I was surfing the forum and suddenly a pop-up dialog box with an 'OK' button appeared. It was for some kind of online college degree or something (I didn't read it too closely). I just hit Esc and off it went into the ether. So what I want to know is, did it come through Rosity? I'd just been to Bat Lab (maybe 5 minutes earlier), so it could've been a delayed one from there. Anyone else seen this creature? mac

what's a pop-up look like again? since I killed javascript I have never seen one. ~g~ for that alone, I'll never have javascript again

It may not have been from renderosity, but it may be a small program that has embedded itself into your system. You may want to download a program called "Ad-aware" from www.lavasoft.com and it will clean all such programs from your system.

I got a few ebays last week. I hope it's not from here. Don't know. About a year ago, tho, I was the 10 millionth member to access this site, twice in the same day...lots of traffic I guess. I won two cruises, that day. Never got them...Oh! well, with my luck it would probably have turned out to be the two cruises where all the passengers got sick. Screwing up in reverse is an art. Isn't it?

ad aware site .de
ad aware site .nu

ad aware is not at lavasoft.com ~g~

Geeze..mostly I get single ads and diet products. :( My pet peeve, the pop up window that has a fake cancellation button. If you press the fake button, you open up other pop up windows. But, the worst, are the windows that look innocent but take you into porn sites that will not close down, but open endlessly into other porn sites. I've had to shut my computer down because the stupid things would not turn off. Does anyone really buy from these ads? They are so irritating, I can't imagine anyone wanting to support them by actually making purchases. Grump, grump. Needed to get that out of my system before I face the prospect of addressing holiday cards. Yeah, like that's going to happen today.

Attached Link: http://www.hdsoft.com/?0.1

Thanks folks, I actually have ad-aware already and I'll run it later to see what it finds. I've never disabled Java because it seems to cause more problems than it solves, and I've never used a pop-up killer, because I hardly ever see pop-ups. I guess that's why I was so surprised to see that one. Anyway, at least it doesn't seem to be some cunning new ploy by Rosity to sell college degress. mac

dialyn said, 'Does anyone really buy from these ads? They are so irritating, I can't imagine anyone wanting to support them by actually making purchases' Just on that subject, here's one of my pet peeves. Flashing ads/banners. Yup! I HATE 'em. And the first thing I do if I see anything flashing, is move the page down till it disappears. Don't these idiots realise that the irritation factor alone is enough to put people off? I will always consider (for a few seconds at least) a banner which is well-designed and composed, but NEVER banners or ads in lurid, day-glo colors that distract me from the page. Grump, grump, grump... mac

Okay, one more grump....ads that enlarge if you pass your mouse over them so they fill the screen and block what you wanted to see. Sometimes it is trick to find how to close the blankers up. One more grump...ads that float around on the screen so you have to chase them down to close them. One more grump. NOISE. I've got the sound turned off on my computer. I don't want websites singing to me. I don't want ads screamsing at me. I like to work on a silent computer and have the noise come in from my own sources. My exception being the Viking Kittens from the Rathergood site. Vahalla, here I come! Can't get enough of that. :)

maclean, no they don't realise how irritating those banners are, they think that it will sell thier site/product better than anything else. I personally also include flash as a get rid of it, and don't have the plugin for flash so I don't have to see the animated crap. ( the puzzle piece(sp?) image is a great interface for Daz's new look in my opinion, no slow loading resourse hungry interface with it )

This was most likely not a java script, but rather a devious way of using the built in possibility to send system messages in Windows. It had nothing to do with the browser or something planted in your computer. Ad-Aware is a great product, but it will not help you in this case. A company called Direct Advertiser has "discovered" this seldomly used feature in Windows and sells an application that makes it possible to send a system message to a range of IP numbers. You can check out all this at www.directadvertiser.com. They are actually nice enough to provide info on how to disable this feature in Windows and make it impossible to send these messages to you. Using this feature for advertising is really an all time low in the history of spamming. Any company that does it will immediatley be frowned upon. I can't believe that Direct Advertiser will be able to keep their product on the market, people will be after them with a blow torch... And when everyone disabled this feature in Windows, the product will become useless anyway...

Kelderek is exactly correct. I've had this happen to friends of mine. There is also a fix on the www.techtv.com website. You can turn it off "relatively" easily if you are just a little tech saavy. It won't disable your MSN Messenger, just Windows Messenger. Same on Microshift for allowing such a thing and not releasing an easy fix. Microcrap, however, does not see the feature as a problem. Tsk, tsk. Laurie

well I think microshot's head office should be nuked...with a neutron bomb so there is no survirs possible. ( and make sure that the devil itself is there when it gets hit, along with all stockholders )

Kelderek, I was just looking around the Direct Advertiser site and they want to sell their software for $699.00. That's rediculous when we can do most of that ourself without their program.

