Fed up with pop-up ads? We review six ad-free browser apps, each with its own method of removing annoying solicitations.

Tired of pop-up ads? So are we. Fortunately, we found eight apps that promise to remove these Web-surfing irritants.

Annoyances online
Most pop-ups come from Web sites themselves. To stop these common annoyances, you'll need an app that blocks them at the source. One such app, EdenSoft PopUpCop, not only stops pop-ups from filling your desktop, it also eliminates harmful ActiveX and Java scripts, turns off background music, stops animation, and blocks cookies. It even purges your Internet Explorer browser history and temp file whenever you exit the browser. PopUpCop integrates with your IE toolbar for fast enabling, disabling, and customisation.

Finally, there's Sunbelt iHatePopups, which offers a no-frills app that simply blocks pop-ups. It doesn't, for example, integrate with Internet Explorer as PopUpCop, AdSubtract Pro and Guard-IE do.

Pop-up danger from within
But unfortunately, blocking pop-ups from Web sites might not get rid of them altogether. Yet another source of pop-up advertising comes from within your PC: tiny ad-serving programs on your hard drive itself. Ad-serving software, sometimes called adware or spyware , can track the Web sites you visit, as well as other personal information, and send that data back to the advertising companies. These apps can install on your system without your knowledge when you download certain free software or when you visit some Web sites.

To remove these, you'll need a program such as Spybot Search and Destroy or a similar product, such as Lavasoft's Ad-aware. And, if you're willing to pay for this sort of thing, there's a new app from Webroot called Spy Sweeper that claims to remove more adware than Spybot or Ad-aware. Finally, Net Nanny Ad-Free provides both a pop-up blocker and ad-serving software removal

PopUpCop 2.0

PopUpCop 2.0 for Internet Explorer eliminates annoying ads and respects your online privacy. Unfortunately, PopUpCop isn't available for Netscape, Opera, or the Mac.

iHatePopups

While iHatePopups lacks the sophistication and security of its competition, it's good for home or student users who want just the basics.

Net Nanny Ad-Free

Ad-Free does an adequate job of blocking pop-ups, cookies, and spyware but doesn't integrate with browsers, such as Internet Explorer. For that, get PopUpCop instead.

Spybot Search and Destroy

Spybot blows venerable Ad-aware out of the water when it comes to protecting you against ad-serving software.

Webroot Spy Sweeper

Designed like an antivirus app, Spy Sweeper scans for the latest spyware using a constantly updated signature file. But its sophistication is only skin-deep.

Ad-aware 6.0

Ad-aware Standard Edition pales in comparison to the new feature-rich and free Spybot Search and Destroy.

Edensoft Corporation PopUpCop 2.0

Unlike Guard-IE's tiny icons, PopUpCop's IE toolbar is clean and easy to understand. A police badge icon on the left opens a drop-down menu of configuration and technical support options. A slider bar in the middle lets you quickly select preconfigured low-, medium-, or high-protection settings. A stoplight on the right of the toolbar indicates Java or ActiveX advertising script activity on a Web page. Finally, a handy display at the far right shows you at a glance the features that you've turned on or off.

Click the PopUpCop badge icon, and a drop-down menu displays your configuration choices. And this app gives you more choices than any other pop-up stopper currently on the market. PopUpCop lets you choose to allow all pop-ups, require the app to ask about each pop-up, or simply disable Web features such as Java and ActiveX scripts, images, animation, background music, and flash movies. And as if these controls weren't enough, PopUpCop lets you customise its treatment of mouse scripts, useless warning dialogs, and window frame resizing. You can even customise PopUpCop's own setting controls; for example, you can remove options from the configuration panel.

With PopUpCop, there's no need to wonder which pop-ups got killed on a given Web page. The PopUpCop stoplight on the toolbar turns from green to yellow to red to indicate that the program suppressed either a pop-up or a script timer used to deploy a pop-up. Mouse over or click the stoplight, and PopUpCop indicates the presence of a cookie, a mouseover, or a conventional pop-up.

Beyond its basic ability to stop Web page advertising, PopUpCop includes Xguard, a tool to fend off ad-serving software that installs on your hard drive. You may still want to run Ad-aware to remove any existing ad-serving software, but Xguard keeps future ad-serving apps off your system. Internet Explorer itself already alerts you just before a Web site loads such scripts onto your computer, but it doesn't describe the scripts themselves. Xguard, on the other hand, says it provides all the available information about the control and its publisher, including info on how to remove the control. PopUpCop's Xguard feature even stops the new InVue ads, such as those found on Yahoo or GeoCities sites, which sit atop Web pages. So far, none of PopUpCop's competitors can stop these ads.

In addition to PopUpCop's online help pages and adequate FAQ, Edensoft, the maker of PopUpCop, offers free e-mail technical support but, unfortunately, no telephone support.

