You’re not alone!

Who hasn’t surfed the web looking for information only to have their session interrupted by those annoying pop-up windows displaying everything from banner ads to newsletter sign-up’s?

Though pop-up windows and other methods of influencing a user’s online experiences originally had positive intentions, they now seem only to annoy and manipulate users at every turn.

For anyone who ever felt extremely irritated by online advertising, the following advice should help.

** Pop-Up Ads **

Pop-up windows open new pages in your browser without your permission and, sometimes, without your knowledge.

They slow down your surfing and cause confusion, even for the most experienced surfer.

If you don’t want to see pop-up windows in your browser, you should get a free pop-up blocker like the ones that come with the Google tool bar (http://toolbar.google.com) or the Alexa tool bar (http://download.alexa.com).

Either of these free tools "plug in" to your web browser and will stop the majority of pop-ups, including the situations where 5 or 10 pop-up windows fly up on your screen and "attack" you all at once!

** Page Hijacking **

Have you ever surfed along peacefully when all of a sudden you hit your back button and nothing happened?

Click-click-click - no matter how many times you hit the button, it seemed your web browser had been "wheel locked" to a certain site and no amount of effort allowed you to back track.

This nasty little trick, otherwise know as "page hijacking" involves inserting a small bit of code into a web page that disables your browser’s "back" button.

To defeat this little nasty just click and hold the down arrow next to your browser’s "back" button (on both Internet Explorer and Netscape) to see a list of the last few pages you’ve browsed.

Click on a link in the history list to free yourself and resume surfing.

Careful though, you may not have been hijacked, you may have been the victim of the next dirty trick.

** Fast Meta Refresh **

A predecessor of the pop-up window, the fast meta refresh trick involves opening one page and almost instantly having your browser redirected to another page.

This tactic, often used by search engine promoters, often leads to wasted time on pages that have little relevance to your search.

It may also entail opening five to ten additional windows, frequently displaying offensive material such as pornography.

Closing all your browser windows and starting over seems the only sure-fire way to defeat this tactic. Hitting your back button to retreat from the problem will usually just cause more windows to appear.

Quick Tip: If you find yourself attacked by multiple pop-up ads, hold down the key and hit the key repeatedly, all the web browser windows on your screen will disappear faster than new ones can pop open.

If you feel a website operator appears to openly abuse visitors with annoying or unscrupulous tactics, feel free to complain to their hosting company or the search engines.

By doing so you might save the next person a whole lot of inconvenience.

(c) Jim Edwards - All Rights reserved - http://www.thenetreporter.com

About The Author:

Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-author of an amazing new ebook that will teach you how to use fr-e articles to quickly drive thousands of targeted visitors to your website or affiliate links…

Simple "Traffic Machine" brings Thousands of NEW visitors to your website for weeks, even months… without spending a dime on advertising! ==> "Turn Words Into Traffic"

News last week that Internet service provider Verizon settled its lawsuit against Detroit-based spam king Al Ralsky was of little comfort. Ralsky agreed to pay a fine and stop spamming Verizon customers, but he still has plenty of other targets. And there are still hundreds of other spammers who have never visited a courtroom and are all too eager to fill our inboxes with business propositions from deposed Nigerian dictators. Fortunately, the rise of junk e-mail has fueled a vast anti-spam industry, with ISPs and software makers all competing to solve the Net’s most intractable problem.

The ISPs are beating the anti-spam drum the loudest right now, because spam drives away new customers and clogs up their servers. Most providers combine several approaches. They subscribe to "RBLs," or real-time blacklists, administered by anti-spam groups like the London-based Spamhaus.org, which maintains constantly updated databases of the worst transgressors and instructs subscribers to block their mail.

Six of the largest 10 ISPs, including MSN and Earthlink, also subscribe to the service of Brightmail. The San Francisco-based company has a team of researchers who constantly monitor dummy e-mail accounts and send out profiles of the latest Net scams, so that ISPs can filter them out before they reach your in-box. (Microsoft’s Hotmail, one of the worst spam magnets on the Net, just signed up.) The problem is that companies like Brightmail, fearing the possibility that their dragnet will block an authentic e-mail, are forced to be conservative. And spammers can easily configure their custom-designed software to respond with "spoilers," spaces or bits of code placed within messages that fool the filters. Though Brightmail estimates it catches more than 90 percent of spam, spam watchdog groups think the number is closer to half.

That leaves ISPs trying to add anti-spam tools directly to their e-mail programs. Recently released AOL 8 can color-code your messages into three categories: known and unknown senders, and known bulk e-mailers. There’s also a button that lets you report spam directly to AOL. MSN 8 does all this a little better, using machine intelligence designed in Microsoft’s research lab to spot spam and send it to a junk folder.

