Pop Goes The Weasel....Pop-Up Blockers

Microsoft's Built-in Pop-up Blocker...My Current Pop-Up Blocker

Friday, January 7, 2005 by Essencay | Discussion: Windows XP

'Round and 'round the cobbler's bench the monkey chased the weasel
The monkey thought 'twas all in fun Pop! Goes the weasel
A penny for a spool of thread. A penny for a needle
That's the way the money goes, Pop! Goes the weasel
A half a pound of tupenny rice. A half a pound of treacle
Mix it up and make it nice, Pop! Goes the weasel.
Up and down the London road, In and out of the Eagle
That's the way the money goes, Pop! Goes the weasel
I've no time to plead and pine, I've no time to wheedle
Kiss me quick and then I'm gone, Pop! Goes the weasel


Remember the bad old days when browsing the net could be a nightmare with the amount of popups you encountered and trying to find a decent free popup blocker was a chore? Well not anymore. Now the question to ask yourself is...did I de-activate all the other pop-up blockers installed on my PC so that I can control what is being blocked? Seems everyone is jumping on this ride including Microsoft.

Right now on my PC I have 4 pop-up blockers installed. XP's SP2 added one to IE6. MSN Toolbar has one built-in. Earthlink's TotalAccess has one built-in (this is the one I used when pop-up blockers where scarce), and Norton's Internet Security 2005 added the fourth. So if you're wondering why your favorite site that uses pop-ups no longer pops check to see if one of the many possible pop-up blockers you may have installed (Google's Toolbar comes to mind) on your computer isn't blocking it. Best bet is to uninstall, if you can, or disable all but one.


My current favorite for IE6 is the one that SP2 added. Whenever it comes across a new site with popups it gives you a convenient visual warning to allow you to configure it, as well as blocking the pop-up. What's yours?
XX
Reply #1 Friday, January 7, 2005 2:45 AM
IE and Google toolbar.

My only problem is blocked downloads. In least, ones that has those timers that begin download after short time.
Erk.
Reply #2 Friday, January 7, 2005 3:41 AM
I've used this one in I.E. for at least a few years now, without trouble. A great little app which also is rich in features:

Below, is a description from the EMS Freesurfer website.
--------------------------------------------------------------

EMS Free Surfer mk II is multilanguage supported freeware popup stopper, cache cleaner and surfing companion for Internet Explorer. FS and its fs-20 inference chain engine do not in any way interfere with opening new windows. No white lists, block lists or anything; just start it and surf in peace. And it's configuration free. Now over 1.5 million happy users...

And at last you can also enable/disable those annoying GIF and Flash animations too! Get Free Surfer here - it's pure freeware.

EMS Free Surfer mk II 2.1.026 main features;

- Open multilanguage support. Includes Italian, German, Swedish, English, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Dutch, Finnish, Dansk. Or implement your own language.
- Intelligent popup stopper with customizable rules and two surfing modes.
- Configuration free, just press start!
- FS-20 engine stops popups BEFORE they appear on screen; save bandwidth.
- FS-20 plugin support; FS gets better and better all the time.
- Snap manager; save your open browsers to a snap.
- Disable Flash and GIF animations.
- Panic! button and enhanced Total Panic option.
- Home page lock prevents home page changes.
- Silent mode disables activex-prompts.
- Use internal beeper or your own wavs to enable popup sound.
- 'Slim mode'; terminated popups list can be now disabled.
- WashBoard, cache cleaner plugin.
- Cleans temp files, cookies, autocomplete, typed URLs and
my documents (recent document folder).
- Timering options. Cleaning can be done automatically after all
browsers all closed or in a specific time of a day.


---------------------------------------------------------------

...You can find it here. http://www.kolumbus.fi/eero.muhonen/FS/fs.htm
Bebi Bulma
Reply #3 Friday, January 7, 2005 4:31 AM
I use Firefox, don't have to worry about popups or popup blockers.
Erk.
Reply #4 Friday, January 7, 2005 6:31 AM
Sometimes there's a necessity to use both ...which I do, ...so if I'm using IE, Freesurfer is always enabled.
Cavan1
Reply #5 Friday, January 7, 2005 7:08 AM
For IE6 use the one added by SP2, it is simple but functional. Also like that it blocks ActiveX downloads
until you click allow, very good for sites that don't let you know you have to download their ActiveX.
jier
Reply #6 Friday, January 7, 2005 11:10 AM
I use IE SP2, don't have to worry about popups or popup blockers. or sites taking 10 minutes to load. or displaying strange once loaded.