PopUpCop combines the ad-serving-software prevention of Ad-aware, the pop-up-ad-killing features of AdSubtract Pro, and the convenience of Guard-IE into one efficient little app that's easy to use and understand. Anyone who uses Internet Explorer and wants to remove annoying advertising should get PopUpCop.

PopUpCop 2.0
Company: Edensoft
Price: US$19.95 via download

Sunbelt Software iHatePopups

The iHatePopups interface is simple compared to its competitions' and takes up too much screenspace for its limited capabilities. For example, the Reports screen does not generate a report or a log file of recent activity; instead, it displays only a bar chart that graphically illustrates the number of pop-ups stopped over time, pop-ups stopped today, adware stopped over time, and adware stopped today. You can't, for example, click these bars to obtain details of the pop-ups or adware that was stopped. For that, you need to view the Blocked History screen, which shows most of the blocks ads' URLs, should you want to view any of them or add any of them to your allowed list. Unlike the other apps we've seen, the Allowed Sites tab in iHatePopups does not allow you to cut and paste URLs. To add sites, you must right-click in the site itself.

Like AdSubtract, PopUpCop, and Guard-IE, iHatePopups blocks advertising generated both from Web sites and ad-serving software that lives on your hard drive. (Such ad-serving software often accompanies free downloads.) It's important to note that no pop-up blocker removes ad-serving apps from your computer but only mitigates their effects. To remove ad-serving software from your hard drive, you'll need Ad-aware 6.0 or Spybot Search and Destroy.

All of the ad-stopping apps we've seen so far play a sound whenever they find a pop-up. iHatePopups offers 11 such preset sounds--the most we've seen in such an app--with an option to add your own custom WAV file. With or without sounds enabled, a tiny notification window rises out of the system tray whenever a pop-up is stopped. This can be disabled as well.

To display how well iHatePopups works, the app sports a counter to the right of the main interface that shows the total number of pop-ups stopped. The Reports tab shows the total number of pop-ups stopped, how many pop-ups generated by ad-serving apps were stopped, and the total number of each stopped during the current day.

The Blocks History tab displays the individual URLs stopped. We found that this feature did not work in the trial software. However, even after we registered the product, iHatePopups displayed only a few of the total URLs it had blocked. Several were identified only as "dynamic pop-up--no URL." According to Sunbelt's technical support, dynamic pop-ups are "embedded in a Web page and are called upon from a remote location" and, therefore, change constantly. In comparison, we found that PopUpCop captured a list of these embedded URLs for the same sites.

The lone security feature in iHatePopups prevents viruses and rogue apps from changing your Internet Explorer home page. Short of that, iHatePopups does not specifically stop malicious ActiveX or JavaScript from running on your browser, nor does it notify you when a link on one page takes to you a different domain (usually a harmless act, but sometimes it's a sign that a hacker has created false Web sites for the purpose of identity theft). Finally, iHatePopups doesn't let you turn off animation and background sounds on Web sites, while both AdSubtract Pro and PopUpCop include this feature. Nor does iHatePopups clear your browser's history and cache files as do Guard-IE, AdSubtract, and PopUpCop. For security reasons, you should always clear your browser's cache when exiting.

One thing iHatePopups does that its competitors do not is block Windows Messengers. These are operating system-generated pop-ups that appear to be from network administrators. Designed originally to warn users that the server is about to be rebooted, some individuals have found ways to code these messages with advertising, enabling them to broadcast ads across large corporate networks.

The iHatePopups user manual covers basic descriptions of the features, with very little troubleshooting information. The iHatePopups program's help file is also minimal, providing general answers to general questions. For more extensive help, try the vendor's online technical support forum, which contains several topics specifically for iHatePopups users.

iHatePopups
Company: Sunbelt Software
Price: US$9.95 via download

BioNet Systems Net Nanny Ad-Free

Whenever Ad-Free blocks a pop-up, a small message window briefly launches from your system tray; to override a block, hold down the CTRL key and revisit the site. Unlike iHatePopups, whose message window both identifies the pop-up and further allows you to open it, Ad-Free merely says it is blocking an ad--you'll need to visit the log file within Ad-Free to open the link. However, unlike other pop-up blockers we tested, Ad-Free allows you to customise its internal whitelist.

Net Nanny Ad-Free
Company: BioNet Systems
Price: US$39.95 via download

PepiMK Spybot Search and Destroy

Spybot Search and Destroy is available only as a free 2.31MB download; there's no boxed version. The program installs in a flash and automatically places an icon on your desktop for quick access.

Before starting, there's a legal disclaimer that says if you remove advertising robots (or spybots) from your computer with Spybot, you may not be able to continue using the host program. Chances are, if you download a freeware product, the end-user license agreement says that you agree to the advertising placed on your computer as a result. Removing it with Spybot may make the freeware unusable. Although the two products do basically the same thing, this disclaimer is missing from Ad-aware.

