Stop Pop Ups

There's been a bit of commotion on the TV recently about pop ups and the danger to our children.  Mostly this is hysteria because there are some very simple things you can do to stop pop ups.  Personally I get annoyed with this sort of media beat up because if you are practicing good computer maintenance you should not be getting pop ups anyway.  But pop ups can be security risks, take up resources and can cause general havoc on your PC. I have had to ressurect many a friends PC where one of the main symptoms of disaster was a pop up epidemic. There is a separate article here if you want to find out more about the damage they do. So if you have not yet rid your online experience of pop ups... you really should.

Here's what I do, I give no guarantees for this information but it works for me. If you choose to do the same you do so at your own risk. My lawyer made me write that. So...

1. If you use Microsoft Internet Explorer as your browser download the Google toolbar and follow the installation instructions. Download

Once installed you will notice there is a button that says "pop ups allowed" click on it to stop the pop ups.

2. If you are a Windows XP user make sure you have automatic updates enabled. If you are using the latest up to date version of Windows XP it will automatically also stop pop ups.

3. A lot of people are now using the web browser Firefox because it does not have as many security problems as some other browsers do. Download. Personally I run both the Firefox browser and Microsoft Internet Explorer. However most of the problems I have seen on people's PCs come from going to sites that take advantage of some of the security holes in Microsoft Internet Explorer.

4. You should also have a firewall, I recommend Zone Alarm from Download . There is a free version.

5. You should also download and install AdAware SE from Download  and run it once a week . It will get rid of all the little nasties such as adware and spyware on your machine.

6.  And please make sure you are using a good virus scanner. You can download a free one for personal use from AVG here. Download

7. Finally NEVER open an email if you don't know who it is from and even if you do know who it is from it can still have a virus or worm in it without the senders knowledge. This is why good virus software or mail scanning software such as Mailwasher (I'll be doing a review on this soon) is essential.

And above all someone in the house needs to take responsibility for PC maintenance! This includes running both adaware and your virus scanner weekly and making sure you check for any updates before running them.

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