Anyone know what those "empty" pop ups are?

[SnoopCat]

as more and more sites are crammed with pop-up ads, there are always a couple that are "empty". "Empty" as in when u click on it from ur taskbar, nothing appears, just as if an invisible window is showing.


Anyone know what those windows are? Nothing? Site trackers? "Bigger" Cookies? Keylogger??

 

[Unsickle]

I think they spawn real popups every so often.

I love the ones that are titled "Inbox: Outlook Express"

Ghetto fabulous

 

[superkeith]

have you clicked those ad-stopper links that have been floating around?

 

[Mookow]

I use POW from AnalogX. Works quite well at killing pop-ups. Most of the time before they load (ie, I know certain sites spawn pop-ups like mad, but I never see them). Also helps when you get so many pop-ups you cant kill them before they spawn more.

 

[Mookow]

Oh, to answer the original question, I just kinda figure that they are spyware.

<--- loading AdAware as I type.

 

[Elledan]

Which pop-ups?


<-- using Mozilla with pop-ups disabled.

 

[b0mbrman]

That's what I think...they're setting your start page to nutty things.

 

[skace]

Empty popups are windows that sites open to force you to continually get more popups. They are the dirtiest of dirty lame arse tricks that sites continue to use. You can close them by right clicking on them and selecting close, infact, you have to do this as they don't respond to restore commands.

<rant>I'm tired of the games that sites play. Don't they realize if the ads on the site ever actually pertained to the content of the site that they might even get customers. I mean why would I want to buy an x10 spy camera if I'm going to a site that reviews video games?!?! I DON'T WANT YOUR CAMERA. Damn, at least TV advertising has some common sense, it is called 'know your audience'.</rant>

It's been proven that when a site has respectable ads that pertain to the subject of the site, that people actually click the links. Like video game sites that link to video game retailers like Electronic Botique/etc. If forums.anandtech.com's ads actually linked to mwave.com, instead of some wack crazy flashing YOU HAVE WON, I might actually click on those too.

bleh

 

[StandardCell]

Ok folks, for the umpteenth time for those with Windows:

1. Go to http://www.panicware.com and get the free and excellent Pop-Up Stopper. It will stop all pop-ups, so sites where you really need it you'll have to turn it off (but it sits in the system tray to turn on/off easily and you can hot key it too).]
2. Go to http://www.accs-net.com/hosts and get a "hosts" file and DNSKong. Append the contents of the linked hosts file to your existing hosts file, and you will block a very large chunk of ads. Then install DNSKong. If you see more ads, you can add the entries to the hosts file or to DNSKong, and squash the ads.
3. Go to http://www.lavasoft.de and get Ad-Aware and scrub your system of any spyware.
4. If using IE, turn your privacy settings to "high" and disable Java/Javascript from unknown webpages. The Register at http://www.theregister.co.uk has a good guide to specific privacy settings.

and there you have it - almost ad-free annoyance-free browsing. Cheers...

 

[geekender]

From what I have seen, that empty one can be the Nimda virus writing itself to your computer while you are busy taking care of the ones that you can see.

 

[Gujski]

<-- using Mozilla with pop-ups disabled

Why won't Microsoft put this option in IE?:disgust:

 

[Elledan]

<< <-- using Mozilla with pop-ups disabled

Why won't Microsoft put this option in IE?:disgust: >>

Because Micros~1 can only copy, not innovate