Users looking for another level of protection can try software solutions, which attempt to block spam on your desktop. Software site Download.com lists more than 200 such programs, many free of charge. Most are "rules-based," meaning they filter e-mail looking for certain words ("herbal Viagra") or programming patterns (excessive HTML graphics in the body of the message).

Anti spam software reviews

Among the best programs we’ve tested or heard about: IhateSpam ($29.95) works directly with Outlook or Outlook Express. Exploiting the power of peer-to-peer networks, it reports spam that the software missed to other users of the program. Mailwasher (free, but donation requested), another clever program, bounces back spam to the sender as "undeliverable," trying to fool spammers into thinking they have a bum address. In our tests, it caught 90 percent of unwanted e-mail. Spam Assassin (also free) takes the same tack, and has a great name, but it can be a tad overaggressive, blacklisting the occasional authentic e-mail.

McAfee’s Spamkiller ($40) gets a thumbs down because it overcharges and generates complaints to the spammer’s e-mail account and ISP. Since spammers often hijack other people’s accounts, this has the ironic effect of sending the complaint to an innocent user. Anti-spam spam?

Mary works in US for a media company, occasionally writing for the biggest Anti spam news portal, and drinking too much coffee.

So what’s all this talk about "Sender ID" and what exactly does it mean to you as an email user? Sender ID is the convergence of Microsoft’s "Caller ID" and Meng Wong’s "Sender Policy Framework" (SPF).

What Sender ID does is verify that every piece of email sent actually did originate from the domain it claims to have come from, based on the sender’s server IP.

The majority of junk email being sent uses forged sender addresses. This practice is also known as "Spoofing." Spoofing goes hand in hand with a scam called "Phishing." This is where someone sends spoofed email, usually pretending to be from your Bank, credit card companies or other highly trusted organizations, trying to get you to divulge your credit card numbers,usernames or passwords — even your social security number. Once the phisher obtains this information, it is used to hack into your financial accounts or make unauthorized charges on your cards. For more on Phishing, see this site: http://www.antiphishing.org/ Sender ID will hopefully prevent these types of practices completely.

A draft proposal of Sender ID was sent for review to the "Internet Engineering Task Force" for consideration as an Industry Standard for email authentication.

The task force’s decision remains to be seen. Microsoft recently threw a wrench in the mix by deciding to demand a registration license for their part of the Sender ID Program. Since the new protocols need to be freely available to the public, this is causing additional problems.

Here’s a quick breakdown of the Sender ID process in a nutshell:

1) All email servers must publish the ID address of their outbound email servers in the DNS (Domain Name System)

2) When email is received, each system looks at the incoming messages to determine if they did indeed originate from the domains listed.

3) This verification is determined by querying the DNS for the list of outbound email server IP addresses for that particular domain. If the IP the email was sent from is not in that list, it is most likely a spoofed message.

Remember, sender ID offers no guarantee that your email will be delivered, nor does it solve the huge Spam problem, but it will stop Domain Identity Theft by spoofers.

For more information, even an online wizard to help you create your own SPF text record see http://microsoft.com/mscorp/twc/privacy/spam_senderid.mspx another great resource with some very handy tools is http://spf.pobox.com

Merle has been "working" the Net for over 8 years and has a Special Gift just for you. Download my FREE E-book "50 Easy Ways to Promote Your Website". Get your copy now at http://www.WebSiteTrafficPlan.com

You have permission to publish this article electronically or in print, free of charge, as long as the bylines are included.

Most anyone who spends any time on line can tell you that pop up ads are nothing if not annoying. Stopping them is a good way to speed up your surfing and put in a plug in one more way for viruses and spyware to invade your system. Luckily there are a number of free pop up blockers on the internet that will help you do just that. As for which are the best, there are five that come to mind initially: Google, STOPzilla, Window Shades, Firefox and PopOops all offer fantastic free pop up blockers for you to use.

The Google Toolbar with Free pop blocker will block the majority of pop ups. In addition to the pop up blocker, you will automatically get a number of other features as it is a tool bar download. You will have features such as being able to search Google from your task bar, which can be handy, but the pop up blocker is the real value in this free download. The drawback that puts some people off, though, is that there is a page rank feature. This feature reports back to Google what sites you have visited.

Another free pop up blocker you may want to consider is the STOPzilla pop up blocker. This particular blocker is produced by a software company called Roxio. The STOPzilla blocker not only stops pop up ads as you browse, but it also includes protection from adware, spyware, cookies, and even hi-jackers. For a small fee, you can also get one year of service with the pop up blocker.

