Popups

[john999]

What is the best way to get rid of popup adds?  They have taken over my computer.  The adds that promise to get rid of popups are popups.

 

Jking

[Tbird]

I used Malewarebytes

[McRay]

 Install Brave browser. It works well.

[broncovet]

I agree with McRay.  Brave is free.  Its the fastest, most secure browser available in my opinion.  

However, if you like contributing to the wealth of Bill Gates (with Internet Explorer) or the founders or shareholders of Google with Google Chrome, then you can use those instead.  

The idea behind brave is "that our attention (reading an ad)" is valuable, AND, at least a portion of the "ad revenue" generated through brave goes back to the user through BAT (crypto) tokens.  Im not going to predict the future and guess whether or not this will catch on, or if the old school Microsoft or Google can outcompete Brave.  So far, I just use Brave because its faster and more secure.  I may not get a nickel ever, for my own ads viewing, but I still like the security and extra speed "Not loading" ads which are backed up, waiting to load.  

Google and Microsoft dont like Brave browser, its a rather new concept to compensate the user for his or her own ad viewing.  

Ad revenue is the way Microsoft and Google, especially, generate significant portions of their revenue.  

Brave Browser is based on Chrome, minus ads.  Remember, Chrome is "open source" software, so others can use it without a license.  

As many know there are 2 kinds of software:

1. Proprietary:  This software is owned and maintained by the company.  (Microsoft, Apple, etc).  The owners receive ad revenue.  

2.  Open source.  This software is "owned by no one".  Anyone can use it without a license.  Linus Torvalds wrote Linux software, and donated it to the world.  His philosophy was that software should not be a "toll road" where users must pay the toll either through Ad revenue, or by payment up front.  

      To help understand, there are 2 types of roads.  Toll roads, or roads without tolls.  Each time you drive on a toll road you must pay the toll.  However, we can use non toll roads at our will, but, of course, we must obey applicable regulations.  

     I prefer the "non toll roads" (open source software) over "toll roads" (ie, Microsoft, Apple, etc owned software, where we must either pay, or subject ourselves to advertising).  

     Television is similar.  Some shows are free but we view ads.  Other TV is "pay" where we pay to limit ads.  

     With Brave, its a rather new "blockchain technology" (technology similar to bitcoin), which allows the user to share in the ad revenue.  

 

Edited May 7, 2022 by broncovet

[Tbird]

Brave sounds great for the end user. For Site owners like myself depending on Ad Revenue to stay online it does not bode well.

[Vync]

Malwarebytes is the best immediate action to try first if your system gets taken over by popus. It's free with optional extras. Even if you try an alternate browser, some browser helper objects could still be associated with your other browser or in your system startup and continue to run. Doing a scan with Malwarebytes, restarting, and repeating until everything usually works quite well.