Why do I keep getting pop-ups?

Question

It seems that everywhere I go, a pop-up window suddenly appears every single minute. My pop-up blocker is on, I blocked a few sites, I haven't found any spyware (I ran an anti-spy scan today), and there had been no viruses so far (Did a virus scan this morning, and I'm still not done). What is wrong with my computer?

P.S. I was using AT&T Yahoo! Browser, and the pop-ups came from Internet Explorer.

My pop-up blocker IS on, and I'm still getting pop-ups.

The websites where I got the pop-ups are www.neopets.com and here (Yahoo! Answers), just so to let you know.

It's just that I first got the pop-ups at Neopets, and now they're popping up wherever I go, even at Yahoo! Answers!

I already have AT&T as my ISP. Should I switch to another one?

Pop-ups are gone. Thanks to everybody who answered. Now if only they would change that wait-for-24-hours-before-choosing-a-best-answer rule...oh, well, it will never happen.

Answer 1

Some Web sites seem to have one mission in life -- to annoy you. They stick little pop-up windows in your face every time you visit them.
GeoCities, a company that hosts thousands of smaller Web sites, is the worst offender. I try my best to avoid sites that have "geocities" in their addresses.
But sometimes I have no choice. If that happens to you and you can't avoid sites that insist on using pop-up windows, try a pop-up zapper. I tried two, both written for Windows 95 and 98. Both work with Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.
The simpler of the two is Close Popup, from Take a Hike Software. It costs $20. You can download a trial version from http://www.homeonthewww.com/ryan/. The other is from the huge Siemens electronics company in Germany, available from http://www.siemens.de/servers/wwash/wwash_us.htm. It's called WebWasher.
Close Popup has only one task -- to close pop-up windows. It looks for telltale signs of pop-ups by watching for the typical phrases in their windows -- "Welcome to a Tripod Member page!" or "Some words from one of our sponsors..." and so on. You can add to these phrases if you find a site with different pop-ups.
Close Popup runs in the System Tray, out of the way. It blocked pop-up windows without slowing down the browser and without getting in the way of anything else.
WebWasher is much more ambitious. Siemens gives it away to individuals but asks corporate users to pay $20. (Everybody gets the same version and there is no time-out on any of the features, so corporate users are on the honor system to pay.)
WebWasher does much more than block pop-up windows. It has two more useful functions. It blocks advertising on Web pages and it keeps Web sites from knowing what site you came from. (This is called a "referral.") All of WebWasher's functions can be adjusted or individually turned off.
WebWasher is even more flexible if you have a home or office network. You can set up WebWasher as a proxy for all the computers on the network -- Windows PCs, Macs, Linux PCs or what-have-you -- so that all the site filtering goes through just one computer. This computer can be the one with an Internet connection (if you use NAT32, the excellent gateway program I wrote about recently) or it can be whichever PC on the network is least busy.
Like Close Popup, WebWasher runs in the Tray and stays out of the way. Network administrators (and those who keep things running on a small peer-to-peer Windows network) should turn on a logging feature that tells WebWasher to keep track of everything it does. You can diagnose problems easily that way.

Answer 2

This right here is tricky, because you need an ISP(Internet Service Provider) to be guaranteed a successful pop-up blocker. Get like Earthlink, Peoplepc, AOL, Netzero, or Netscape, these ISPs have a strict pop-up blocker and they even let you know immediately when a pop-up has been blocked. This has nothing to do with a virus on your computer. There is something else that blocks and eliminates viruses, this also comes with ISP package. Spyware just keeps your computer protected from hackers or even administrators from keeping tabs on all of the web sites you have been to. Just subscribe to an ISP and I guarantee you that you will not be harassed with any pop-ups.

Answer 3

I have Panicware's Free Pop Up Stopper as well as Best Pop up killer. AOL has its own pop up blocking component for when I'm logged on to AOL. When I'm not using aol, I use Firefox.....and with all of that, I rarely get pop ups.

And in response to your getting pop ups on Yahoo Answers, I never get any pop ups on here. Maybe something isn't set right, though I have no clue as to what it would be.

Answer 4

Go to Tools Menu at the top of the IE WIndow , Go down to popup blocker click on it and Enable(turn On PopUp blocker) popup blocker. Then Go to popup blocker settings and Edit your settings

Answer 5

Pop-ups are really bad, it carry viruses, so turn your computer setup properly, I mean pop up blocker on. Formatt your computer and do the proper setup. Don't do your self get help from IT and Hardware or programmer help.

Answer 6

because you surf at the wrong sites.... get the google toolbar for whatever internet browser you are using, and it will block the pop ups.

Answer 7

turn ur pop up blocker on

Answer 8

Internet Explorer is bad, use Firefox!