pc Help! - Popup Blocker And Security Help

Which is worse, the pop-up or the pop-up blocker?
I see so many PC’s with multiple pop-up blockers installed on them that it is hardly surprising that many users get
confused and cannot get legitimate websites to work because the site uses pop-ups.  In the majority of cases I
would say that the pop-up blocker is actually more of a problem than the pop-up itself!!

How do you end up with more than one pop-up blocker on your computer?
Most Internet browsers have pop-up blockers built-in.  Microsoft Internet Explorer has had one since version 6 approximately
3 to 4 years ago.  Why do you need more software to do the same job?  A good question, but so many users end up with just
that because the software is installed along with other software that you do actually want.  Two well know examples of this are
the Google toolbar and the Yahoo toolbar.  Both of these toolbars contain pop-up blockers and are often installed unintentionally
by the user along with other software.  For example, if you install Adobe Shockwave Player, part of the installation process will be
a tick box asking if you want the Google toolbar too (see below).  

As you can see the tick box to install the Google toolbar is already selected.  So unless you are actually expecting that something else might be installed along with Shockwave player, you might be forgiven for missing it and just clicking next.  If you do this, you will end up with the Google toolbar and with it another pop-up blocker!  In addition to this, a number of Internet security products also include a pop-up blocker.  Consequently, it is not uncommon to find 4 or 5 different pop-up blockers on one PC!!  How any user is supposed to manage this and effectively choose what they want to block and what the don’t want to block is difficult to see.

Commonsense will prevail!
One of the most effective ways of managing pop-ups is not blocking them but stopping them from appearing in the first place.  There are a number of commonsense things that you can do as a user to achieve this.  Firstly, there is taking a bit more time to read message boxes when they appear.  So many users just click yes to everything, so it is hardly surprising that after a few months, the PC is full of spy-ware.  For a detailed definition of spy-ware, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spyware. For the purposes of this document I will simply define spy-ware as software that interferes with your use of the computer, collecting personal information and using it to display ads or to collect marketing data.  This leads me on to the second main commonsense thing that you can do to prevent pop-ups – understand what spy-ware and ad-aware is.  The wikipedia site is an excellent resource in this respect and you don’t need to be a techie to understand it.  Thirdly, use a spy-ware scanner such as Ad-aware from Lavasoft on a regular basis to scan the computer and remove spy-ware.  This will usually stop a large number of Ads from popping up in the first place.

Managing Pop-Ups
Ok, we have to accept that even if you are careful and don’t click yes to everything and you scan your computer on a regular basis, you are still going to get some pop-ups that you don’t want.  For this, you do need a pop-up blocker.  The question is how do you manage this software and which pop-up blocker do you use.  There are so many different pop-up blockers that I can’t go through them all in this document but I will show two examples – the Internet Explorer built-in popup blocker and the Google toolbar pop-up blocker.  The following example shows a computer that has the built-in Internet Explorer pop-up blocker enabled.

The highlighted area shows where the Internet Explorer pop-up blocker informs you when it has blocked a pop-up.  If you click on the information bar, you will be presented with the option to temporarily allow pop-ups from this site, always allow or disallow.  Pretty straightforward really and that’s how it should be!  Problems arise when there is more than one pop-up blocker installed.
 

The highlighted area shows how you turn the google toolbar pop-up blocker on and off.  If I turn the Windows pop-up blocker off (click Tools, Popup Blocker, Turn Off Pop-up Blocker) and turn the Google pop-up blocker on then the pop-up is still blocked but the way in which the user is informed is a little less noticeable (see below).

The highlighted area above demonstrates how the Google pop-up blocker shows when a pop-up has been blocked.  If you want to allow pop-ups, simply clicking the button will achieve this. 

As you can see from these examples each method uses different techniques and when you have 4 or 5 pop-up blockers on one computer it can be impossible to manage.  If you want to remove the Google toolbar completely, simply go to control panel, click add/remove programs, find the Google toolbar in the list and click remove.  This can be applied to the Yahoo toolbar as well if required.  My recommendation would be to stick with the built-in Internet Explorer pop-up blocker.  The general rule is stick to one pop-up blocker and you’ll find pop-ups easy to manage. 

Feedback
Thank you for taking the time to read this brief guide. We hope you have found it iteresting and useful. Your feedback is always welcome, please e-mail feedback@pchelp-bristol.co.uk if you have any comments.