Computer "annoyance"

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MikeDe

Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2009
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Location
Navarre, Florida (northwest)
Wow. Just saw someone get a computer problem taken care of here. What a great forum. From pens to glue to the geek squad.
OK, then. I am running Vista Home Premium and IE 8. I am getting pop-ups believe it or not, even with all the blockers and multitudes of other things that supposedly snatch pop-ups out of the air and annihilate them. What's strange about these pop-ups is that they all, without exception, have something to do with some subject matter that's on the page that I'm on. It could simply be a word or very short phrase in some news item and, poof, a pop-up that relates to something that is printed there. Of course the pop-up is always selling something but for instance if I were reading some story and somewhere in that story it happens to mention the word "electronic" then, yep, here comes a pop-up ad for Best Buy or something to that nature. Needless to say, this is driving me nutz 'cause I cannot find a setting anywhere to disable whatever is going on. I figure it has to be a setting but I make pens better than I do fixing computers.
Oh, almost forgot. There does happen to be one pop-up that doesn't seem to correllate with anything I'm viewing or reading at the moment. That's an ad for Google paying me unpteen thousands of dollars for just sitting here and doing I don't know what. That ad several times daily.
Please deliver me from this evil.
 
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YEP me too on Windows XP. I get tons of stuff related to Dating. Got all the virus software. Malware protecton. Pop up blockers etc I Guess I really need a date. Or Fling as the computer says. So does the Wife cause it happens to her as well. So Mike I am jumping on the question train with you, I have no clue what to do. 2 computers in the house 1 has this issue other has Vista and runs fine.
 
alphageek said:
#1 suggestion... Try Firefox and the ad block plus plugin....

IE can't hold a candle to it!
Click to expand...

That was going to be my suggestion.

I use the AdBlock and it allows you to input your own strings to filter,
so I filter out anything with scripts, or keywords like 'ads' or anything
that refers back to another website that I'm not on.
I hardly ever get popups now.
It also makes browsing easier, as 99% of the junk never makes it to
my screen.
 
alphageek said:
#1 suggestion... Try Firefox and the ad block plus plugin....

IE can't hold a candle to it!
Click to expand...

#1 suggestion... hit that pc with a hammer and get a real computer. :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:



But yes, IE is pretty bad. Go with Firefox
 
Wheaties said:
#1 suggestion... hit that pc with a hammer and get a real computer. :biggrin::biggrin::biggrin:



But yes, IE is pretty bad. Go with Firefox
Click to expand...


LOL... I would have said safari on a mac too, but that a big extreme an answer for most people :) I love my MBP, but its definately not for everyone.
 
All great suggestions but switching for firefox, (which is the better browser) doesnt address the undeylying problem.

If you have all the pop up blockers active and still getting them and they are relevent to content on a page, then you have an add-on running in IE that is allowing it. Or Installed another program that is ad-ware supported.

The first is easy to check, internet options/add ons. The second is a little trickier. Have you installed any shareware programs recently? These are more and more ad supported..
 
If Firefox doesn't fix it, Firefox or Safari on a Mac will. I know it's not all that helpful but the hours spent trying to coax PC's into working properly make the high cost of Macs a lot easier to justify.

John
 
A new thing that websites are doing to get around pop-ups is "mouse over" windows. Be honest... how many people read websites by moving their mouse over the words? Well... web designers can make a window appear just like a pop-up does. To make them work a web viewer (you) simply has to move the mouse arrow over a certain area and poof... a pop-up will appear.

Check this site out to also assist with ad blocking.
 
Crashmph said:
A new thing that websites are doing to get around pop-ups is "mouse over" windows. Be honest... how many people read websites by moving their mouse over the words? Well... web designers can make a window appear just like a pop-up does. To make them work a web viewer (you) simply has to move the mouse arrow over a certain area and poof... a pop-up will appear.

Check this site out to also assist with ad blocking.
Click to expand...

I wish I knew how to turn "mouse over" off! I hate that as much as pop ups. I use XP for some proprietary company software but otherwise use a Mac, especially for multi-language and graphics/image editing settings and internet. However, Even Safari with PUBlocker checked, a few popups still come through.
 
Price to fix Pc issues. 45.00 Hour..
Price to replace PC with MAC 1000.00
trying to learn a new OS with only 1 mouse button and giving up and going back to an Abacus -----Priceless


Macs are great machines, but not a solve all solution for everyone.... :)
 
Besides switching to Firefox, you might try running a spyware detector/removal tool like Lavasoft's Ad-Aware www.lavasoft.com or Spybot from www.safer-networking.org. Pop-ups can be a sign of spyware infections if you have popup blockers enabled.

