Want to Stop Pop-Up Ads?

[August Mom]

I have noticed that a lot of you complain about pop-up ads, especially when visiting parenting sites. There is free software that you can download which will prevent pop-up ads. I've been using Pop-Up Stopper for awhile and it works very well. All those annoying pop-up ads are eliminated. :) Occasionally, Pop-Up Stopper will prevent you from opening an additional window that you actually want to open. In that case, simply hold down the control key while opening the window. There are other versions that you can purchase, but I have found the free edition to work well enough. Here is a link to the site with the Pop-Up Stopper download: http://www.panicware.com/

[flagger]

Along those lines. If you want to rid you system of what is known as spy-ware (Little programs that get installed on your system that transmit information about you back to the mothership), you can install and run Ad-Aware. http://www.lavasoft.de/support/download/

Some people are amazed to find how many programs are on their computer that were installed without their knowledge.

Also if you have broadband, you should consider a firewall known as ZoneAlarm. It is pretty easy to setup and can stop hackers from looking at your system and can keep programs from dialing out or phoning home if you want. You can set it to only give certain programs like IE or Netscape, AIM, MSN messenger, YIM, etc. access. And you can lock your system down when not near the computer.

It is located at: http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/zap_za_grid.jsp

[mamahill]

If you have Netscape 7 (I think the most recent version), you can click on Edit->Preferences->Privacy&Security->PopupWindowControls and then select "Supress Popups." Since doing that I haven't seen any. You can also select "exceptions" in case there are sites where you LOVE the popups (nothing comes to mind...). Just thought I'd throw that in there...

[egoldber]

An example of pop-ups you "may" want to keep are on Babycenter and Amazon, where the pop-ups sometimes contain coupons or sale info that you would want to know about.

HTH,