ARE YOU FED UP WITH POP-UP ADVERTS? Well read on! (General Comments on Browsing Utilities and Companions)

Member Name: brianlfc

Product:	General Comments on Browsing Utilities and Companions
Date:	23/11/01 (118 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Superbly effective software, Free program

Disadvantages: none

The other day I was reading about a little program that automatically closed down any of those pop-up adverts that annoy the hell out of you whilst surfing the Internet, the trouble was, I had forgotten where I had read about it, hence not remembering where to download it, the reason I was so intent on finding it was, there seems to be a massive increase in these pop-up adverts and they are bloody annoying the hell out of me, especially over on Ciao, where they are popping up on every page you visit.

Anyway, yesterday I was saved from my anguish, yes I seen an opinion over at Ciao, written by Michelle Scott on the very same program, the program is called POW, to say I was relieved to see this opinion is an understatement, as these pop-ups were driving me around the bend, so off I went to download the program.

Where can you get the program?

Well, pop along to http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/p ow.htm and you’ll see the appropriate link to download the program, the file is not too big, as a matter of fact, it is only 214k in size and is downloaded in no time and more importantly, it is Freeware, in other words it doesn’t cost a penny to use.

What does the program do? And how do I use it?

Its simple, it basically closes down any pop-up windows you desire and is very easy to use, it’s just a matter of downloading the program and running it.

Once downloaded and installed, you need to load it up by clicking on the icon or choosing it from your menu, you will then see a little yellow icon appear in your taskbar, now go surfing and find a site your regularly visit, that has these annoying pop-ups, i.e. Ciao and Dooyoo. Now wait until the pop-up appears and then click on the POW icon, you will then see two windows, you need to look in the bottom one and you’ll notice the url/link of the annoying little bugger, just double click on this and you’ll see the url/link go into the to
p section, then once you press DONE the pop-up will disappear and will be automatically closed down every time it opens, but you must have POW running for it to do this, so remember to put the program in your start-up.

The two windows:

As I have already said, the top window shows you what pop-ups have been chosen to be killed (you can also remove them by double-clicking on them again), whilst the bottom window will show you any pages that you have open.

Other options:

Import: This gives you the option to save a certain profile of pop-ups you wish to kill, and then when a different person is using the computer, they can select their own data file, why anyone would want to have a different profile God only knows.

Edit: Now this is the clever part, I didn’t know this, but the people who make compile or use these pop-up adverts have a nice little trick, what they do is add a date at the end, this then makes the pop-up url/link change from day to day, thus meaning POW won’t recognise it. To get around this, if you see one of the pop-ups with a date on the end, choose the offender and press the edit button, then its just a matter of removing the date and just putting a simple asterisk * in its place, this will then disable the date function on the pop-up.

Tolerance on/off: Every now and then, POW will not detect your browser (this has not happened to me yet) and this makes POW ineffective, alls you need to do is, go to the tolerance on/off option and change it to ON (the default is OFF) and that should fix the problem.

Custom type: This is apparently to do with specially customised pop-ups, I’m not really sure how it works, I just know that pressing this option and not using it, will crash the program, so unless you understand this option, leave well alone.

How effective is it?

Very, it saves you the hassle of having to chase these pop-ups around the screen to close them an
d will do so as long as the url/link for the pop-up is in your kill list.

Are there any problems?
No, none at all, the only thing that you do need to do is, over on Ciao, they have actually set-up these pop-ups in every section, hence you need to go through every one and choose them for your kill-list and you’ll be surprised how many you end up with in the list, I currently have 12 just off Ciao and I haven’t even been on the porn sites yet, LOL, only joking.

Oh well, that’s enough from me and now you need to go and download it, I don’t imagine Ciao or Dooyoo will be happy reading these opinions, as it’s stopping them getting some revenue, but come on, they are (or should I say WERE) annoying the hell out of me and everyone else I presume.

Summary: