Counter-productive software?

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PanicWare’s Pop-Up Blocker has a notification option to “display pop-up bubble next to system check”???!

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If you look carefully, it actually says “display pop-up bubble next to system clock“; which makes much more sense.

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Sorry, my typo. But the question still remains: why should you want a “pop-up bubble” when you’re trying to avoid/eliminate them?

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Maybe the icon is a menu that lets you configure and customize the program? In many cases, that will be the easiest way to tweak them (from the system tray). Not sure about this one.

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Most likely. Similar to the way the very effective Popup Manager works, except it does it unobtrusively in the browser window. Very handy to let through the occasional wanted pop-up, or to permit all pop-ups at a specific site.

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I would think it is a means for you to know that a pop-up has been stopped. It is not an option on my version – Pop-Up Stopper Companion – but I have set it to make a sound when a pop-up is destroyed.
I find this useful – firstly you are warned a ‘legitimate’ pop-up has been prevented (e.g. the Lounge smilies) that you might want, plus I get the satisfaction of hearing all those adverts getting blasted into the ether…

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I agree with Leif, it’s nice to know the software’s doing it’s job. I coincidentally installed it yesterday and I’m quite pleased. I disabled the balloon in the systray and enabled sounds and mouse pointer change. Even if you don’t disable the balloon warning it’s not quite the same as a popup in that it will go away without user intervention. It’s very satisfying to hear that sound and know I’ve stopped another annoying request to punch a monkey or buy a tiny camera. At the same time, knowing some site popups are necessary you’re warned by the sound/mouse change and can refresh holding the ctl key and the popup is allowed. I had originally installed a Tool Bar based browser addin (believe it was ZeroPopup) which contained some 10 elements identified by Spybot as spyware. As an aside, I found it necessary to install a Popup blocker not so much due to my normal everyday browsing but the increased number of links posted here in the lounge that included an amazing number of pop-ups. The last straw was when one of them hijacked my default homepage. Don’t you just hate that.

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“Even if you don’t disable the balloon warning it’s not quite the same as a popup in that it will go away without user intervention.”
I understand that the balloon is not the same as a popup–I just thought it was ironic that anything should “pop up” in a software program with that purpose. I’ve used EMS Free Surfer for quite some time and have been fully satisfied with it–its default settings provide the service needed, and it gives that reassuring “plink” sound whenever it intercepts popups.

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Understood, it does take two mouse clicks to disable the default balloon, it’s probably defaulted so you notice it the first time it stops a popup and know where the configuration options are located but point taken. Thank you for the link, that looks very promissing. Will definitely give it a try.

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I used to use the Panicware stopper, with sound alert, and was happy with it. However, I tried Popup Manager, after Woody’s recommendation, and switched because it was even better. Instead of a sound it gives a subtle a visual cue, as below. The green bar is the normal status. As shown in the (in screen?) screenshot the bar changes to red when a pop-up is blocked. It displays the [large]e[/large] icon and tooltip if you mouse over it, giving direct access to the blocked pop-up if needed.

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