non ad-ware pop-up blocker?

Technical Support Forum

Any of you super smart tech people know how I can stop the trillion pop-ups form invading my computer? I tried Avant Browswr and it worked for awhile, but eventually is stopped workign all together.

Any alternatives?

Thanks in advance for the help.

www.panicware.com

Page can not be displayed...

install the google toolbar. i have yet to see a pop-up since i installed it. and i've been using it for a long time.

http://toolbar.google.com/

maybe I should also mention I am using windows XP now... I'll try installing it, thanks Josh.

Could also try Crazy Browser...

It'll even count how many pop-ups it blocks

Though I hate it, so I don't use it...

it works perfect with xp.

awesome man, not a single popup since I installed it. i even went to a sight i knew had a pop up as it's main page and the trusty google bar prompted me. thanks for you suggestions everyone!

if you get a notice that you've got a pm here on INReview, and opt to open it in a new window, hold the ctrl key down and it will allow the window to appear.

Odd, I don't know what happened to the Panicware site.

INReview traffic brought down panicware.com

we're just too powerful for our own good.

NONONONONONONON STOP SAYZAK

DONT LISTEN TO THEM

www.avantbrowser.com (THE BEST BROWSER OUT THERE)

You should have read his first post. He has already tried Avant Browser.

Oh and sorry about the Panicware site. Don't know what happened to them but if you are still interested, I have the software somewhere and can send it to you.

Oh www.panicware.com is back up.

Looks like they change a bit. The basic version used to be free I think. Now it's $19.95.

yeah, i meant to ask what was wrong, but forgot when I went to the site to get the quote

It seems that all pop up blockers are destined to fail eventually. There is so much software designed to disable the popup blocker that you have to do a lot more than rely on the pop up blocker in order to prevent them.

Avant browser used to work great, but it was disabled somehow and I have no idea how. That was on our other computer. Since I have my own now, I've been trying to learn more about how to keep my computer safe from hackers, ad-ware, and pop-ups. Who would have thought that companies hire hackers to create ad-ware to perform as pop-ups? How irritating.

Right now I'm using the google toolbar, which I suspect is as efficient as avantbrowser anyway, and could probably be dissabled just as easily. I've already noticed some pop-ups sneaking through, but now I'm using the ad-aware program that Advance suggested to me to hopefully get rid of those. I haven't had a pop up since I ran ad-aware a couple hours ago.

ad aware isnt really a pop up blocker as much as a spy ware remover, but it does help.

If you are having problems with webpages just appearing at random times then you have adware on your PC.

You need a product called Ad-Aware by Lavasoft. The basic version is Free and it works great.

www.lavasoft.de

Oh and I checked the site a few minutes ago and it is working fine.

Yep, that's the program Advance suggested to me.

Just to let you know, I am a computer tech and have been one since 1992. Was a high paid one when I was laid off from Electronic Data Systems contracted to Bellsouth. I also worked at General Motors and Cincinnati Financial Corportation. Prior to that I worked for a National Computer Distributor in the Tech Support Call Center.

I have or know of about any utility you may need. Have tested a bunch of them. If I recommend it, it usually means that I have tried it and use it.

Question: My favorites get random addresses for serial cracks and my homepage gets changed all the time. How do I fix, I use adaware ALL the time.

My little brother was looking for serial cracks for something and now i am pissed at him.

That ususally comes into play because you have some sort of Browser add on like a browser bar of some sort. Also looking for hacks and cracks, those sites are generally run by the same people who do porn sites. They will put code on the site that usually will ask "Would you like to make this page your home page" or something like that. Of course you should say no. However they may be able to do it without your asking. But most of the time it is some sort of adware that does it. Ad-Aware 6 should catch it, then again it might be from something that you like, like a Browser Bar.

I had this problem and it was because I had a browser add on. Now I don't know Avant Browser, I installed it and didn't like it so I thus have removed it.

Is there a way to search for browser add ons? Adaware didnt catch it.

My bro says he doesn't remember clicking anything weird, but he might have selective memory.

I had that problem on my computer too. I traced the "home page" problem to an adware program placed in a folder which was named something inconspicuous, and the program was completely invisible in the folder. I couldn't delete the program, so I simply removed the folder from it's location on he C drive, and changed my homepage back to MSN. After that it stayed at MSN for awhile until the sneaky adware ended up on the C drive again. Basically, I have no idea how to get rid of it. Good luck.

Its so annoying, if i don't get a fix soon, i'll format the drive :/

So after you set your home page, when does it change to something else?

