"like many things that start off as just for fun. one day someone sees a way to make money"....i don't think thats how it got started, it was more the cost of keeping the free sites open, i can only speak from personal experience but for us it was a case of the costs went up ten fold (a buddy was hosting cheap) and the income dropped hugely when companys realised there was not much point advertising on the net.....even now we have sites with big text messages at the top saying "sorry for the pop ups but its the only way we have of keeping the site free", so what do we do, we use pop up killers, then complain when the site closes coz the webmaster can't afford to run it.....kinda like shooting yourself in the foot LOL, BTW i'm not taking the high and mighty approach here, i may not use a pop up killer but about the only place i click on a banner ad is here....i once asked my mother if i could get the bus to school....i walked the 2 miles with a very sore ear :o).......Steve