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What are Pop-Ups?
Pop-ups, or pop-up ads, are a form of advertising online. As a user is surfing the web and visiting various websites, new windows may suddenly (and without user initiation) open and display advertisements and promotions. Some computer users find them extremely irritating, as one's screen can quickly be filled with dozens of little boxes, each flashing its own brightly-colored message of "BUY ME NOW!"
While most pop-ups are annoying or even intrusive, pop-up windows can be a helpful and necessary part of websites. Clicking on a link may bring up a new window with beneficial information, which makes pop-up use necessary on some web pages.
Concerns for Parents
- A screen flooded with pop-ups may make navigating the web difficult and stressful for you or your child.
- Young children are more likely to explore these flashy, fun-colored advertisements, especially when they see offers for free prizes, such as vacations and iPods. These too-good-to-be-true offers are designed to get susceptible users to click on the ads. Why? Because clicking on pop-ups may cause your computer to become infected with spyware, viruses, or other forms of malware.
- Some pop-ups contain inappropriate or even pornographic content that you do not want your children to be exposed to.
What Can I Do About Pop-Ups?
- You can install a pop-up blocker (note, however, that larger Internet security packages should come with a good pop-up blocker, so you shouldn't need to install a separate pop-up blocker in addition to software like McAfee or Kaspersky). However, blocking all pop-ups may hinder your ability to surf the web, since many websites use pop-up windows for necessary and helpful purposes. Click here for a list of links to free pop-up blockers.
- Be sure your computer is equipped with antivirus protection and a firewall. This may sound complicated or costly, but doing so is actually quite simple and doesn't have to cost you a cent.
- Install a content filter to help block out sleazy advertisements.
- If you use Firefox, there are add-ons you can also use. You can read more at More About Mozilla Firefox
- Talk to your kids about pop-ups. Be sure they understand that trying to click on the flying monkey to win a free iPod nano isn't going to win them anything! Teach them to simply click the X in the corner whenever a pop-up appears.
Prevention
Apparently, when people surf certain websites, they get a pop-up saying that their computer is infected with a virus and needs to download a component to fix it (This is usually a bogus trojan program (antivirus 360, perfect defender 2009, etc.). Many of these programs will download the trojan virus onto the computer by clicking on anything in the pop-up, including the red X button in the top right corner. The simplest way for a user to close the pop-up window without clicking on the red X in the corner is to find the current pop-up window in the task bar at the bottom of the screen, right click on the window, and then choose close. Alternatively, you can make sure that window is selected and press Alt+F4, or press CTRL+ALT+Delete and go into task list and end task that window in the Applications window.
Where Can I Learn More?
This page contains Google's instructions for enabling its free pop-up blocker on Internet Explorer.
Pop-up blocking is automatically enabled when you use Mozilla Firefox. However, this page gives even more guidelines for preventing unwanted pop-ups and allowing pop-ups on specific websites.