Once I exit out completley (restart included)

Theres got to be some adware on your PC, if you have Ad Aware 6 then try to do a live update and run it again. Also there is an add on for Ad Ware 6 called Reghance which checks your registry.

Thanks, ill try it!

Ok, I just downloaded Ad-aware 6 and I scanned my computer. It found 431 items. What do I do?

You can take a chance a just let the program take the appropiate action or you can go through each item. Some things that it detects is when you move Icons to a different directory. I would suggest this time around just scanning over each area and get familar with the types of actions it takes or wants to take.

Right now I am in the screen titled "scanning results" and it has a real long list with check boxes. If I push NEXT a message comes up saying "431 objects will be removed, continue?"

Push YES?

That's up to you, If you push YES then it will delete all the items. If you are squeamish then go back an you can look at what it's going to do.

There are something’s in the list that have a little icon of a bug with an exclamation mark. I’m assuming that is bad, so I should delete it.

Or I can just put everything in the “quarantine folder”, but I would have no idea what to do after. But you said that everything is not bad though… so I could just…I have no idea. I wish I wasn’t so computer illiterate.

if you just quarantine them then you can go back and restore them (all or line-item) as long as you don't delete them from quarantine. you should be able to look line by line like ron suggested and see (for the most part) how severe the problem is, what program the problem belongs to, and if indeed it really is a problem. not everything may be a problem. i have my browser set to open to a blank page and it picks it up as a browser hijack attempt. so i certainly wouldn't quarantine all 431 lines at once. after you perform a scan it offers you the option to view your log and if you view it, it gives you the option to save it. if you want to email me your log file, i'll look through it (give me some time to look through it though) and give you a more informed opinion.

if you just quarantine a group of 25 per day then you can guage how normal operation of your computer is affected. nothing you quarantine will cripple your system. side effects will be that some programs will no longer run. and you can then decide how bad you really need it and if you really need it then you can remove from quarantine those files the program needs to run.

I did what Ron said before about looking at each line and I noticed some said browser hijack and I said to myself that can't be good. So I deleted all of them, which was around 4 of them.

Is there a certain type of vendor or something that I should look for? There are a lot of tracking cookies too... guessing I should delete them too.

OMG! I did some research on some of the names that come up in the list and one that had a lot of files was this thing called DyFuCA. I looked it up and it said that it causes the internet browser to slow down. So instead of being smart and quarantining them, I just deleted them and now all of a sudden I have a billion pop up ads.

Wow, right after I posted that message I rebooted my computer and all of a sudden all the pop ups stopped. Weird…

yeah, the cookies will show up. i forgot about that.

Delete em'?

Most of the cookies will say something like Data Miner, get rid of those.

I notice that right when it gets to scan my C drive the number of "new objects" jumps really high.

So anything that says Data Miner, I get rid of? There is also Malware. Is that bad? Those are the only 2 categories that I see.

Yes that's bad as well, most if not all of it will be bad.

So, I should have just deleted everything in the first place. Eh, well I was going through each line just incase looking at the risk level and the description and I got rid of what was obviously bad, but left things I didn’t find anything wrong with. But, now that you say so… I guess I will just delete it all.

I can’t thank you enough Ron. You have helped me a lot lately. Thanks

Like I said ad-Aware does a pretty good job. But you can't be too careful. Now that it's clean, if anything new appears you know you can just let it delete it. Something else that I do is I have my cookies set to Prompt both for First Party Cookies and Third Party Cookies. It's amazing how many sites banner ads try to set a cookie. So I don't accept most cookies only ones where I am a registered user like the bank and of course INReview.

I was looking through my internet options and don't see an option for that. Maybe I need to get myself a cookie monster to eat all of these things

go to tools, internet options, Privacy and click the advanced button.

All I see that is close to "prompt first and third party cookies" is

Enable third-party browser extensions [requires restart]

And the check box next to it is checked.

On the privacy screen what do you have that set to?

I don't see what you have, What ver of IE are you using?

Oh read my directions again. I think you didn't click on Privacy before you clicked on Advanced.

Yes, you are right. I did click on Advance

I have my privacy set to Medium

I have Internet Explorer 6.0

So in the privacy tab, now click advance and you should see what I'm talking about.

Yes, I saw that after you told me to look at your instructions again.

And I got a new mouse today, It is a Dell Logitech

I use a Logitech Trackball. I'll never go back to a regular mouse.

I've noticed that is a pretty sensitive. If you move the mouse fast it gets all confused and my cursor goes crazy.