Monday, February 28, 2005
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Pop-ups are the biggest annoyance when surfing the internet. They are everywhere you go and never anything interesting. There are two things a pop-up is meant to do: 1. Attract your attention, or 2. Install spyware/adware to pull up more pop-ups. It’s all a big marketing scheme for advertisement companies.

Definitions

Spyware/Adware – A technology that assists in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge. On the Internet, "spyware is programming
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that is put in someone's computer to secretly gather information about the user and relay it to advertisers or other interested parties." As such, spyware is cause for public concern about privacy on the Internet. Spyware/Adware can also cause random pop-ups.

There are three ways a pop-up can pop-up:

  1. The most common is when the browser loads a new page it will load a new pop-up. This type of pop-up is built into the code of the webpage.
  2. The next popular pop-up is when you hover over a certain spot on a web page. The web designers pick a spot on their page and add code to it that makes a pop-up appear when you move your mouse over it. You don’t even have to click on it.
  3. The most confusing pop-up of them all is random pop-ups. You computer can just be sitting there and pop-ups just start popping up for no reason. This is caused by spyware installed on the computer that runs in the background silently and should be removed as soon as possible. The spyware can be installed on your computer by just clicking on a link or clicking YES on pop-ups.

Different Types of Pop-Ups:

Website pop-up - This is one of the most common. I call this the Website pop-up because it is a pop-up of another fully functional browser window loaded with a website. These can be annoying but they can be closed by just a click of the orange X and the top right of the screen.

Typical Info pop-up - This is the usual pop-up window that is real popular. It is a simple window with text and graphics. This is just like the website pop-up but without the menu bar and navigation buttons. You can close this one with the orange X and the top right of the window.

Bad pop-up - These pop-ups can cause more damage than anything else. They trick the user into clicking on the window when it is actually a browser window with a picture without the title bar, menu bar, or the tool bar. When they take all of that away, the untrained person has no choice but to click on the image. It is a simple image that can be created in 5 minutes and can be configured to install spyware behind the scenes by just clicking on it. The only way to close these windows without clicking on it is to use the Alt+F4 key combination. Get to know this key combination because it can close any window and program in the Windows operating system, including pop-ups.

Security Warning pop-up - The Security Warning pop-up is the most dangerous of all pop-ups. They can install anything on your computer if you click YES. The Security Warning is meant to do good more than bad though. Microsoft created this so a website could install software on your computer that can interact with your computer and make the web browsing experience more fun. The key to noticing when it is bad and when it is good is to look for the manufacturer’s name on the window. If it says Microsoft Corporation, it is ok to click YES only if you are on a Microsoft website. If it says Macromedia Flash, it is ok because that is a program that plays proprietary media in webpages. If it says XXX, obviously it is not good and clicking YES will install some type of spyware. Only click YES if you are expecting it. If you don’t know for sure, just click NO. There is no problem with clicking no.

Tools for stopping Pop-ups and Spyware/Adware:

For stopping pop-ups, the Google Toolbar works better than anything else. Mainly because it does its job and it’s free. To download, go to www.google.com, type in toolbar and click I’m Feeling Lucky. Click download button and follow instructions. Other company’s offer free ad pop-up stoppers, but they are actually engines to put more pop-ups on your computer.

For finding spyware and adware already downloaded on your computer, Adaware is the best tool. This program is recommended by Microsoft and can be downloaded from www.download.com. In the search block, type adaware and follow instructions for downloading the executable to your computer. Once you download the executable, you will need to run it to finish installing Adaware on your computer. Once installed, there will be an Adaware icon on your desktop, Double-click the icon and click Start. You can purchase the software from www.lavasoft.com if you want real-time monitoring. Otherwise, you will have to manually run Adaware. We suggest running it once a week.

Written by Jonathan Parker, Senior IT Tech, Network Solution Providers.
Submitted by Misty Kimble also of Network Solution Providers
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