Best Pop-Up Blocker

What is a pop-up?

Pop-ups are a form of online advertising that websites employ to generate web traffic and make people to give their e-mail addresses and other private information. In simple words, a pop-up is basically the new browser window that may open automatically when you visit a particular website.

Quite often, these popup windows are malicious in nature and are used for nefarious purposes. Pop-ups might also contain links to websites or other pop-ups or maybe installers that may install unwanted software on your computer without your permission.

Pop-ups are generally generated using JavaScript, though other means can be used too. A variation of the pop-up is the pop-under advertisement that doesn’t jump out immediately but is opened behind the active window.

Some pop-ups aren’t entirely pop-ups in entirety. They may contain a graphic that fits to the page of the browser but, might contain a small area in the graphic that looks like the standard title bar of Windows. When the close button here is clicked, a link is activated, which is the basic thing to avoid in the first place.

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How pop-ups can be harmful?

Apart from being supremely annoying pop-ups as mentioned above, might do more than just annoy people. Some pop-ups might ask people to enter their personal details, such as their e-mail id, which is then used for spamming purposes or to create fake user databases.

Some pop-ups might have links to websites that might have unsuitable or adult content, that need to avoided, especially if it is your child who is accessing the Internet.

Then there are some pop ups that might run commands on your computer, without permission of course, to install programs or to run unauthorized commands on your system.

Blocking Pop-Ups

Use a good browser

The best pop-up blocker is usually your web browser. Most web browsers available these days come with inbuilt pop-up blockers. It is best however, not to use Internet Explorer as due to its very large user base, it is generally a malicious programmer’s prime target.

New ways are always being discovered to circumvent what little protection in terms of security and privacy Internet Explorer claims it provides. It is best that you use the latest versions of web browsers and tweak their security settings so that they are ready to combat any attacks from malicious pop ups.

According to general consensus Opera and Mozilla Firefox are considered to be better at pop-up blocking.

However, certain methods of overriding these pop-up blocking methods are also in practice. For instance, Adobe Flash may be used to generate pop-ups because most pop-up blockers work by not allowing unnecessary JavaScript code from running.

Using Third Party Software

Some browser add on toolbars include pop-up blockers which add to the blocking capabilities of browsers, common examples include the Google and Yahoo toolbars that are considered to be one of the best pop up blockers. A good antivirus or antispyware program may also come with pop up blocking capabilities and help in further protecting your PC against harmful popups.

Scanning your system

Sometimes, truckloads of pop-ups might just be a symptom of Spyware or other malware which is installed on your system. In this case, it is best that you scan your computer with a good anti-spyware or antivirus tool.

It is best, however, to maintain a certain degree of discretion and caution when surfing the internet. Not everyone who claims to be a friend is a friend, this being almost always true on the internet. And, remember the close button is the red button at the extreme right upper corner of a window, not anything else. Or maybe better use Alt + F4, eh ?

Although you can choose to install a good popup blocker on your computer, in the long run, being vigilant in what you browse and what you do on the internet may serve as the best pop up blocker.