Angloesque
Reply #7 Friday, January 7, 2005 11:44 AM
I use Firefox, don't have to worry about popups or popup blockers.


Ditto.

-A.
Kobrano
Reply #8 Friday, January 7, 2005 11:56 AM
I can't believe people are still using IE with all of the problems and threats out there - and a perfect alternative in the form of Firefox.

Never had a popup with Firefox, therefore, I don't need to install extra rubbish on my computer to do things.
rojer_31
Reply #9 Friday, January 7, 2005 1:36 PM
Opera now and always

Never had a problem with pop-ups for a coupla years now
the_Disincarnated
Reply #10 Friday, January 7, 2005 3:55 PM
I personally use Opera. Great browser and full of options, but I do have to crack open IE every now and then to test my web sites. It's a shame the world is still using IE, so many options and alternatives.
joeKnowledge
Reply #11 Friday, January 7, 2005 11:40 PM
Use FireFox so...

But when I am on IE, I just use EI native pop-up blocker and Google's. Between the 2 of them I don't get pop-ups. All the others are turned off (Yahoo, MSN, Pluck)
Richard Sturiale
Reply #12 Friday, January 7, 2005 11:42 PM
Firefox for me
SSG Geezer
Reply #13 Saturday, January 8, 2005 1:21 AM
Firefox! 1 problem is Just that JU doesn't like it as well as that Redmond crud.
cactoblasta
Reply #14 Saturday, January 8, 2005 1:59 AM
I just use the Norton Internet Security one. Only bad thing about it is that it disables some wanted popups (like Gmail ones). Otherwise it's really good, and I'm sure if i could be bothered I could avoid the autoblock feature.
iamindyan
Reply #15 Sunday, January 9, 2005 1:28 AM
Well I have Opera.So i don't need a pop-up blocker.

But use proxomitron for ads.

_____________________-
Here's a partial list of what the Proxomitron can do "out of the box"
(not that it was ever in a box mind you)

Stop windows that pop-up, pop-under, or pop-over
Stop those un-closable endless banner chains
Stop pop-up JavaScript message boxes
Remove web-branding and other scripts tacked on by "free" web providers.
Convert most ads and banner pictures into simple text links
Freeze all animated gifs
Make blinking text appear as bold instead
Remove slow web counters
Stop web pages from "auto-refreshing"
Prevent pages from changing fonts
Get rid of or replace web page background images
Protect against getting "trapped" inside someone else's frames!
Make all frames resizable
Close top or bottom frame banner windows
Protect against getting "trapped" inside someone else's frames!
Make background MIDI songs play only when you choose.
Remove status bar scroll-texts
Remove "dynamic" HTML from pages
Disguise your browser's identity and version from JavaScripts
Remove style sheets
Un-hide URLs when the mouse is over a link
Disable frames or tables altogether
Change or delete cookies
Change your browser's user-agent and other identifying fields
Hide where you've been previously from inquisitive web servers
and, as they say, much, much more.
___________________________

i use this with Jd's soft.A truely gr8 freeware.Fully customisable.
wombatDK
Reply #16 Sunday, January 9, 2005 9:39 PM
I used WebWasher for the longest time to get rid of popups and web page ads. Recently I've used IE/Firefoxes native blockers, and my local Squid proxy server to selectively block ads on pages (like these stupid floating annoying "ads" on some pages).
ama02
Reply #17 Monday, January 10, 2005 2:57 PM
A couple years ago, my ISP offered (to members) Pop-Up Stopper from Panicware Link
It's the pro version, but members got it for free. I've been using it ever since. It has its own toolbar across the top, and with click on the + button, you can quickly add your favorite sites to the Allow list. I also have the pop-up stopper from XP SP2. Happy with both.
Duncan2k5
Reply #18 Friday, January 14, 2005 1:39 PM
I used WebWasher for the longest time to get rid of popups and web page ads. Recently I've used IE/Firefoxes native blockers, and my local Squid proxy server to selectively block ads on pages (like these stupid floating annoying "ads" on some pages).


Last time i used WebWasher, it did absolutly nothing except take up hard disk space and RAM. I use Firefox to block my pop-ups, and I use Adblock to block any ads I come across on any of my websites. I must have blocked well over 100 ads in less than 2 weeks. Is great. Ad-free browsing and faster load up time on websites (needed on a 56k )

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