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You may now renew your annual membership dues online. Annual dues are $45.00.
Stop browser pop-ups
By Laurin Killian,
Streamlined Development
Pop-ups got you down? Is your browser no longer responding the
way it used to? You could be the victim of aggressive marketing
known as spybots, adware, and browser hijacking. This occurs when
unscrupulous advertisers use your own computer against you to force
you to view their ads. Sometimes this can make your computer
downright unusable, due to excessive pop-ups or because your browser
will no longer go to any legitimate websites. Even if you aren't
experiencing this level of difficulty, you still may have some of
this software on your computer, and it can interfere with your
surfing.
This type of software disrupts your online experience by getting
between you and the online world. ‘Adware’ is a software program
which displays ads while it is running. Sometimes these ads are
produced by settings within the browser; sometimes they are
separately running programs. ‘Spyware’ is a type of program that
gathers information about you and your habits and transmits it back
to a third party without your knowledge. Browser hijacking occurs
when a program directly takes over your browser, changing your
settings. It may change your preferences, such as your home page, or
direct you to sites you do not want , often via the browser's
search/address bar.
These unwanted programs can easily install themselves on your
computer without your knowledge. You may get them simply by visiting
a website with a browser that is overly permissive. Internet
Explorer is notorious for allowing these type of programs to intrude
on your computer. Another possible way to get these programs is by
installing certain software that has these additional programs
attached to them. A common example of this is the "Kazaa"
file-sharing program, which includes spyware in its installation.
There are now some good programs that remove this type of intrusion
from your computer. Two of the most popular are: Spybot Search &
Destroy and Ad-aware. Just as you probably wouldn't dare run your
computer without a virus scanner, you really shouldn't be without
one of these programs. Think of spyware or adware as "virus-lite",
because these types of programs seldom cause as much damage as a
virus, but they can be just as annoying.
I recommend Spybot S&D, because it is relatively simple to use, it
seems to be well maintained, and it’s available free of charge.
However, the developer of Spybot S&D encourages donations if you
find the software useful or if it has gotten you out of a jam.
Spybot S&D detects and removes unwanted programs from your system
and helps prevent them from being installed. Ad-aware is also a very
good program with similar features. The detection/cleanup software
from Ad-aware is available free, but the preventive software comes
with a small cost.
Because Internet Explorer is so permissive with its default settings
and has many ties to the operating system which allows it to wreak
havoc on your computer, I often recommend that people try a
different browser. I find Opera particularly pleasant to use with
its "quick preferences" that allows you to easily turn off certain
browser features until you need them. For example, with a couple of
clicks I can quickly refuse popup windows, javascript, plugins and
cookies. Another browser which many like is Mozilla, which offers
similar features, but without the easy switching. Trading in your IE
browser is perhaps the easiest preventive measure you can take to
ward off unwanted programs on your computer.