How Do I Block Popup Windows?

Robert from Atadcadero, CA writes:

Using Firefox when clicking on a site a new window pops up, usually having to do with taking a survey. How can you stop that and how dangerous is it to click?

Although there are a few exceptions where they are a necessary evil, most legitimate sites these days realize that pop-up windows are nothing more than annoyance as they are primarily used for unwanted ads.

Pop-up windows are generally the web browser equivalent of spam (especially if it’s something asking you to take a survey to win a prize) and clicking them will just take you down an Internet hole towards spyware and even more ads.

Thankfully intrepid web designers have created a solution to this problem, with the tools available varying depending on which web browser you have. Google Chrome for instance has a built-in pop-up blocker that is automatically active.

Firefox, on the other hand, requires you to download a third party extension for stopping pop-ups from loading. In Firefox, open the Menu bar at the top-right corner of the browser and then click the “Add-Ons” button.

Type “adblock plus” (without the quotation marks) into the extension search box at the upper-right corner. Click the “Install” button to the right of the “AdBlock Plus” entry in the list of search results. Repeat the process with the entry labeled “AdBlock Plus Pop-Up Add On.”

Restart Firefox to get the pop-up blocker up and running. If you ever need to disable the program to access a legitimate pop-up from a website (such as a site that launches a pop-up to log in to an account), return to the “Add-Ons” screen and click the “Extensions” tab at the left side of the screen.

Click “Disable” next to each of the AdBlock entries and then restart Firefox to enable pop-ups again. To turn the blockers back on later, simply return to the screen again and click “Enable” next to each of the AdBlock entries.

~ Ty Arthur