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![[Are popups necessary or evil?]](20lead.gif)
Daniel Rosario
You receive an email from an excited cousin who has just uploaded pictures
from his recent trip abroad on his personal Web site. Eager to see them, you
lose no time logging on to the site.
Then, as the pictures start loading, an annoying advertisement - for a
‘spycam’ that you would never buy – pops up and mars your view. You
immediately close the window; but like the Hydra, for each one you shut two
more appear. In the bargain, you accidentally close the main window too. But
even then you are not spared: behind-the-scene ads crop up. By now you are
thoroughly fed up with pop-up ads, and wish there was something that could
prevent them.
There is.
Certain software programs can curb such advertisements. PopUp Killer (PUK) is arguably the most popular.
Once you download this freeware,
it detects and kills pop-up windows. There’s also a feature that allows you
to decide the maximum number of browsers that can be opened simultaneously.
This helps control ads and polls that come up after you exit certain Web
sites. It is also supposed to kill the new Geocities box and close
Javascript alerts that force you click on them to continue. Along with this
software, you can also download sound packs that "spice up your PUK
experience" by making a variety of noises every time a pop-up window is
squashed.
Pop-Up Stopper is another
option. It has free and paid versions. The freeware is available only for
non-commercial use, and can be downloaded here. Like PUK, this software
also places a small icon next to the clock in your system tray. It claims to
eliminate pop-up windows from Internet Explorer and Netscape 4.x without
adjusting the proxy settings.
Since the ads are nipped in the bud, you also save on bandwidth, and your
surfing speed increases.
Webwasher filters unwanted ad banners, pop-up
windows, animated images, Javascripts, and Java
applets from Web pages. In addition, it eliminates cookies used by online
marketing firms to collect sensitive personal information. Another filtering
program, AdDelete, blocks banner ads and
intercepts ‘redirected’ advertising. It has free and paid versions, the
latter having more features. It also prevents sites from tracking your
online activities.
Download.com lists other free and shareware that block ads.
All of these programs can be easily set up. An additional benefit of
preventing pop-up ads is that children can surf without the danger of seeing
pornographic pictures and links that are commonly found on them.
But there is a downside: In some cases they may block windows that could be
of interest to you. So if you want pop-ups from a specific site, you would
do well to inactivate these programs.
Web sites may argue that they need advertisements to support the free
content they serve, and that eliminating these ads is tantamount to doing
them a disservice.
But Netizens are not letting this argument faze them. One user called
Mswisher made her thoughts known on a message board: “Even before one ad finished downloading,
another one would start. It was a mad rush just clicking them off. Who needs
another credit card? Or a ‘Free Credit Report’ that tried to rip me off $70?
If Web site publishers would not get so carried away with their ads, chances
are the consumers would not install ad eliminators on their computers. The
sites are suffering mainly because of their own greed and unwise use of spam
and rip-off ads!”
Another user, Taranis, candidly admits, “I have ad blocking software.” While
he acknowledges that sites providing content need to be compensated, he
doesn’t think pop-up ads are the answer: “Battering me with huge ads, flash
animations and pop-ups will only lower my opinion of a given product. Take
X-10 for example. I've seen enough of their popup ads on Yahoo to never
touch their product. They annoyed me too much, and as such, drove me as a
customer away.”
For sites that do need advertising revenue, the solution would lie in less
intrusive ads.
Or, as German company MediaBEAM decided, in busting the pop-up killers.
MediaBEAM has developed a combined hardware and software solution that
detects whether a surfer is using pop-up killers. The solution, called
AdKEY, enables the Web server to determine the number of ads displayed on a
surfer’s browser. If the number of ads is fewer than expected, the user is
asked to either pay up or disable ad-blockers like Webwasher.
Just days after the launch of AdKEY, a young German guy claimed to have
hacked it.
In an email, he said that a dislike for forced advertising encouraged a
programmer to render the AdKey software almost worthless in a few hours. The
email included instructions on countering the software.
In response, MediaBEAM has claimed that their Version 2.0 would be immune to
those bugs.
But it’s a pretty safe bet that some users will be lying in wait, to try and
hack it. Most of them have had their fill of pop-up ads, and are in favour
of ad blockers. As Taranis puts it, “You can only badger a person so much
before you annoy him into leaving. Lost customers = lost revenue = closed
website. Hopefully this trend will continue, until only sites with fair
marketing practices are left. Then, and only then, will I uninstall
Webwasher.”
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