Attached Link: http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/shownotes/story/0,24330,3406854,00.html

LaurieA, Let just get it all out in the open for all versions of Windows. The is quoted from the Direct Advertiser's site.... How to set up your system not to receive netbios messages To disable the ability for anyone in the world to send netbios messages to your computer, you can disable the Messenger service. Its easy to reverse if you wish to later. Should you have any difficulties disabling the Messenger service please email us and we'll help you out. If you do not wish to disable File and Printer Sharing you may install a firewall and block the incoming traffic on port 135 UDP. To deliver the message our program uses a NetBios call built into the Windows API. We are aware that there are several knock-offs of our software out there that send on UDP port 137 and TCP 139, so you may want to block those also. Windows 2000 Click Start->Setings -> Control Panel->Administrative Tools->Services Scroll down and highlight "Messenger" Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties. Click the STOP button. Select Disable or Manual in the Startup Type scroll bar Click OK Windows XP Click Start->Control Panel Click Performance and Maintenance Click Administrative Tools Double click Services Scroll down and highlight "Messenger" Right-click the highlighted line and choose Properties. Click the STOP button. Select Disable or Manual in the Startup Type scroll bar Click OK Windows 98/ME Remove or disable the file and printer sharing from your network configuration. Disabling File & Printer Sharing on a Single Computer If you are only using a single computer (not using a LAN), File & Printer Sharing should be disabled to reduce any potential security risks on your PC. Please use the following instructions to disable File & Printer Sharing: On the desktop, double-click on My Computer. Double-click on Control Panel. Double-click on Network. From the Configuration tab, click on the File & Print Sharing button. Turn off file sharing and print sharing by clicking each box to remove the check marks. Click on the OK button. Select the TCP/IP protocol that is pointing to your Ethernet card or USB cable modem. Click on the Properties button and click on the Bindings tab. Click to uncheck the boxes next to "Client for Microsoft Networks" and "File and printer sharing for Microsoft Networks". NOTE: If there is more than one listing of TCP/IP, steps 7-9 should be repeated. Click the OK button twice and restart your computer. Enabling File & Printer Sharing on a Local Area Network If you wish to share files on a Local Area Network (LAN), you should use File & Printer Sharing with NetBEUI. NetBEUI is a safe, non-routable protocol that can be used on a LAN to share files and printers. Ensure that TCP/IP is not bound to File & Printer Sharing as shown in the previous section. On the desktop, double-click on My Computer. Double-click on Control Panel. Double-click on Network. Click on the Add button. Select Protocol, then click the Add button. Under Manufacturers, click on Microsoft and then double-click NetBEUI. Click on the OK button to restart your computer.

Thank you very kindly. You should be sainted for this...

Hope everyone does the steps above, that will put Direct Advertiser out of business! Exploiting a system message feature for spamming and charging $699 for the software to do it must be considered a scam. At least when it is so easy to block the messages. Guess they will get some money from spammers who believe this is a new goldmine in direct marketing, then go out of business and laugh all the way to the bank collecting the profit from this scam. It's actually hilarious to read the "testimonials" from spammers claiming to have used this software. Does anyone believe they are true?

Attached Link: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/phoenix/

heyas; dialyn, you need web washer. try www.webwasher.com. you should edit your networking setup from the default anyway, to uncouple everything you don't need. there was a nice site about all that and network security, but i can't remember what it was called :/

Speaking of pet peeves.. Anyone seen that blasted spaceship for Yahoo DSL? The @#$%&^%$# thing flies right across your screen a couple of times before landing to announce the DSL service. AARRRGGHH!!! feels all better now :D ~Jani :)

between Mozilla 1.1 (no pop-ups built in!), and Zonealarm (no NetBios drivel) and Ad-aware (no-peeking), it's been wonderfully quiet.

Also, be sure to not share your computer with the world- be sure ALL forms of file-sharing is turned off. You can't get any messages if the world doesn't know you're connected. And how effective is this form of "instant message" when it can't contain a link to the website ("must contain plain text only)"? Do they really think people will type in the URL? No- like all other pop-up windows, people will close it the second they see it.

Thank you. I had the same frustrating pop up problem the original post mentions and a cure suggested here helped 100%.