How To Stop Pop-Ups - Understand How Pop-Ups Work

Those annoying ads that appear on your screen uninvited when you surf the Internet, pop-ups are mainly designed to attract visitors to the advertiser's website or to collect the user's email address. Though some are useful and legitimate, others are purely annoyance.

There are actually many sites that use pop-ups as a legitimate means of providing more information for the users. Music sites usually have pop-up windows that allow the songs to play. These legitimate uses are a far cry from the websites that have a deluge of ads appearing unbidden when you open the page.

JavaScript is the programming language that controls most pop-ups. It can be integrated into the HTML used to build websites, and can adjust both the size of the pop-up window and the elements displayed. A pop-up may be designed to hide the status bar or menus, forcing you to click on the small "x" box in the top right-hand corner to close the ad. However, pressing Alt+F4 should help if you want to avoid clicking on the "x" box or the ad.

Pop-ups that make it impossible to navigate away are a minor inconvenience for most users. Some of them are more maliciously coded that can create much larger problems; JavaScript may create a series of windows so that each attempt to close a window leads to the opening of several more. The only way to stop this vicious cycle is to close the browser entirely, a major hassle for most users.

Some are actually more pop-unders; the windows they open appear under your browser rather than on top of it. These ads are less intrusive while you are using your browser, but still take time to close out once you are done surfing the Internet.

One newly developed type is created using Flash rather than JavaScript. This type can be programmed to follow your mouse movements or to float on the screen as you scroll through the window.

Another way is through the use of adware, which can generate pop-up ads based on the content of the web page. Though adware is usually nothing more than advertising-supported software (it displays ads only when you're using that program), some adware is written as separate hidden programs that deliver targeted advertising to your web browser without your consent.

Because pop-ups are such a nuisance, almost every web browser available now has a built-in blocker. The latest versions of all the major browsers have integrated blockers that can be configured to fit your needs on various web pages.