Was in Wordplay and Fun when I followed a link and got a pop-up that looked like the ones Microsoft sends. It said "Warning your computer is broadcasting a signal that makes your computer vulnerable..."
Well! I read no further. Shut down and called the Computer Gurus. They told me they'd had several calls about this and had checked it out.
Seems some clever boots has found a new way to spam. If I had clicked for more info it would have asked me to buy some so-called security. Arrrggghhh©
Thought I'd let everyone know ... just in case!
Blessings, Wow.
(Your High Priestess)

This is just another variant of pop-up ad - a nasty one, cos it looks very like a standard Microsoft dialog window, meaning you may feel inclined to click buttons etc. Practically the whole dialog window is a link to a website selling stuff that you almost definitely don't want, which will probably dump loads of unwanted cookies on you.

You can get ad(and pop-up)-blocking software, but if you don't have any, try closing these "dialog" windows down from toolbars, from menus, or by right clicking on them. If the windows appear to be glued to the page you're looking at, effectively as one with it, just quit that page and don't come back.

Yeah, Weatherbug disguises itself as a free Windows update, too...usually appearing in the upper corner of the screen so you can't read it fully or click the close "x". But as you keep clicking further into it, each window asks for more and more information until you get to a screen that advises you if you do not furnish the required information it will now cost you $19 a month. I cancelled out, but couldn't uninstall the damn thing...so far I haven't been charged. Finally I had a cyber-expert friend uninstall it for me, or I might've been hooked into paying. So beware of this one, it's a Catch-22 scam if there ever was one.

Another reason to have a Mac. Ya don't get confused by those ugly gray Windows boxes.

Yep.

Oh, you two *really* ought to get a room.

Mac,yak,yak,yak!...

Rather than buy a pretty toy for graphic designers, why not just switch browsers? Mozilla lets one completely block all pop-ads without the need for any third-party software, and without the need for shelling out for a Mac. Mozilla is free, and available from http://www.mozilla.org

Hoot, mon, there's three of us!

I've nothing against a menage à trois.
Whose cave shall we gather in?

Not only that, but I just learned that Mozilla is a perfect parallel of Netscape 7.0 ~ except for the nifty bit sjm mentions about the ad-banning. to Netscape for selling out! Take that!

In reply to:

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to Netscape for selling out! Take that!

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And what did you expect from AOHell? For any who are interested, here's how easy it is to completely stiop poups in Mozilla:
http://maxqnz.com/mozillanopopups.html

I use the dreaded Norton Internet Security (hi Max) and find it keeps most of the bad guys at bay. Sadly, the main problem I have now is that if I wish to post to this site (for some reason) I have to disable ad blocking and privacy for a few seconds so that it allows the post through. Then ... if I forget ... I wander off into cyberworld and the nasty pop ups re-emerge. I wonder if there is any fix that Anu and his enormous team of worker bees could wizard up to save me turning these features off.

...completely stip pop-ups

Only thing is that several websites depend on pop-up forms, and you literally won't see what you're missing. Agreed that nobody should be totally dependent on Javascript and script-opened windows, but that's the only way to get neat little dialog windows and to have a button to close them.

menage à trois

Egad. This place is becoming a hive of Support Groups.

>hive of Support Groups

I suspect there may be a sting in the tail of this group - i wouldn't like a fish to get too close.

>Agreed that nobody should be totally dependent on Javascript and script-opened windows,

I agree. A lighter version of Mozilla, K-Meleon, offers a very nifty feature - it les one specifiy the domains from which one wishes to block po-ups, letting you allow some and block others.