Just a word of warning, be careful searching for spyware removal tools because some of the sites that show up in the results are sometimes spyware installer sites. ZD Net recently had an article about "scareware" sites that are fake anti-virus/anti-spyware sites and had some good info on what to look for. http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=4297&tag=nl.e589

By the way---all you Mac users that have been lulled into a false sense of security that Mac's don't get viruses, they do get them too. Now that Mac's market penetration is getting better (retail sales between 8-9.5 percent of personal computers in the past year), they are getting to the point that there are enough systems for the virus/spyware writers and hackers to take notice and attack them. A few years ago the numbers of Macs on the Internet were so small that they were not worth targeting by the attackers (less than 1% of the web browsers in use were Mac based at one point). This is NOT an attempt to start yet another PC/Mac war, each has their advantages/disadvantages. Instead it is a reminder that all computer users need to be vigilant against viruses and spyware on their system, whatever the O/S is.
 
DennisM said:
Price to fix Pc issues. 45.00 Hour..
Price to replace PC with MAC 1000.00
trying to learn a new OS with only 1 mouse button and giving up and going back to an Abacus -----Priceless


Macs are great machines, but not a solve all solution for everyone.... :)
Click to expand...


LOL, true. But you forgot:
Price to fix a MAC after dropping a grand... $0
 
rodsaw said:
By the way---all you Mac users that have been lulled into a false sense of security that Mac's don't get viruses, they do get them too.
Click to expand...

No, they don't "get them too" as in currently getting viruses! There are no viruses in the wild for Macs. They WILL get them in the future, but it is not a "have them now". :wink:

rodsaw said:
Now that Mac's market penetration is getting better (retail sales between 8-9.5 percent of personal computers in the past year), they are getting to the point that there are enough systems for the virus/spyware writers and hackers to take notice and attack them.
Click to expand...

This is the argument of "Security through Obscurity" - which is false also. 30 million OS X installs is not "Obsecurity". Recent (past two years) of "hack" conventions allow a "break into" an OS X machine with the passwords known in advance or very similar in which the difficulties are already eliminated. These quick break-ins are passed on to news medias without checking the facts. Quite a few news reports of viruses in the wild are nothing more than proof of concept put forth by . . . none other than Virus Protection software companies with vested interest in their own sales.

For Security news, click this link:
http://www.securitysystemsnews.com/?p=article&id=ss200910a0EEOE
IT: "and I need to make sure nothing is going to hack into my network via your system.' That's where the Mac conversation begins. The viruses, hacking, all of those things are dramatically minimized with Apple and it eliminates a lot of those challenges."

Another manipulation of facts is equating "installed user base" . . . based on 1. internet browsers, and 2. Sales.
Macs did cost more option for option for a while but not now. The difference was in quality. Macs are used in operation twice as long as PCs in general. Record 2 sales of PCs to 1 of Macs for this alone and you will get an equal installed user base.

Bill Gates and Andy Groves did an interview together in the mid to late '90s in which Gates specifically said that their recommendations were an 18 month to 2 year planned obsolescence. The reporter/interviewer came unglued over that statement. (LOML and I were watching and LOML also got upset over that.) Gates defended it by saying that (at that time) software development and hardware development was advancing so fast that it was necessary. Macs continued even then with the longer term obsolescence. This fact alone meant that for pure sales reasons, for the same amount of usage, the PC would have to sale at twice the rate to stay even. OF course we know the figures are greatly in the advantage of the PC but the idea of less than 1% and even 2% presents a conflict of true facts.

A similar thing happened in the late '80s and early '90s with the Software Industry consortium. With MS as a large software developer, they sat on the board. Suddenly the Software industry began counting EVERY CD sale of software under "PC" sales - Software CDs that had both PC and Mac and Apple II software on it. The perception was that Mac and Apple software sales died. The Software Industry would revise the then "current" reports about 60 days after every release of "facts" but no one was getting these reports and developers jumped ship. Eventually the then president of the SI resigned when he could not get the system of reporting changed because of sitting board members.

The point of this is that the perception of smaller percentages led to reporting of smaller percentages by writers and news media. The "less than 2%" of actual installed and user base did not occur. The distortion of facts, manipulation of data and spread by non-fact checking industry news media did.
 
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Firefox sucks on slower machines. If your computer is an older one, try Opera.

I have a machine at home with Opera, FF, Chrome, IE 8, and a few other variations of those installed all on XP. It's an old eMachines with a Sempron 3100+ (1.83ghz) and a gig of ram. Opera is by far the fastest.

My macs of course don't get that crap on 'em. Doesn't mean it'll never happen, but at least for now they avoid most problems.

Here's a tip, and I use it for all machines, macs or windows. Use a second hard drive (desktops) or a partition (laptops) and use that for storing all your data. Photos, documents, etc. Then you can blow the OS away whenever things get too slow or whatever, and your docs are still untouched.

The above mentioned XP machine gets blown away every year or two. Mac OSX same thing. It's faster than strafing the registry or plists to keep it running as fast as possible.
 
Just recently upgraded to IE8, and it now frequently "crashes" when opening a new tab. Not a true crash, but it brings up that annoying message saying there is a problem and the browser must close. It then closes the whole window, not just the one tab. I pull up task manager, then close task manager and it "recovers" everything. It's better than having to restart the computer, but still a PIA. Gmail has been great, so thought maybe Google Chrome would be better than IE8.
 
