Re: Annoying pop-ups

[Crispin Cowan <crispin () wirex com>]

David Hawley wrote:

> What is the port(s) that is used to send those annoying pop-ups in 
> Windows XP?  Will the firewalling SW builtin to XP
> stop them, or must one use a personal firewall (I am on a short term 
> contract, and the DSL router/firewall is back at
> my home base).

Neither XP nor personal firewalls will stop annoying pop-ups, and they 
have nothing to do with ports. They result from having javascript 
enabled in your web browser. You have several choices:

   * Disable javascript. There is a myth that this breaks a lot of the
     web; it is only partially true. For a very long time, this is what
     I did, enabling javascript only for web sites that I trusted and
     really, really needed to access.
   * Use Mozilla: it has a configuration setting that lets you allow
     javascripts to run, but prevent them from opening windows that you
     did not ask for. I currently use this, and it is highly convenient.
   * Products like Junkbuster likely do something about popups, but I
     have no direct experience.

I wish a filthy pox on the web developers who decided that javascript 
was an acceptable way to do web site navigation.

Crispin

--
Crispin Cowan, Ph.D.
Chief Scientist, WireX                      http://wirex.com/~crispin/
Security Hardened Linux Distribution:       http://immunix.org
Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html

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