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Thu Oct 2, 3:05 PM ET |
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Vincent Ryan, www.NewsFactor.com
Even the most respectable businesses are not above planting those maddening pop-up ads that make visiting their Web sites a furious exercise in closing unwanted windows. That is why pop-up blockers, or killers, as they are affectionately known -- a type of software that stops ads before they pop up -- are such a hot item. A program that automatically blocks pop-up ads intelligently - meaning it can distinguish the "good" pop-ups from the "bad" -- is worth its weight in gold.
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Alas, the selection of a pop-up blocker is not easy. Some block everything, requiring the user to tell them to allow pop-ups from certain sites. Others claim they are intelligent, but still wind up blocking the wrong pop-ups or letting "bad" pop-ups through. These programs also vary in their ability to thwart other advertising delivery techniques, such as Windows Messenger pop-ups. The following examines three of the leading programs available for wiping out the bane of Web surfers everywhere.
Interaction Monitor
PopUpCop is one of the more effective programs in the category. It blocks pop-up ads intelligently and squelches unwanted Java applets and _javascript_, as well as 15 other techniques that advertisers use to get an Internet surfer's attention. PopUpCop also blocks a category of spyware called "drive-by downloading," in which a site tries to load something onto a user's PC via an ActiveX control.
PopUpCop does not use site-title or URL-address matching when figuring out what to block. Instead, it monitors the user's interaction with the browser and blocks pop-ups according to a set of rules. For example, a simple rule would be that when a user clicks on something, the action should only produce one result, said Peter Eden, proprietor of EdenSoft. "Less sophisticated [pop-up blockers] will miss pop-ups that appear when leaving a Web site or closing the main browser window," Eden told NewsFactor. "To catch all of them requires a bit of a technical tap dance."
PopUpCop is packaged as an Internet Explorer add-in. Instead of being in the system tray, it resides in a customizable browser toolbar. "There are too many items in the system tray," Eden said. "System-tray implementations can be far less efficient from an engineering and performance point of view. That just means slower for the end-user."
The PopUpCop toolbar features an Internet irritation indicator and irritation-level slider that allow the user to control the blocking of different ad techniques.
Eden said that the company is considering enhancing PopUpCop by adding a feature to block adware, which usually arrives on people's machines unnoticed when they install software for P2P file-sharing. "We're probably going to start blocking adware but we will continue to advise people to remove it themselves," Eden said. EdenSoft also is considering adding the capability to block pseudo pop-ups that are written in active HTML.
PopUpCop sells for US$19.95.
Total Blocking
One straightforward pop-up blocker is iHatePopups from Sunbelt Software, the makers of iHateSpam. iHatePopups blocks pop-up and pop-under ads and does not make any distinction between "good" pop-ups and "bad" pop-ups -- everything is blocked.
"It's simple, cheap, and we have done research about what people want," said Stu Sjouwerman, chief operating officer of Sunbelt Software. "You can go overboard with adding features to pop-up blockers. We give users 90 percent of the features that they need at an affordable price."
With iHatePopups, a CTRL-click feature enables the user to allow a particular pop-up to appear. Users also can "whitelist" a particular Web page by right clicking on it to allow all pop-ups from that page to appear.
iHatePopups notifies the user with a message or sound when a pop-up has been blocked. It also provides a history and log report showing how many pop-ups it has blocked and where they are from, Sjouwerman told NewsFactor. In addition to pop-ups, it blocks spam sent via the Windows Messenger service. It also stops _javascript_ error messages on Web sites that sometimes can put the user in an endless loop, Sjouwerman said.
iHatePopups is available from Sunbelt for $9.95. And Dell (Nasdaq: DELL - news) is bundling it into a "privacy package" that includes iHateSpam and Pest Patrol, a spyware blocker.
Pop-Up Logic
PopSubtract from interMute is another straightforward pop-up blocker that is less than 300 KB in size, making it easily downloadable even over a dial-up modem. The program installs as a tool-tray icon. Clicking on it reveals the control panel that lets the user toggle filtering on and off and view statistics. A "test" button on the control panel sends users to a diagnostic Web site where they can test the program's performance and functionality.
PopSubtract boasts of what it calls "SmartPop logic," an ability to discern good pop-ups from bad. SmartPop works by examining the site from which a pop-up comes, said Brian Katzen, marketing manager for interMute. Secure sites (HTTPS), for example, are not filtered by default, so banking and stock-trading sites that use pop-ups in normal user transactions will not be blocked.
Additionally, SmartPop allows pop-up windows to open if they originate from a hyperlink, Katzen told NewsFactor. "If a hyperlink spawns a pop-up window, the window is not blocked," he said. However, if the hyperlink opens another browser window from a different Web site, PopSubtract will block it.
The PopSubtract statistics screen provides information on the number of pop-up ads blocked and the sites launching the ads. Trusted sites can be added to a whitelist by right clicking the blocked sites.
PopSubtract is available free on a trial basis and costs $19.95 for a one PC license.
Try Then Buy
Other programs are available. Some of the more notable ones not discussed here include PopNot, Popup Ad Filter, Popup Dummy!, and Popup XP. Since these programs will be an integral part of a user's Internet experience, it makes sense to examine them on a trial basis if the vendor allows it.
Pop-ups are annoying, but an bumbling pop-up killer may just add to the irritation.
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