4th March 2003, 3:47 PM
Yeah same here, and in fact, most things with block lists have that sort of option.
Pop-up stopper is one of the best blocker utilities I've seen. In fact, I used to just put up with pop-ups even when I knew there were blocker programs out there simply because of how bad they all were. Most of them would run in the background instead of ONLY when an IE window is open, which takes up resources. A good number were also spyware programs, and many even loaded pop-up windows of their own while blocking others. This has none of those flaws, and is in fact pretty cheap to boot. It's certainly worth a couple of bucks NOT to be annoyed. I just recently updated by the way. Anyway, it's only got two flaws in this version. One, it installs with the option to play a sound when a pop-up is blocked turned on. On sites like the one in this thread that leads to about a million annoying clicks. However, I just turned that option off the first time I ran it, so the only flaw is that it's on when it's installed :D. The other one is an actual flaw, with that being that it ONLY prevents pop-ups for the browser it's installed in, so if I were to install Netscape for some weird reason I'd have to install it again. So, for other things I have, like AIM and such, not a single pop-up is blocked. No issue though, because I use IE exclusivly for net surfing, and I don't really want other stuff to get things blocked, like for instance AIM message windows :D. There's an alternate version that does do a universal block, but that has to be running in the background all the time, and I hate adding programs to startup. I still maintain having ONLY the speaker icon and clock up in my system tray, with me maybe adding antivirus software in the future, which I usually end up doing a while after a fresh install.
Anyway, I suspect that my stopper software works exactly the same as the one that's native in Netscape. It seems you have a native version of AIM in there too, explaining why it worked on an "outside" pop-up.
There's one thing you may or may not know about ABF. There's a little service running in XP that while originally intended for simple messaging between networked computers is now being used for pop-ups even when you aren't surfing. Just disable this "messenger" service and that bit of annoyance is stopped forever.
Oh by the way, at the pop-up stopper site they recommended this piece of software that detects all sorts of spyware when you run it. Of course I didn't set it up to run at startup or in the background for reasons I've stated already, but it's very nice. I've found a couple annoying programs I wasn't aware were autoinstalled, and promptly removed them (like this annoying "save now" program). You can find it here... http://spybot.eon.net.au/index.php?lang=...getstarted
Pop-up stopper is one of the best blocker utilities I've seen. In fact, I used to just put up with pop-ups even when I knew there were blocker programs out there simply because of how bad they all were. Most of them would run in the background instead of ONLY when an IE window is open, which takes up resources. A good number were also spyware programs, and many even loaded pop-up windows of their own while blocking others. This has none of those flaws, and is in fact pretty cheap to boot. It's certainly worth a couple of bucks NOT to be annoyed. I just recently updated by the way. Anyway, it's only got two flaws in this version. One, it installs with the option to play a sound when a pop-up is blocked turned on. On sites like the one in this thread that leads to about a million annoying clicks. However, I just turned that option off the first time I ran it, so the only flaw is that it's on when it's installed :D. The other one is an actual flaw, with that being that it ONLY prevents pop-ups for the browser it's installed in, so if I were to install Netscape for some weird reason I'd have to install it again. So, for other things I have, like AIM and such, not a single pop-up is blocked. No issue though, because I use IE exclusivly for net surfing, and I don't really want other stuff to get things blocked, like for instance AIM message windows :D. There's an alternate version that does do a universal block, but that has to be running in the background all the time, and I hate adding programs to startup. I still maintain having ONLY the speaker icon and clock up in my system tray, with me maybe adding antivirus software in the future, which I usually end up doing a while after a fresh install.
Anyway, I suspect that my stopper software works exactly the same as the one that's native in Netscape. It seems you have a native version of AIM in there too, explaining why it worked on an "outside" pop-up.
There's one thing you may or may not know about ABF. There's a little service running in XP that while originally intended for simple messaging between networked computers is now being used for pop-ups even when you aren't surfing. Just disable this "messenger" service and that bit of annoyance is stopped forever.
Oh by the way, at the pop-up stopper site they recommended this piece of software that detects all sorts of spyware when you run it. Of course I didn't set it up to run at startup or in the background for reasons I've stated already, but it's very nice. I've found a couple annoying programs I wasn't aware were autoinstalled, and promptly removed them (like this annoying "save now" program). You can find it here... http://spybot.eon.net.au/index.php?lang=...getstarted
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)