Best popup/adware blocker

Hi all,

Recently I have had on this site and possibly other sites (will have to check) certain words underlined and In yellow. When I put my mouse on them a popup advertisement appears.

This is more than likely some spyware or the like that has attached itself to my computer.

So I was wondering what is the best program to identify and protect my computer from these adware type programs.

In the past I always used spybot and it seemed to be a really good program, plus it's free. Anyway would appreciate any thoughts.

My browser blocks them, oldman. (Opera) Under Preferences/General it says, "How do you want to manage popups?" And I say, "block 'em". Have you looked to see if your browser does the same?

Gil.

Another great product for blocking ads within the browser is AdBlock Plus...kind of a dumb name but it is outstanding. It works best with Firefox in my opinion. I have tried it with Chrome too and it works but not as well. Don't know about IE or Opera.

As traveler says, no matter what browser you have, you can turn off pop-ups. Sometimes I want them though and you can make exceptions in those cases.

Added: Are you seeing these underlined words on sites where you did not before? Some web sites use those underlined words as a sort of less obtrusive advertisement. But if you are seeing them now where you didn't then spyware does sound like the culprit. Most Antivirus software also has an Antispyware component these days. I haven't run Spybot in years and haven't had any problems.

Added 2: Sorry, I really need to read more carefully. I see you are seeing them now where you didn't before.

Added 3: So, I disabled the ad blocker for GameBoomers and I don't see any underlined words. I will leave my ad blocker disabled permanently for GameBoomers. If there is any site I visit that is worthy of my support through ads, it is this one.

One thing I've noticed, Bob, although it may not always hold true: every time you see a single word underlined, it's an ad. More than that, it's probably a link.

Gil.

If you're talking about adware, you can use AdBlock, but you can also disable and clear out the problem using your browser settings. Here's a web page that goes into some detail about how to do this based on what browser you use:

Adware: How to Remove Text Enhance

"Text Enhance (Text-Enhance) is a form of bundled flash adware (categorized as a browser hijacker) that attaches to internet browsers as an extension and cookie without user consent. ... Text Enhance is not a realistic in text advertising service."

If you want to stop all in-text advertising, even legit ads like infolinks.com, try this web page:

Block Infolinks In-Text Ads

"Infolinks is a non malicious pay per click in text advertising platform (unlike Text Enhance). Infolinks is only integrated voluntarily into individual websites by the owner. Infolinks is not an internet browser hijacker, nor an internet extension."

Thank you all for the very informative links. I ended up running spybot and ad-aware plus double checked my popup blocker on IE (which was turned) on and now the text ads or whatever they're called are gone.

Don't know who or what the culprit was but it is no longer there. It wasn't that irritating as long as I didn't click on it I just wanted to make sure that it wasn't going to lead to a problem down the road.

Anyway thanks again.

Also, Lanlynk I am going to keep those links for future reference.

WOW that was a very informative posting! I learned a lot. Thanks all!

If you use Internet Explorer 9 you can go to the safety settings and choose tracking protection and then choose get a tracking protection lists online. You can ad a version of adblocker for internet explorer. I use this one.

Fanboy - Adblock

Donald, I had forgotten all about the blocking lists you can subscribe to. I've done that in the past. Thanks for the reminder!