The Pop-Up Brady Bunch! Human ingenuity at its finest. Or truly frightening, your choice. (warning: will temporarily commandeer your screen, contains the Brady Bunch theme song, disturbingly pixelated Bradys, and will not work if you have 'pop-up killer' software)
posted by nelleish on Jul 31, 2003 - 3 comments

Ad Aware 6 released. The long awaited (at least for me) king of spyware detectors is now available for download.
posted by skallas on Feb 5, 2003 - 36 comments

Your Internet Connection Is Not Optimized! Are the ever-popular fake error message banners illegal? The people involved in the current class action suit against Bonzi Software (makers of the infamous BonziBuddy and several other programs that have been classified as Adware/Trackware and accused of being Spyware) believe so.
posted by c3o on Dec 4, 2002 - 27 comments

Hooray! Great news for those who love to communicate - Microsoft have released a new version of their popular Windows/MSN/.NET Messenger software! So, let's glance at the new features: there's a great new look with a spinny logo thingy, and... and, erm... well... it's had some features removed... like the ability to use third-party add-ons... and, oh but wait, there's new pop-up advertising and alleged spy-ware! Oh...
posted by Pretty_Generic on Nov 26, 2002 - 20 comments

If Earthlink starts killing pop-up ads will a trend emerge? I hate pop-up ads, but they must have some effect because I see more and more. I can see the logic in Earthlink's attempt to gain customers by promising to block pop-up ads, but will it have an effect? I can get other pop-up killers without getting it from Earthlink. Why don't they address spyware and attack web advertisers where they live?
posted by john_lustig on Aug 20, 2002 - 27 comments

Gator ordered to stop displaying pop-ups on other sites. "We are highly confident that once all the facts are presented in the upcoming trial, no court will issue a ruling eliminating a consumer's right to decide for themselves what is displayed on their own computer screens," Gator CEO Jeff McFadden said in the statement.
posted by skallas on Jul 12, 2002 - 10 comments

I'm sure lots of you know about the Hunger Site, which has been around for quite awhile. Well, in case you haven't visited recently, you might be interested to know that they've just recently added an Animal Rescue Site to their repertoire. Except for the pop-unders (which they allow you to disable if you don't already have Popup Killer or something), this seems like a great little site.
posted by Bixby23 on Jul 3, 2002 - 2 comments

The Most Invasive Advertisement Ever. (NYT) At least we don't have to close ten 'Orbitz' pop-up windows, but this advertisement is extremely obnoxious.
posted by wsfinkel on Mar 1, 2002 - 40 comments

ASAP! or A Stand Against Pop-under ads! is a cause started by Joe Jenett of CoolSTOP fame that you can support if you are tired of all those annoying pop-under ads on the web. To quote Joe, "... we shouldn't have to spend our time defending ourselves from their obnoxious attempt to take control of our browsers and desktops." I couldn't agree more.
posted by Firda on Sep 2, 2001 - 12 comments

I am really, really, really tired of the popups for the Tiny Wireless Video Camera - the ad that always has a picture of a hot chick and trumpets "FITS ANYWHERE" (in the girls' bathroom, wink nudge.)

If there are any browser coders listening, here's a feature I long for: an anti-bookmark list. Stumble on a page that pops up garbage like the above, add it to your anti-bookmarks list and it's locked out instantly and forever, no forgiveness, no rehabilitation, capital punishment for bad web pages. Yes, yes, I know about junkbuster and webwasherand hosts files. But at this late date crap lockout should be part of the browser the way kill files were (and are) part of newsreaders. Sic 'em, Fang.
posted by jfuller on Jul 11, 2001 - 30 comments

Psycho ex-girlfriend is a hoax! Looking at the code, I could see that it would sleep for a while, then start popping ad windows. Because of the delay, people would not associate the advertising with PsychoEx - the countdown starts only when you leave the page. and registered at anystreet, Dallas TX phone number 214.555.1212
posted by igloo on Mar 30, 2001 - 14 comments

Is this annoying to anyone else? I usually get most of my news from either ABCnews.com or CNN.com, then this morning I noticed that every time I load ABCnews, an annoying ad banner pops up for AT&T over the browser toolbar. I know that big sites have used popups before (usually as announcements or something else), but an ad popup on such a major site seems like an even further blurring of that line between media and advertising. I guess I'm switching news sources.
posted by almostcool on Nov 28, 2000 - 18 comments

wired does xxx... getting my daily fix of info, i stumbled on a coedsex.com add delightfully served by doubleclick! is there something that i don't catch or is it just plain stupid and [perhaps] illegal to serve adds like that on such a big portal? i don't mean i'm in favor of regulation, but Wired is a [ was a ] very visited portal, and even if kids don't have much to read there, it may be shocking for some people. Even if the server has snooped my hard drive till it found that videos he may contains, it doesn't mean that the current user is not my 2 years old that had somewhat lit my comp. if you have a kid that loves to smash the keys of keyboards, and if you don't want him to destroy your neat advanced keyboard, find him a old amstrad CPC. Heavy, robust and the keys are very clicky and easy to repair.
posted by deboute on Apr 7, 2000 - 1 comment