During the past five years, pop-up blockers have been heralded as the next best thing. The general public has been told – again and again and again – to install pop-up blockers because they will protect your system from everything from Bird Flu to computer viruses and hackers.

Let's talk turkey about pop-up blockers. First, they will not protect you or your family from Bird Flu. They will not protect your system from most harmful computer viruses. Finally, they are not used by hackers to gain access to your network. All they really do, is prevent windows from opening when you are visiting a website or browsing the internet.

Most people install and update pop-up blockers because they want to reduce or eliminate the frustration of a pop-up window opening when you are in the middle of an important task online. There are, to be sure, some sites that are infamous for the number of pop-up windows they allow for the use of advertising. But put yourself in the shoes of the company paying for those pop-up ads for a minute. From their point of view, using pop-up blockers wastes their money! Okay, so much for the lighter side.

Pop-up windows are actually not used by most websites any longer. If there is a pop-up, it is usually java-based or it has some kind of programming included which bypasses the pop-up blocker. To be truthful, if you are getting irritating pop-ups on your computer, it is probably because your have some kind of malware somewhere on your computer. The malware is the danger – not the pop-up window.

Pop-up blockers can also cause problems for some programs and websites which use them for legitimate purposes. For example, most web-based email programs use pop-up windows to display your calendar or your task list. Some sites use them to provide help screens or to display background information or calculations.

At Intelligent Network Services, Inc., we get calls frequently from clients complaining that a website is not working properly. When we arrive and start evaluating the source of the problem, we often find that the client has installed several toolbars – such as yahoo, google, viewpoint, and others – that include pop-up blockers. To get things operating properly again, we often find it necessary to disable two or more of these pop-up blockers.

If you have consistent problems with certain programs or websites, you might find it necessary to disable some pop-up blockers. A better idea might be just not to add the toolbars in the first place, because you probably don't need the pop-up blocker in the first place.

Copyright (c) 2007 Thomas Burns