If you really only want your free pop up blocker to do one thing, block pop ups, then consider the Window Shades Popup Blocker. This free blocker is very effective in the blocking of those annoying pop ups. As an ad on to Internet Explorer, it does not have to be turned on separately. It only runs when explorer does, so you don’t have to worry about memory being burned up when you aren’t even on line.

If you don’t mind moving away from Internet Explorer, you may want to think about using Firefox Browser with Pop Up Blocker. This freeware web browser is something you would need to use instead of your Internet Explorer. In addition to the effective pop up blocking, you also get a fun little tabbed browsing feature.

Lastly, there is PopOops pop up blocker. A free pop up blocker, PopOops is a relatively small program that is good at what it does, which is simply to block those annoying pop ups. It runs in the system tray instead of in your browser and can be programmed so that you hear a sound or so that a balloon pops up when a pop up is blocked form your computer.

Pop ups are annoying and sometimes dangerous, but who wants to spend a ton of money on Popup Blockers to avoid them? Nobody does, which is why you should consider finding the free pop blocker that is right for you. It only takes a minute to locate the right one and get it downloaded onto your PC of laptop, and it is worth it to avoid the annoyance that is pop ups. So take the time to fix the pop ups, you will certainly be glad you did.

Christopher M. Luck has an extensive background in building superior popup blockers and is now offering his free professional popup blocker advice to the public. If you are at all interested in Christopher’s popup blocker advice, tips, or secrets, you can visit his popup blocker blog

With so much spam out there, how can you keep your inbox free from clutter? You might try an add-on anti-spam program. Although your email client probably comes with some built-in spam filtering, an add-on program enhances your system’s ability to identify spam and prevent it from infiltrating your mailbox.

When deciding whether or not to buy one of these add-on filters, consider a few questions:

How Much Spam Do You Get?

If you use your computer rarely, you may not get much spam. Check out your inbox. Is it usually free of spam? If so, your built-in filters may be enough spam protection for you.

Unfortunately, most of us use our computers on a regular basis and have fallen prey to spammers. Observe your inbox for a week or two and keep a log handy to record how much spam appears along with your legitimate email. Be sure to check your bulk mail folder for false positives as well. A false positive is a message identified by spam filters as a spam email even though it is from a legitimate or known source.

When you have your week-long results, look at the numbers. Are you missing important messages due to false positives? Is there an irritating number (even a few is irritating) of spam messages in your inbox? Do they contain offensive content? In most cases, an add-on spam filter could easily and cheaply clear up these problems.

What Type of Email Do You Get?

Spammers’ lists are filled with email addresses. If you subscribe to newsletters or participate in chat rooms or web groups, your address is a likely target. After signing up for these types of email, get ready for the spam invasion. Consider purchasing an add-on program to defend your inbox before the attack.

How Much Fraud Protection Do You Have?

Some of the best add-on anti-spam programs offer additional features for flagging and destroying phishing scams or other fraudulent messages. So many phishing scams pose as legitimate business emails that this protection is vital. Phishing scams are the most dangerous type of spam out there. Whether they pose as bank notices, PayPal messages, or eBay communication, phishing scams can hit your wallet and your well-being.

Check out your email client and see if it offers fraud protection. If your built-in filters consistently miss these emails and they end up in your inbox, you need fraud protection. Just opening one of these messages by mistake could compromise your system.

Test Drive

Once you decide to give an add-on filter a try, take advantage of free trials offered by vendors to test the program against your needs. Be sure to do your homework. The filter must be compatible with your operating system, such as Windows or Mac, and your email client, such as Outlook or Eudora. No program can keep spam out 100% of the time, but an add-on anti-spam program can keep most of the junk where it belongs.

Amy Durham is a full-time freelance writer specializing in business, IT, home decorating, gardening, and inspirational writing. Her work has appeared in Facility Manager, InStore, The Source, First Home, D Magazine, Texas Family Magazine, and several online publications. As an expert author, she ghostwrites original articles for website content, newsletters, blogs, and e-zines. She is also the author of an online inspirational course for writers and several e-books. Please visit her website http://www.MooJuiceMedia.com

With anti spam vendors offering low cost licensing, businesses can now afford advanced email spam and virus protection with a simple to use interface at a much lower cost. The great thing about technology is that as it evolves it gets faster, additional features and economical. Over the past few years the same evolution has taken place with anti spam technology and services. In large part this can be attributed to the open source software community plus enterprising companies enhancing the capabilities of this software and packaging it into easy to use anti spam appliances.

