Way OT: A highly-effective popup blocker

riredale wrote on 8/30/2004, 10:26 PM
This has absolutely nothing to do with Sony, Vegas, or video editing. That said, I would assume that most of you spend as much time travelling through Cyberspace as I do.

I've always been smugly amused when I sit down at a different PC and go online, because for years I've been using a freeware "junk" blocker in front of my Internet Explorer called "Proxomitron." I am always surprised by the amount of junk that clutters up typical websites, what with garish ads, popups, and such. The Proxomitron has done a pretty decent job of blocking the worst offenders, but it was getting a bit long in the tooth, and the writer recently passed away.

In stumbling around the net yesterday I came across this site that does a fairly sophisticated analysis of the 100 or so popup blockers out there. After looking over a few of the best-rated ones, I can say that the one called "Ad Muncher" is an amazing piece of work. It installs easily, putting a tiny cow icon in the System Tray. It is an "intelligent" blocker, in that it knows the difference between a popup and a legitimate web page. The icing on the cake is that it also does an excellent job of filtering ads. The result?--clean, quiet web pages, minus all the neon junk. Very impressive.

Of course, I've only experienced this utility for 24 hours, but in looking over the web I've found reviews from people who've been using this thing for years and swear by it. It's $25. www.admuncher.com

Comments

johnmeyer wrote on 8/30/2004, 10:54 PM
I, too, got fed up with popups about a year ago. I looked around, and found that Google included a popup blocker with their excellent toolbar. Run, don't walk, to Google and then download and install the toolbar. I haven't had a single popup in over a year (other than those served by the site itself; I can search Google much more easily; and it includes an auto-fill feature that lets me enter name, address, phone, number, etc. when I do my shopping.

Oh, and did I mention: It's free.

Goolgle Toolbar
johnmeyer wrote on 8/30/2004, 10:54 PM
Opps -- This was a duplicate
mhbstevens wrote on 8/30/2004, 11:28 PM
These are the Popo-up Blockers on my system (NOT by choice they just "came with frame")

The one in IE with SP2
The one from my ISP Earthlink
The one in Sytem Mechanic 4 pro (which everyone should have)
The one in Ad-Aware
The (GREAT as before mentioned) one in the Google toolbar

No offence meant, but only a ?%*# would actually PAY for a Pop-up Blocker.
Chienworks wrote on 8/31/2004, 5:08 AM
The best popup blocker i've found is Netscape 7.x. It's free, it works, and it doesn't suffer MSIE's security issues. Best of all it doesn't require you to install any other toolbars or other software to get the job done. I've been using it for close to a year now and have pretty much forgotten what popus are until i come across a forum thread like this one.

I find myself at gatherings actually amazed by people complaining about all the popups they get. They'll come ask me why it's such a huge problem these days and it takes me a bit to remember what they're talking about. So i tell them to use Netscape 7.x instead of MSIE and it makes their lives much easier.
riredale wrote on 8/31/2004, 9:42 AM
mhbstevens:
Trust me, I am a very big fan of free software. While the AdMuncher product is not free, I got it because it performed so well on the various tests listed on the site mentioned on my original post. The Google toolbar scored an 89/71 on the test, meaning that some legitimate pages couldn't get through and some popups could. Also, AdMuncher (as the name implies) does a great job of blocking advertising banners. All you're left with is a clean, fast-loading web page with alt text markers showing where the ads were supposed to be.

The irony in all this is that, according to that article referenced earlier, some popuppers (I think that's a word, isn't it?) are now checking your browser as they download, and if a blocker is installed they send a different kind of advertising that gets around it.

johnmeyer wrote on 8/31/2004, 10:11 AM
The Google toolbar scored an 89/71 on the test, meaning that some legitimate pages couldn't get through and some popups could.

I have it on all nine computers here and no one has complained about getting site content blocked. I visit hundreds of different sites a month (perhaps more, because of all the research I do). I have never -- not even once -- had a problem having legitimate information blocked. Once in a while I will click on a link, and nothing will happen, but I will get a message at the bottom (in the IE status bar) saying that I should press the Ctrl key while clicking if I want to allow pop-ups. I press the Ctrl key, click, and away I go. This happens maybe once or twice a month.

I don't own any Google stock, and I actually use Teoma for many technical searches, but this Google toolbar is the cat's meow.

It takes less than two minutes to download and install. It easily uninstalls if you decide you don't like it (but you will).

Nike says: Just do it.
mhbstevens wrote on 8/31/2004, 11:46 AM
I do not think blocking good sites is a problem. I have only had this happen twice and even then you are told it is blocked (OR with Search and Destroy-FREEWARE - you get a choice) and you may accept the pop-up. Also a reload will work allow the page.

I can honestly say I believe all pop-ups are about equal, maybe some more equal than others but I have not had a pop-up since I can remeber. Did get a virus from BigWetOpenBeavers.com but then I guess I deserved that.
JasonMurray wrote on 8/31/2004, 3:53 PM
I used Ad Muncher a while ago and found it very good. The only negative I found was that sometimes, removal of the ads from the site's HTML structure caused prolems with the site's layout.

I like the Mozilla Firefox (and Netscape 7) approach to popup blocking. Block 'em, but give the user an easy way to enable it on a site-by-site basis (clicking again on the same link also enables the popup most of the time). It puts the user in control instead of the browser manufacturer.
mhbstevens wrote on 8/31/2004, 3:58 PM
THIS JUST PUBLISHED ON C-NET

Requiem for pop-up blockers?
Pop-up blockers have been very popular on Download.com for quite a while, but I expect that to change now that Windows XP Service Pack 2 has arrived. Among its many security features, SP2 adds a native pop-up blocker to Internet Explorer. After I installed it, I ran IE through a number of online pop-up tests, and it cleared them all.

Some people may think an epitaph for pop-up blockers is premature. For example, although Microsoft's media player comes with a ton of features, there's still plenty of competition in the media player category. However, pop-up blocking is such a simple function that I don't think anybody will feel the need to download an additional program when IE already handles the problem.

Wayne Cunningham
Senior Editor, CNET Download.com
ReneH wrote on 8/31/2004, 6:40 PM
Why get an expernal pop-up blocker when the best browser has it built in? It's lean, mean and fast!

www.mozilla.org

Nuff said....
stepfour wrote on 8/31/2004, 7:55 PM
I use the Google blocker, too. Works great and doesn't get in the way. I like that I can easily allow popups for a particular site just by clicking on the popup applet and automatically begin blocking popups again when I I leave that site. It even remembers to allow popups again, the next time I go to that site. Not a bad freebie deal at all; plus I've got that great Google search tool right there, ready and waiting.
JasonMurray wrote on 8/31/2004, 8:15 PM
I dont think the popup blocker epitaph should be written yet - it comes down tp configurability and ease of use.

But, will IE's popup blocker stop spyware popping up ads on desktops? Maybe so. Or mayber the spyware will disable it surreptitiously.