Spybot's interface itself is straightforward: buttons along the left side allow access to Spybot's many features, while the large main section provides details, such as the individual languages available or the results of a spybot search of your hard drive. When you launch the program after installation, you'll be reminded to update the program for the latest version.

Next, Spybot opens to a settings screen that offers a variety of choices--such as removing cookies, Trojan horses, and usage tracking--without a wizard to assist the end user. Also, the overall terminology is a little confusing at first; for example, to run Spybot's various scans, you must click a button that says Check For Problems (instead of the more intuitive Start).
While Spybot Search and Destroy is running, a countdown clock in the lower right-hand corner first estimates the duration of the scan, then counts down to completion.

When Spybot finishes scanning for suspected ad-serving software and other Internet maladies, it produces a listing with a check box beside each item to remove or keep it. Unsure how to proceed? Simply click an item for a detailed explanation of what it is, what company issued the item, and a recommendation from Spybot. Better yet, if you decide to keep the ad component on your computer, you also have the option to exclude it from future searches.

Moving down the left-hand navigation, the Settings button accesses language, file sets, directories, and skins. Unlike Ad-aware, Spybot Search and Destroy has the option to run in one of 25 languages, including Magyar and two dialects of Russian. The file sets detail all of the functions that Spybot can perform, such as checking for Trojan horses or usage tracking.

For safety, though, you'll want to keep them all enabled and override the search results from time to time. Settings are the options that you are presented with the first time you load Spybot, but they won't make sense until you've run the program on your computer a few times. For example, you may decide you want to run Spybot every time you reboot your computer or you might want to speed up its scanning to the fastest-possible setting.

The Directories tool allows you to specify your download directory path so that Spybot will always check freshly downloaded files for spying software (often found with freeware and some shareware). The Skins option allows you to change the look and feel of Spybot, although at the moment there are few options available in English.

Click the Excludes button, and you'll find tabbed settings that let you block cookies, dialers, hijackers, keyloggers (keystroke-logging software), malware (such as the Friendly Greetings e-mail), and Trojan horses (such as Klez, Sobig, and Benjamin). For example, under Cookies, you'll find a current list of cookies on your PC, with an option to delete them. The free version of Ad-aware does not do this.

From within the Tools button, you'll find a file shredder, which allows you to delete a file safely from your computer by overwriting it with random data from 1 to 99 times. There's also a list of ActiveX components, which are scripts, specific to your computer, that run within Internet Explorer. Spybot will generate a very detailed list of ActiveX components currently installed on your machine, which provides you with details but no option to remove them. The process list replicates information that the Windows Task Menu shows you, and System Startup shows you what's running when you start Windows. Finally, there's a handy Report feature to see all of the above in either a log file or a printout.

The coolest option in Spybot lies within the Online button, where you'll find a list of opt-out e-mail addresses that should stop you from getting solicitations from ad vendors. Spybot's list includes just about everyone, from DoubleClick to Yahoo; this list alone is a valuable asset on any PC. Double-click any of the names, and a blank e-mail message opens, with the company's opt-out address autoamtically filled in, making it easy to untangle yourself from the mess of junk mail associated with ad-serving software. Within the Online button, there are options to update Spybot, access the company's Web site for the latest product news, or file a bug report with the author.

PepiMK Software is based in Germany. The Spybot site offers e-mail support, but our test e-mail was never answered. Although Spybot was developed and is maintained by only one person, the help file is nevertheless pretty complete. Also, the Web site contains a basic FAQ. While there are a few undocumented features in Spybot Search and Destroy, there are a great many useful tools here that are quite self-explanatory.

PepiMK Spybot Search and Destroy
Company: PepiMK
Price: Free via download

Webroot Software Spy Sweeper

The main Spy Sweeper interface is more polished than Ad-aware's or Spybot's. Indeed, Spy Sweeper looks like the paid software it is, complete with rounded buttons and contrasting colours. Like many other applications, Spy Sweeper bundles its navigation buttons along the left side, leaving the right panel to display related information.

Spy Sweeper contains many of the same features found in Ad-aware and Spybot Search and Destroy. Like the competition, Spy Sweeper lets you choose between a full sweep, which scans your system registry and the entire hard drive for traces of spyware, or a quick scan of only your system registry. As with Ad-aware and Spybot, Spy Sweeper displays a checklist of all the suspected spyware it finds, allowing you to override its decisions and remove only the items you wish. By hitting the Next button, Spy Sweeper moves the suspected spyware to a secured quarantine folder.

