How the Scum Ruined Popups

Once upon a time, a really smart person devised a way that a website could open a little window on top of a browser that could perform all sorts of helpful tasks. The user could see instructions, or a help screen, or have access to a little calculator, etc. It was really a great tool for using an internet page.

Of course, this lasted probably five minutes before some scumbag figured out how to abuse it to make the user's experience LESS pleasant, in order to try to sell him something, get him to another webpage he didn't want to visit, or promote some ridiculous scam -- "You have won a FREE COMPUTER, just Click Yes!" Then as they got more adept, they learned to flood the screen with these popups, try to lure the person to a completely fraudulent webpage, or try to get the person to click something that would infect his computer with adware, a virus, a trojan horse, etc.

So, almost all of us have just gotten so sick of the abuse, we block all popups. Unfortunately, this throws out the baby with the bathwater, as the scumbags have effectively destroyed a really good and useful internet tool.

Fortunately, you can allow popups on specific sites, if you want to take the trouble. In Windows Internet Explorer, navigate Tools->Internet Options -> Privacy, then click the "Settings" button in the Popup section. In Firefox, navigate Tools -> Options -> Content. Assuming "block popups" is checked (a very good idea), you can allow popups on specific websites by clicking the "Exceptions" button and typing in a url. We hope you will set your browser to allow popups in a new window for this site; we promise never to program popups that do anything except help you use the site, open only if you ask for them, and disappear when you close them. And if we should get hacked (which happens to even the biggest of sites sometimes) and a third-party sneaks a scummy popup onto our site, we will do everything we know how to get rid of it ASAP.

Here's what a popup is supposed to do: