Zap Those Pop-Up Ads!
Readers' Comments
by Paula Eisenberg
( July 28, 2002 ) You're
happily surfing along, minding your own business, visiting
a variety of websites. You go to the USA Today site,
and just as you're starting to read the lead story,
a pop-up ad appears on your
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Pop-up ad on USA Today website
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screen, obscuring the text. Maddening! It's enough to
make you leave the site and never return, but I have a
solution for you.
It's called Pow!, and it's a pop-up ad killer. It's
not elegant, it's not fancy. In fact, it's a blunt tool,
but it works. Pow! requires some work on your part,
but it does what it claims it'll do, and the best part
is: it's free.
Here's how Pow! works: While you're using the Web,
Pow! is running in the background, its presence signalled
by a cute little yellow starburst icon in your system
tray. When you visit a page with an annoying pop-up
ad, you click on the Pow! icon, click Add/Delete pop-up,
and double-click on the name of the ad in the next dialog
box. Now the offending ad is on the no-no list, and
the next time you visit a page where this irritating
ad resides, it'll disappear before you even see it.
There is some work involved, yes, but I'm seeing far
fewer pop-ups since I started using Pow! That's because
the popular websites tend to be running many of the
same ads, so if you ban an ad from one site, chances
are you'll be protected from it on other sites as well.
You can download Pow! free of charge, at analogx.com.
At the moment, it is available only for the PC, not
the Mac. Mac users, if you know of a similar program
for your platform, please email
me, and I'll let other Gazette Mac users know.
Readers' Comments:
I downloaded that Pow! software you reviewed. This
is perhaps the most valuable software I have ever
used. I would have paid for this software! Everybody
should use it. It's been working like a charm all
afternoon for me. Thanks for the tip! -- Dave Hutton
That pop up zapper works really well. Thanks.-- Barbara
Winter
Have a technology
or computer question? Know of a great tech solution,
super new hardware/software? Let
me know, and I may do an article about it.
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