DennisM said:
Price to fix Pc issues. 45.00 Hour..
Price to replace PC with MAC 1000.00
trying to learn a new OS with only 1 mouse button and giving up and going back to an Abacus -----Priceless


Macs are great machines, but not a solve all solution for everyone.... :)
Click to expand...

So, that means if it takes more than 22 hours to make a PC virtually trouble free, its a break even proposition. Unfortunately, there are hackers putting in an infinite number of hours to make your PC vulnerable!

By the way, Macs love two and three button mice! OSX takes advantage of them so if you can plug in a USB mouse, the Mac will make great use of those extra buttons. By the way, no drivers required, it just works!

John
 
You know it this just hit me.

The whole MAC vs PC thing is so stupid! We dont drive up next to someone in say a chevy changing a tire and go...

OH MAN, dont want to do that again? Buy a Lincoln and self inflat the tire. Do we?

Its a personal choice, period, I personally do not like Macs for anything other then Video editing and publishing, which it excels at.

The COE on a MAC vs PC for anything other then that, is strongly in the PC corner.. Gaming on a Mac getting better, Web surfing on a MAC same as as a PC..

As for virius , Common sense and good pc use would solved 99.9% of all infections.. period...
 
DennisM said:
You know it this just hit me.

The whole MAC vs PC thing is so stupid! We dont drive up next to someone in say a chevy changing a tire and go...

OH MAN, dont want to do that again? Buy a Lincoln and self inflat the tire. Do we?

Its a personal choice, period, I personally do not like Macs for anything other then Video editing and publishing, which it excels at.

The COE on a MAC vs PC for anything other then that, is strongly in the PC corner.. Gaming on a Mac getting better, Web surfing on a MAC same as as a PC..

As for virius , Common sense and good pc use would solved 99.9% of all infections.. period...
Click to expand...

I think we all know this, is just goofing around poking back and forth. It's not like I think PC users are stupid or using the wrong computer. It IS a personal preference, simple as that. Just having some fun along the way, and if it came across any other way, I'm sorry.
 
Dennis,

No harm intended. I own PC's and Macs. They both have their strong points. I do prefer Macs and I do find them virtually trouble free to use.

Keeping a PC running well has always been beyond my capability or perhaps patience. To each his own. The fact that there are PC's and Macs will help all of us consumers to have better products available.

John
 
Ok

Didnt mean to imply that I was offended by anyones remarks.. mac vs Pc will forever be as debated as Air Force vs *any of the others.. When obviously PC and Air force are the best bet... :)

I just wish PC makers would take a page out of Steve's book and think OUT side the black/beige book...
 
MikeDe said:
Wow. Just saw someone get a computer problem taken care of here. What a great forum. From pens to glue to the geek squad.
OK, then. I am running Vista Home Premium and IE 8. I am getting pop-ups believe it or not, even with all the blockers and multitudes of other things


I think I'll stick to pen questions from here on.............................

MikeDe
Click to expand...
 
MikeDe said:
MikeDe said:
Wow. Just saw someone get a computer problem taken care of here. What a great forum. From pens to glue to the geek squad.
OK, then. I am running Vista Home Premium and IE 8. I am getting pop-ups believe it or not, even with all the blockers and multitudes of other things


I think I'll stick to pen questions from here on.............................

MikeDe
Click to expand...

Mike,

Dont let the banter in there fool you, there is some great advice as well. I think its something to do with once away from the tools and able to goof off, brings out the light side of us.
Click to expand...
 
DennisM said:
MikeDe said:
Mike,

Dont let the banter in there fool you, there is some great advice as well. I think its something to do with once away from the tools and able to goof off, brings out the light side of us.
Click to expand...


Thanks Dennis, but my comment was also part of the banter. I really kept chuckling at how each response got farther and farther away from the question. Started reminding me of the MAC/PC commercials on TV.
Click to expand...
 
Great thread...my .02!!

I think it is important to realize that IE has been the predominant internet browser for some time now. Others like firefox have been created to eliminate our dissatisfaction with that program. Firefox gives the user easier controls over pop-ups and file downloading from the tool menu

MAC's vs. PC's- My wife was always a PC girl until we got together...Now she says "Once you go MAC, you dont go back!!" How true. Once you experience the reliability of a MAC cost becomes a non-factor. Price of MAC for 1899...Price for add ons, virus protection and maintenance = 0$. Life span- Bought in 2003...Still going...From shutdown to start up takes 30-45 seconds.

Cheaper PC's combine components from a number of different manufacturers. MAC is all MAC easier for quality control.

I think the major benefits of PC over MAC is the price of computer and the ease of networking. MACs are more expensive and more complicated to network...Hmm...I guess just more expensive for the servers. The new operating system has made it easier.

I own both. I use the PC for plugging into my work network and my MAC's for everything else...its just more reliable. That cant be argued. Sorry.

Grub
 
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