Webroot says that in the future, its spyware-definition database (a list of suspected spyware code that the company maintains on its servers) will be more thorough than that of the free competition--so much better, in fact, that the company is charging an annual subscription fee for Spy Sweeper updates. At present, it's apples vs. oranges. On our test machine, Spy Sweeper identified two more suspected spyware files than did either Ad-aware or Spybot, but overall, Spybot identified far more malcontents: third-party cookies, temp files, and system logs--all of which could leak personal information about your surfing habits. We think it's too early to tell whether Webroot is justified in its decision to charge when similar results are available elsewhere for free.

Spy Sweeper automatically enables a good security feature that prevents viruses from changing your Internet Explorer home page. Unfortunately, Spy Sweeper doesn't automatically enable its other security option to remove third-party cookies. For that, you'll need to change the configuration option yourself (under the options menu); even then, Spy Sweeper won't clear your Internet Explorer history or temp file folder as Spybot does. We hope future versions of Spy Sweeper will err on the side of caution and automatically enable its cookie feature.

The Quarantine feature in Spy Sweeper allows for the restoration of suspected spyware that's been "removed" from your system. Similar to the quarantine features found in Ad-aware and Spybot (known as Recovery), Spy Sweeper does not delete spyware found on your PC, but moves it to a secure folder. Most people will never consult their Quarantine folder, but, if, for example, you want to use the file-sharing software Kazaa, you'll need to restore cydoor.dll, a suspected spyware component, that will be removed by Spy Sweeper. Simply access the Spy Sweeper quarantine file from the main menu, click to restore cydoor.dll; now you can run Kazaa. However, once you're done with Kazaa, you'll need to run Spy Sweeper again. Webroot says later versions of Spy Sweeper will run automatically in the background, like antivirus apps, and be able to remove cydoor.dll once you terminate Kazaa.

Spy Sweeper's in-system help file does an adequate job of explaining what each button does--at some length. Unfortunately, Spy Sweeper does not go into enough detail about the threats it intends to stop and how they might infect your PC. There was no printed manual in the reviewed version, although Webroot does plan to sell boxed versions of Spy Sweeper in the near future.

Webroot Spy Sweeper
Company: Webroot Software
Price: US$29.95 via download

Lavasoft Ad-aware Standard Edition 6.0

The free version of 6.0 is available only as a 1.45MB download. After an easy installation, the new version of Ad-aware keeps its familiar and intuitive interface. To begin scanning your hard drive, for example, simply click the Start button, and Ad-aware will scan your hard drive and registry looking for advertising-related spy programs. You can customize its scan by selecting additional drives, and/or excluding registry items. Unlike Spybot, which required us to first check for product updates, then confirm our settings, then figure out how to start the darn thing, Ad-aware is ready to remove ad-serving software from your PC right away.

Unfortunately, not all of Ad-aware is so easy to understand. The function, for instance, of the Quarantine button and icon on the interface is unclear. Here's the scoop: Ad-aware automatically creates a quarantine file, which contains apps that the program has removed from your PC, each time you complete the scanning process. The Quarantine feature is helpful only if you want to restore a previously deleted ad-serving software program, should you discover that another software app is dependent on it. Spybot at least warns you that removing ad-serving software could impair freeware apps that you may have installed, while Ad-aware does not.

Compared to feature-rich Spybot, Ad-aware Standard Edition offers very few tools. Unlike Spybot, Ad-aware lacks a shredder to securely delete your files, nor does it offer additional-information pop-up windows to explain each ad-serving software app that it finds. There is no listing of company opt-out e-mail address to stop the flow of junk mail associated with ad-serving software vendors. What you see in Ad-aware Standard Edition is what you get--it's a program to hunt down ad-serving software on your hard drive, and that's all.

The Status button on Ad-aware's left-hand navigation bar shows the date of your last update and the number of objects that Ad-aware has quarantined on your PC. Under the Scan Now button, the free version allows you to customize only a few of the settings (most of which are dimmed in favor of the paid version). While you can get quite granular on which files you'd like the software to scan, you'll also grow annoyed at the range of useful options that are inaccessible to you, such as the ability to remove known advertising URLs added without your permission to your Internet Explorer Favorites list.

Even worse, Ad-aware's best feature, AdWatch, which stops pop-ups from invading your computer, is unavailable in the Standard Edition. Although you can still find information about it in the help file, clicking its icon or button will only display a message that asks you to upgrade for this feature. In general, we don't like this form of advertising.

Lavasoft, which makes Ad-aware and is located in Sweden, offers a more detailed and complete help file for Ad-aware than PepiMK Software does for its Spybot product. However, most of the detailed items in the Ad-aware help file are for features that are not available in the free version.

Also, a few items within Ad-aware's help file simply default to Ad-aware's main Welcome page. The Web site includes FAQs, but most of them advertise the features found in the paid version. You'll find an online help forum and e-mail-based technical support, but be warned: our technical-support test question went unanswered for several days.

Lavasoft Ad-aware Standard Edition 6.0
Company: Lavasoft
Price: Free for download, Professional Edition US$40 via download only

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