Pop-under question

[Starbucks Anarchist]

I've noticed that some sites produce pop-unders when I visit them. Are these considered spyware or not? I'm running a G4 Powermac w/10.3.8, if that helps.

[Poiuyt]

1. They are not considered spyware

Just devious advertising. The browser developers had eliminated pop-ups and pop-unders, but now some software designers have figured a way around the blocking. I think if you disable java script you can block the pop-unders, but you will also disable a lot of other usefull web features by doing so (not positive about this). Not much else you can do for now.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

2. Thanks.

So it won't affect my computer? Every time I run Norton Antivirus, it comes up totally clean, but I figured something might not have been caught.

[Poiuyt]

3. If I were you, I'd stop using Norton software

I've heard nothing but bad things about Norton.

BTW, there are no viruses or spyware on Mac OSX. I wouldn't worry about checking for it. If you've got a PC, then that's another matter.

[Starbucks Anarchist]

4. That's what I was thinking.

My old Dell laptop (which is actually newer than my Mac) was drowning in spyware no matter what. And one day, the monitor just stopped showing any video.

That's when I dragged my PowerMac out of the box and used OS X. I've had no monitor or spyware problems since.

Thanks for the help, by the way.

[geekgrrl]

5. You really don't need norton- and it does mess with people's macs

***IF*** (and that's a really big IF) a mac virus comes out, you'll hear about it and be able to protect your computer in time (or apple will just release a security update for you). Norton has been terribly unstable in 10.3 and 10.4 (search for forum discussion on apple.com about this) and like I said, it isn't necessary. If your really paranoid you can use apple's built-in firewall, but that's all you need.

If you are using Firefox (the best browser out there next to Safari) I would install the extension "adblock." You can train it to block ads from certain sites. It works for me now for the DU- no more pop unders!