what is a popup?

a popup is a (usually small) window that opens (pops up) overtop of other windows...

popups are generally associated with advertizing however windows that open up overtop of other windows are common place in other contexts such as error messages, notification messages, etc..

there are a number of different popup types:

windows messaging service popups are popups that come in through the windows messaging service (not to be confused with the msn messenger client)... these are simple looking, text-only dialogs... these can be completely disabled by disabling the windows messaging service or blocking (or simply not forwarding) ports 135-139, and 445 at the firewall (or not allowing the windows messaging service to act as a server if you're using a software firewall)...

web browser content popups are additional (and sometimes frameless) browser windows that are launched by your browser running scripts or other active content like flash or activex on web pages that you visit... modern browsers like firefox have built-in popup blocking capability meant to deal with these types of popups but depending on the sophistication the built-in measures may not work against all of them...

3rd party software popups are popups generated by some software installed on your system (often some form of adware)... often the popups will be browser windows in order to show web-based ads with all the graphics and multimedia we've seen time and again on the web... these can be avoided by not installing the 3rd party software in the first place, but if you do install then to stop the popups you'll have to remove the 3rd party software and in the case of 3rd party advertising software that's not always an easy task and often requires specialized removal software...

notification message popups are small, often text-only windows that pop up from the lower right hand corner (just above the system tray)... these are often to notify the user of some event, like a new email arriving or a instant messaging contact coming online... they can also be used to notify the user that there's a new advertisement for him/her to look at... this is a second, somewhat less obtrusive form of 3rd party software popup and must be dealt with in the same way...

the problem with popups is that they take up part of the screen, covering part or all of the work area of other windows/applications (even the notification message popups cover part of the screen when they appear)... this has the potential to interfere with the work the user is doing by covering an area s/he was using... when the popup is about something important, some option the user has to choose to continue a process they're involved in, some error condition, some event the user is actually interested in, etc. then the fact that it's covering up part of the user's work area is accepted - however when it's for advertising, the covering up of (even a small amount of) work area is almost universally not accepted because advertisements are just not important enough to justify interrupting what the user would have otherwise been doing...

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