pop ups on computer

[allan kuntz]

I hope someone can help me.I keep getting stupid pop ups. Most of them have Yahoo on top and are some sort of games. They come up on Firefox and Chrome. I did a search and it says to to make sure in your tools that the pop up blocker is on and it is but still getting these pop ups and they are driving me nuts
thanks
Al

[John M Wilson]

My daughter's laptop recently had similar symptoms. She had let the Norton anti-virus lapse & had picked up something along the way.

I re-installed Norton, did a complete check of the system, and got rid of something-or-other, and the pop-ups quit appearing.

I recommend a deep cleaning with whatever anti-virus program you have, for a start...

[David Weaver]

download malwarebytes free version and let it run a scan.

[Leo Graywacz]

What David said.

http://malwarebytes.org

[Myk Rian]

I had to use adwcleaner. Malwarebites didn't do it.
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Antivirus/Removal-Tools/AdwCleaner.shtml
After that, use Ccleaner and scan the registry.
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/standard

[Curt Harms]

There's a simple solution that really cuts down on popups and other irritants on Firefox. It's called NoScript, a free add-on. You do have to have a clue about what to allow and what to deny but the NoScript is reasonably good about this on its own. I was amazed at how many sites want to run scripts when logged onto a site like ESPN, CNN and other popular sites. Other good Firefox add-on are AdBlock plus, Ghostery and Better Privacy. That list is by no means complete.

[Leo Graywacz]

The only one of them I don't run is better privacy. Never heard of it before now. I guess I'll have to investigate.

And you are so right about No Script. It is a program you really have to work to keep. It can be a pain sometimes. I have filled out complete forms only to find out because No Script was on I had to start over because everything I entered wouldn't go through because the form activated a script when you pressed send.

But I also know it saved me at least once. Over on another woodworking site there was an ad that had a virus in it. Lots of the guys got infected and a few had to start over from scratch because of the damage the virus did. I was also running Ad Block Plus and I didn't even know about the ad let alone have to worry about it because I was running No Script. One of the reasons I run Fire Fox.

Even Ghostery can cause problems with sites that need/want to plant cookies on your computer or the site refuses to operate properly. Sometimes you have to pause it.

And with all these programs running, sometimes you have a problem that isn't related to them but you don't know because the problem is similar to something one of those programs might cause.

[Dan Hintz]

I run AdBlock Plus... no more popups (unless I specifically allow them for a site), no more ads, etc. If you really want to clean things up, add the element selector add-on. Something bugs you about a page? Select it and never see it again.

[Rick Christopherson]

I hope someone can help me.I keep getting stupid pop ups. Most of them have Yahoo on top and are some sort of games. They come up on Firefox and Chrome. I did a search and it says to to make sure in your tools that the pop up blocker is on and it is but still getting these pop ups and they are driving me nuts
thanks
AlEven though I run Ad-Blocker and pop-up blocker, a short while ago I started getting unexplained advertising pop-ups whenever I was browsing anything retail-oriented. Every time I searched for something, I was getting a popup telling me where I could buy something similar to my search. I was dumbfounded to locate the cause or get it to stop.

After a while, I realized that it was coming from an add-on that I deliberately installed and wanted, but the feature was "tacked on" during an update to the core product. I hadn't noticed it before because it wasn't part of the original toolbar this add-on installed. (It lets me record audio from youtube videos.)

So in my case, it is not malware, but just an irritating side effect of something I want on my browser. The solution is that I disable the toolbar unless I need the functionality of that toolbar.