Dear Techie,

I switched over from using Internet Explorer about a few years ago to Mozilla Firefox hearing that Firefox has less pop-ups.  As time went on, I started to notice that pop-ups were still happening, and they have gotten worse.  How can I stop this from happening?

These days most internet browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Chrome to name the big ones) have built in pop-up blockers which take care of a few methods advertisers use to spawn pop-ups.  Unfortunately for us, while our pop-up blockers have advanced, so have the advertisers methods.  For Firefox and Chrome there is a great free add-on which makes surfing much safer.  AdBlock Plus (http://adblockplus.org/en/) helps keep pop-ups down to a minimum.  It works by referencing a large list of known advertisers and their addresses and blocking them.  It blocks known advertisers from displaying pop-ups, advertisements and banner ads.  That’s right, even those banner ads on your e-mail, on most news sites and all around the internet.  

There are a few drawbacks to this great add-on though.  It is only available for users of Firefox and Chrome, so if you use Internet Explorer or Opera there are other methods, but few as easy as this one.  It will block most advertisements and pop-ups, but some will get through on some sites.  Luckily the add-on provides ways to add banners, advertisements and other nuisances to the blocking list so you can customize your browsing experience. 

If you choose to install AdBlock Plus, it will give you the option of what list to use for blocking, I suggest “EasyList”.  It has the widest following, and the biggest list by far.  A close second is the one called “Fanboy Lists”.  

Thanks for your question!

The Techie