I just put on stop the pop ups.(Program) but for 2 days I've been getting them here at ren, ? Has anyone eles.??????

I haven't.

A few weeks ago, I inadvertantly picked up a nasty adware script while browsing, which caused pop-ups to appear whenever I used my browser. I eventually managed to kill the hijacker with Ad-Aware.

L.D., I've used ad aware, but you can't trust the default settings - The BCWW.LIB file in my copy of BC4.5 compliler was listed as a suspicious file. Is there a place where we can list, and read a list of, the offending softwares at Ad-Aware? OT-BTW-etc.: L.D., I think Lyrra referenced you in the "Ten Pictures..." feature she does from time to time in reference to the 'Laughing Skull' (or something like that) Series! Good Deal! :) On a sadder note, I hear Dr.Smith(Jonathan Harris) Died a little while back. :( - TJ

I never trust the default settings on anything. I made a backup and confirmed each suspect file before deletion. It still managed to hose my freeware copy of DivX Pro, however, despite my caution.

In Lyrra's thread, "LD" is a reference to the Laughing Death (the skull). As egocentric as I am, for a moment I too thought that it somehow referred to me.

A pity about Mr. Harris. I enjoyed his performances.

Keep "Active Scripting" shut off in your browser, except for sites you really need it for. It's more trouble than it's worth, anyway. Lets people browse the files on your hard drive, give you viruses, etc, etc...

If you use Mozilla, you can turn pop ups off at the preferences level. That has made the internet considerably better for me! eric

Ad aware and any kind of antivirus can find spy/virus where they don't exist, they scan for patterns and when they find something that matches they treat as an infection, but in some cases this is not true. I have a software done by me, a very old DOS one, that if you run any antivirus you will find the virus xxxx (I don't remember now which). Always delete manualy the suspected files!

Nitpick: not any kind of antivirus, just those that use heuristic tracking, like McAfee. And yes, Mozilla (and Opera) have pop-up killers. Excellent thing, but makes you think what the Internet has come to.

I turned my popup killer off the other day by mistake & the popups brought my machine to a standstill in less than a minute. As fast as I deleted 1, 3 more showed up to take it's place, maybe broadband isn't such a great thing afterall :(

I don't know, I ran Ad Aware a few weeks ago and it didn't find anything, zip, nada. I don't run a specific popup killer, but I've been using Proxomitron as my proxy server for years. I basically leave it at the defaults because it can get complicated with its own scripting and all. It's smooth as silk with IE 6 (I'd run into trouble sometimes switching it off and on with IE5 and earlier) and the only problem I have is that I have to tell both Proxy and IE when I want to allow a cookie. Still haven't figured out how to save a cookie at RDNA though.

I started using a 'hosts' file a few weeks back. It's a "low tech" solution, but for the most part it does a pretty good job and it doesn't hose up the registry. (I also run ad-aware about every two weeks.) Here's a link if you want to find out more and there are ready-made host files that contain the worst offenders.

Attached Link: http://www.accs-net.com/hosts/

Ok. HERE'S the link.

Hmmm, not sure what is happening to you guys. I've never gotten a popup ad while in R'City. I don't use any spyware/adware (because it's touch and go on what it wants to delete, sometimes...meaning, they aren't perfect) I get a few popups here and there...@ Yahoo, Weather channel, and so forth. Never had my machine come to a halt, though. Only time I've ever been innundated is when people have sent me a link to something they think is funny and I click on it to discover 3 or 4 ads pop up and then "X'ing" them away generates more. I usually go to task manager and kill them that way.

ALT+F4 is usually a good, quicker method of trying to defeat multi-popups.

I use a combination of:

• Ad-Aware
• AVG Anti-Virus (Grisoft)
• Cookie Wall (Analog X)
• Hosts file (Smartin-designs.com)
• MailWasher (Mailwasher.net)
• Norton Anti-Virus (Symantec)
• PopUp Stopper (PanicWare.com)
• Zone Alarm (ZoneLabs)

... and Common Sense.

Although there are probably applications out there that combine the features/functionality into one, I prefer running the different applications due to the fact that if one explodes, the others still work.

