What are Popups and Popunders, and how do I stop them?

Pop-up windows are small windows that are generated by web pages (usually a JavaScript that executes when the page is opened or closed). These windows are usually advertisements leading to a website. They can be very annoying, and many people wonder why a webmaster would barrage their users with these popups. The incentive for web masters to imbed these popups in their pages is financial compensation, based on the amount of clicks they get via their website.

Popunders are very similar to popups. This mechanism of advertising is a pop-behind (or pop-under) window that loads a web page behind the page you are currently surfing. This form of advertising is much less annoying than a pop-up or exit window, and has much higher effectiveness than a banner ads alone because the actual site is loaded into the popped window.

Popups and popunders can be blocked using a variety of software packages available on the Internet, though not all popup blocker software blocks popunders. The software that Tommy White and myself recommend for dealing with these elements is the Google Toolbar. The Google Toolbar has a built in pop-up blocker, an automatic form filler, allows you to perform a Google search from your browser of the web or just within the pages of a website, and is highly-customizable. The Google Toolbar can be downloaded here.

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