Topic: Annoying (and now dangerous!) pop-ups

[gavin]

With the media stuff over the last few days about pop-ups activating viruses which steal your on-line bank details, etc etc etc - two thoughts.

(1.  The Opera browser lets you stop pop-ups very easily (and it's a lot faster, easier than Internet Explorer!).  But I'm biassed.)
2.  Well worth downloading and installing the Google toolbar, and setting it to refuse pop-ups - at http://toolbar.google.com/ ?  Or am I teaching you all to suck eggs - sorry!

All best - Gavin

[budgiebreeder]

Gavin keep 'em coming a lot of us on here don't know a lot about computers and i for one welcome your advice.Thanks will do that.

[derbex]

A plug for the giant lizard browser -Mozilla and derivates. I think vanilla Moz (www.mozilla.org) lets you stop popups -and I finally found where to turn them off in Konqueror which I use. Both free to download & use, but you'll be more interested in Mozilla.

[eileen]

Never bothered with the damned things now, thank goodness, although for a while there I was getting soooooo many I was tearing my hair out!!  >:(

Keep your advice coming Gavin there's always something new you can teach us.  :D

Eileen.

[William O]

Hi Gavin, I'm not much of a computer wizzard, but as far as I know, my firewall (zonealarm) and an active virus scanner do give some protection. No pop ups seem to get through thus far.

Changing the settings of your computer to block all pop ups sometimes causes the facilities you want to use to malfunction.

It's all a bit of a black box filled with bugs ant bites ;D

 ??? ??? ???

[gavin]

For William - you're right, some websites will not work if you go into the settings and disable pop-ups that way;  and it is a real pain to rearrange the guts of Internet Explorer every so often.

That's the neat bit about both Opera and the Google bar - it's a VERY quick and easy thing to let pop-ups through temporarily.

All best - Gavin

PS firewall and anti-virus - good protection; but I'd strongly (???) recommend Spybot S&D and Adaware to clean out the various nasty browser hijackers, and the like?

[William O]

Thanks I'll look into it a bit further. But I'm always a bit conspicious to add new stuff to my PC when it's running rather well.

[Danni.]

Erm, sorry to butt in but i think you're all forgetting a few things here - NEVER TELL ANYONE WHAT YOUR SECURITY IS!!!  It's the one rule you should remember!!!  

Our comp' had spybott, adaware, mcafee etc, also the google toolbar?!?!?  I was way too naive and let slip about it all, BIG MISTAKE!!  The people with nothing better to do got through and completely obilterated everything!!!

Remember, it doesn't what security you have on your comp' if somebody wants to get in they will, even if it takes them forever to do it.  You let slip with your security info' and you're just giving them an easy ride.

Phew, sorry.  Ahem, feeling a little embarassed now  :-[ :-[

[Yellow Petals]

Another easy way to stop the annoying pop-ups:

Go to:

Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services

Scroll down to Messenger and click on it.

Press "Stop" to stop the Messenger service.

Then change the startup type to " disabled".

They shouldn't bother you again!

And as Gavin stated, always run a spyware programme too.  

We've got so many firewalls, alarms and spyware spotters on this computer, the royal family could move in!

Sammy

[gavin]

For Derbex

Hi there - just thinking back to your comments on Mozilla.  Given you like the lizard, have you tried Opera?  

The reason I ask, is that I've just downloaded Mozilla ------- and it's driving me up the wall!  I haven't yet scaled the magnificent heights of frustration of Internet Explorer yet - but I'm getting there!

It
- won't install where I want it.
- won't import the bookmarks I want.
- The tabbed pages are a nice idea - but frustrating; sometimes a site opens in a new tab, and sometimes in a new window.  (I DO like the floating resizable "pages-in-the-same-window" in Opera.)
- Turning images on and off is a Microsoft-type faff - instead of the simple click-on-the-icon in opera
- Turning on and off pop-ups is another MS-type faff - press F12 in opera, and the options are there.
- and there's more (but I'd better stop wingeing!)

Yup - just a bit of culture shock!  :) :) :)   Miles better than IE - but got a bit of a way to go?

It'd be interesting to hear how somebody coming the other way (from Moz to Opera) saw it.

All best - Gavin

[derbex]

Gavin,

I'm afraid that there's a clue in the Penguin and the Camel, I don't use Windows, I use Linux. Which is one reason why I can't really comment on zone alarm and virus checkers &c. -as I can't use most of them, and, of course I (or rather my PC) am much less likely to get infected.

I haven't tried Opera -is it free nowadays? Last I heard they used to charge.

I generally use Konqueror (which won't run on Windows), but that is based on Mozilla, as is (I think) Apple's Safari. When I do use Mozilla, a couple of times a week, I find it works pretty well, but it's a bit slow and sometimes the mime-typing doesn't work too well, with Flash &c. -although a lot of that is down to me not setting it up. I like the tabbed windows, and don't have any problems with them, they might work better on Linux -I just tried it on Konqueror and it works here too  :o . The main problem I have with Konqueror is that it it sometimes not recognised by websites as being Netscape equivalent.

When it comes down to it I'm not all that fussy about my browser -as long as it serves pages, and I'm more than happy that it and Linux don't seem to suffer from all the security problems that Microsoft have.

You can all wake up now,

Jeremy

P.S. -I've just downloaded Opera -very first impressions, it's quick, it's a beast that does a lot more than just web browsing. I'm impressed enough that I might try it for a while.

[gavin]

Aha - an even wiser way out!  Use Linux (or a Mac, or even a typewriter ------- ANYTHING except MS Windows!).

One day, I'll repluck my courage (uuuuuh?) and try Linux again - but I'm a right lazy b*gg*r!

All best - Gavin

[ken (69)]

Hi Gavin...recently, on a spare computer with limited mb, I downloaded Opera, and deleted IE without  checking that the replacement browser worked.It doesn't, so perhaps should have first made Opera the default browser.But you're right..Opera or Mozilla is the way forward.Some alternative browsers like slim.? are linked to IE.,and have always used web based e mail and pop forwarding so never used Outlook Express.Wouldn't know where to start. Regret Linux beyond me Derbex.

[derbex]

Linux has come on a lot lately, there are some big boys behind it nowadays, IBM for one.

It's not much different to using Windows now -as a desktop, you just have to get used to things working a bit differently, much the same as moving to a Mac.

If you get the right install (Mandrake is probably the easiest), it's no worse, maybe even better, than installing Windows.

Probably only worth trying if you're starting out or bored or interested in computers.

Jeremy