It is not practical to have anti spam software running on desktops in a networked business environment. Managing all employee junk email software at the desktop is not realistic. It can be a nightmare and costly in terms time and licensing.

Spam appliances sit in front of your email server so that when email comes in it will first go to the spam appliance and the email will be scanned for spam as well as viruses. The filter will block the message if it identified as know spam. If the filter is not sure if the email is genuine it will quarantine and hold the email at the filter and it will be stored until the recipient deletes it, releases it to their email box, or they can white list a trusted correspondent so that future emails will not be held back. This will greatly reduce the load on your email server and reduce your bandwidth needs. We have seen anti spam systems block up to 83% of incoming messages. This could help extend the life of your email server and push back the need for upgraded capacity.

Most virus outbreaks occur via email and for little cost an appliance can block viruses before they reach your network and user’s inboxes. This provides an extra layer of defense in addition to your current anti virus solution.

Businesses have two options if they use an appliance based solution for their spam and virus control. They can purchase and administer their own filter. This is a good option if you have a large number of employee mailboxes to protect and the technical staff to administer the spam appliance. Businesses also have the option to outsource their spam control as a hosted service. This is a good choice for smaller companies and if information technology is not your specialty.

If you purchase your own spam filter, a subscription to updates may also be required. Make sure you get upfront pricing for the add-ons that you will need. If you have more than 100 email users and the technical staff to maintain the spam appliance, buying your own filter may be your best option. Generally the basic model will work for most organizations. Large organizations with thousands of users will require a spam filter appliance with increases capacity and features. Spam appliances are designed to work with all mail systems but some do have specific enhancements for Exchange server Microsoft’s popular collaboration software and mail servers that support LDAP (light weight directory access protocol). Spam appliances use the LDAP protocol to verify recipients before delivering messages to your email server, this avoids consuming server resources.

If your business has five to one hundred employees, then an outsourced anti spam and virus filter service is going to be a good economical choice for your organization. Fees are based on the number of users and you only pay for what you use. You will not have hardware to buy, maintain, and upgrade. The upfront cost is minimal and most email filtering providers will let you try the service for free at first. Another added benefit to outsourcing your spam control is redundancy. It is important that you choose a provider that has their spam and virus filters colocated at secure internet data center facilities. Data centers provide redundant network connections and power, so if your email server or internet connection is down unexpectedly the spam appliance will hold your email until your email server becomes available, minus spam and viruses.

Anti spam technology is constantly improving and the costs are getting lower. With increased productivity and an added layer of defense against virus attacks, an anti spam appliance or service is something your business can not afford to be without.

John Tourloukis is the founder of Fast PC Networks an internet consulting and spam and virus filter service. we use technology to drive your business

Will a spam filter help you free up time? I spend so much time weeding the spam out of my mailbox that it is unbelievable, or at least I did. It is an unfortunate fact that a good spam blocker is an absolute necessity with any computer that has email and internet access to it. Spam is simply unsolicited email that is usually a part of some sort of commercial advertising strategy. It is the email equivalent of junk mail and has been a part of email life for years now. You should really consider a good spam blocker because the truth is that spam presents a great deal more trouble than just the pain of weding out advertisements.

So why is spam such a problem? I mean do you really have to get a spam blocker? The answer is yes because spam eats up the electronic resources on your computer like memory and storage. Spam may also have viruses that can shut down your computer or your network if you have one. It can also contain scams that can trick some of the less savvy users of the internet and email. What a good spam blocker will do is stop the messages before they ever hit your inbox, thus saving you space, memory, and the threat of unsavory offers.

Another way a spam blocker will help you is in terms of your time. Even if the spam you receive does not contain viruses and really is just a series of advertisements, it takes a lot of time to delete and filter out all the spam in your inbox. If the email in question is one you use for work, then think how much more productive you can be with a spam blocker keeping you from having to read and delete a bunch of advertisements.

If you are a business owner, the same applies. Your employees will be much more productive if you get a good spam blocker put in with the email. It will save time in reading bad emails as well as help protect you from the threat of viruses or spyware. Spam is a problem and can really hold back a business as much as it can an individual, so give some consideration to getting a good spam blocker so that you can save your business time and money.

Spam has been around pretty much since the internet and email first became popular. It is difficult to define and recognize, but laws are still passed to help slow it down or stop it. The problem is that often times the spammers are ignoring such laws and sending their messages out anyway. All this means is that no matter how many laws or acts are passed, a good spam blocker is a necessity to keep your computer and to keep your email running smoothly. In addition, it will save you time and frustration every time you log on to check your email messages.

If you would like to view more of my articles on spam blockers, please feel free to visit my spam blocker software website!