Attached Link: Find webwasher here

It's called "webwasher" and I've been using it ever since I tried out "morpheus" which is a nasty piece of adware that keeps flooding your computer with banners and pop-ups. Webwasher works pretty thorough, too thorough sometimes, since it sometimes prevents you from clicking on javascripted preview-popups (you can click as much as you like, that is, but nothing will happen).

What I like about Popup Stopper is that there is virtually no configuration. If you want to allow a popup (even opening a link in a new window) all you do is CTRL+click to allow it for that one instance. That may seem like an inconvenience, but I find that I have gotten so used to it, that I generally CTRL+click even on systems that do not have it installed. It becomes almost second-nature. The one application that I mentioned I have constant problems with is ZoneAlarm (Pro). Since the inclusion of the "privacy" crap (version 3.x?) - above and beyond the firewall, there are several places on the net where I have to shutdown ZA entirely in order to access some of the portions site; even with all the cookie, mobile code, privacy, etc, settings shut off. Not the behavior you would want in a firewall. IMHO, ZoneLabs should have left the privacy to others and concentrated on the firewall.

I know you 'paid' for ZoneAlarm pro, but you might want to try the free "Sygate Personal Firewall". It has a LOT of configurability. (Might be a little daunting, at first) There's a panel that lets you allow specific IP access, on a program by programs basis. If you do decide to try it, I highly recommend that you COMPLETELY uninstall ZA Pro first, or you could end up with NO internet access, at all. Manually uninstalling ZA, after the fact, is a serious PITA. Believe me... ~{8=E) Also with ZA.. Don't EVER EVER change your network or modem card, move them to a different motherboard slot, or probably even change drivers for them, without uninstalling ZA FIRST. You'll probably end up losing access to your computer, except in "Safe Mode".

"I know you 'paid' for ZoneAlarm pro..." Is 'paid' insinuating... ;0) I bought into ZAPro a few years back for the "ease of use" for several members in my family and tacked on an extra license for me, the "Family/Friends Help Desk". It was adequate when it was just a firewall; but the fluff added for privacy simply makes it, IMHO, a non-viable choice for complete coverage anymore. Perhaps, when the time comes, if I need anything more robust than the copy of ZAPro I have, or the other "free" ZA versions, I will look into Sygate. There are quite a few alternatives nowadays. Fortunately, I am geeky enough to understand most of what firewalling entails, so I should be good to go.

I use AdSubtract and find it works well. I've had it for awhile now and forgot that there were pop-up ads, etc on the Net. Shut the program off one day and was flooded with ads. Drove me crazy! :-)

So many programs, so much clutter, so much time. LOL I believe in KISS. Proxomitron as Proxy server (kills popups too) FREE http://www.proxomitron.org/ Norton checks my mail (nothing else unless I ask it) That's it. I even have scripting on in IE...I love rollovers. :P And I'm trouble and worry free and been surfing since '94.

Attached Link: Proxomitron best kept secret on the 'net?

Ooops. Here's the official link link. It also kills ads, stops cookies, all that good stuff. All-in-one solution as far as I'm concerned. And the fact that I haven't changed its configuration for about three years tells you how good it is at what it does.

Attached Link: http://download.com.com/3000-2144-9064747.html?tag=lst-0-1

I secend the nomination for Ad-Subtract. You should never, ever, ever go to sites like msn.com or cnn.com without... or you will be bombarded with pop-ups and ads! It seems that the web is shifting from "come to our website for information" to "come to our website for ads and pop-ups". Just *try* to get the information you need while closing windows and being distracted by the animated gifs and JavaScript-powered ads. "Alt-F4" is not the answer, especially when those pop-ups have "onwindowclose" scripts- you close that window and it will open another. Better to not have them appear at all than to play "whack a window"! (Just be sure to turn Ad-Subtract off when accessing a site that requires cookies and JavaScript.)

Yow - thanks Spit for that Proxomitron link! I just went there and read about it and downloaded it. I've gotten increasingly nervous about what my browser is telling the world, and this sounds like the stop-it-no-matter-what magic bullet to me :) So simple yet so ingenious - if it is the HTML code that is letting web sites do sneaky stuff, then whisk away that treacherous stuff being unleashed on us unsuspecting folk, and replace it with only what we want. The world needs more people like Proxomitron author :D

Soooo glad you like it! I think it's a gem and can't imagine surfing without it.