Protecting Yourself from Pop-Ups

Most pop-ups are used by advertisers in order to promote their products and services by driving traffic at minimum cost or at no cost at all. However, some pop-ups can be dangerous to your computer. Whenever you see a pop-up message like, for example, “free upload your files or images”, or “speed up your Internet”, always be cautious. Some of them may ask you to install some software on your PC which in the best case will be a nuisance, or in the worst will infect your computer.

Many browsers have settings which can help you block annoying pop-ups:

-Chrome users should also have automatic pop-up blocking enabled by default, but it may not always work as well as users hope it will.

-If you use Internet Explorer, it depends on the version you are using. The good news is that you can set up your browser to automatically block many types of pop-ups . To do it, go to Tools menu in Internet Explorer, then select Pop-up blocker option, and select options that suit you the most. This is a quite helpful feature of Internet Explorer but it does not work perfectly.

-On the other hand, if you use use Firefox then you may be happy to know that by default it should block many pop-up windows. You may increase this functionality by installing add-ons such as Adblock Plus Pop-up Addon.

As there are many places on the Internet from where you can download a pop-up blocking software, be careful where you download this program from. Ask your friends or users on a reputable forum where to obtain such software. Do not download programs from sources that you cannot trust. If you choose to download programs from a questionable source, you might end up infecting your own PC. Believe me, it is better to try to find reliable website from where you can download files, than to allow viruses on your PC. It may be safest to install add-ons from reputable sites.