Re: [fw-wiz] Annoying pop-ups

From: Crispin Cowan (crispin@wirex.com)
Date: 10/29/02 

From: Crispin Cowan <crispin@wirex.com>
To: David Hawley <rhino007_us@yahoo.com>
Date: Tue Oct 29 09:25:19 2002

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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