portable camera)....I don't get a popup window anymore but I do get a security dialog asking for a user name and password to access the pop up window. Closing that thing is better than closing a pop up though.

If you want something free that blocks pop ups, Opera is a web browser that has an option to block all pop up windows.

 

There is a way to filter out the addresses of Advertising networks.
You have to place those addresses into a HOSTS file.

This explains using a HOSTS file (and LMHOSTS) with Win98
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/tr...et/prodtechnol/win98/reskit/part7/wrkappf.asp

This contains information about using a HOSTS file and also has a downloadable one already created.
http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/how_to_use_hosts.html

You might need to not this for win2000/XP large HOSTS files
(There seems to be a problem with large files slowing the systems down because the DNS resolver can't match the entry of the HOSTS file to the real DNS entries)
http://www.smartin-designs.com/win2k.htm

Basically hosts files allow you to create a localised method of telling a machine what domain name goes to what IP address.
You can use this to block adverts by pointing a (canonical name) domain name to your "localhost" (loop) entry. (127.0.0.1)

This will mean everytime the advert tries to load from the domain name it will try to load directly from your machine, and since you aren't serving anything, nothing loads.

[This can be misued for other amusing spoofs, like pointing a servers HOSTS file for www.mit.edu to some site your serving, from the web it opens like it was the www.mit.edu site with all the anchors pointing there, but as soon as someone bookmarks it, they end up somewhere else]