Pop-up displays are small windows that can be used for advertising or to alert users to errors. They can be annoying and difficult to close, but can still be a lucrative source of revenue. Pop-up blockers have been developed to combat them, but some users disable them for certain websites.
A pop-up display is a small window that opens on top of another browser window. Normally, pop-up displays are related to some form of advertising, whether for a product or another website. However, pop-up displays can also alert the user to an error or other type of warning related to the your personal computer operating system.
Pop-up displays usually cover part of the window the user is working on. Many pop-up display ads feature fake “close” buttons that, when activated, open up another pop-up display or even a whole new ad window. Advertisers sometimes use this method to “trap” you, and some of the sites they link to are nearly impossible to shut down. Some advertisers also use what is called a pop-under display, which is a new window that opens below the active window. Pop-under displays are less annoying than pop-up displays, but because they’re only detected when the user closes the browser window, they can stay open much longer and are harder to track down.
Pop-up displays are created using JavaScript and are often generated by the owner of the website the user is visiting. Pop-up displays can also be the result of an adware type of software that has been installed on a user’s computer, either by choice or stealthily. In the early days of the Internet, webmasters used embedded banner ads to generate revenue to support their sites. However, as computer users became more savvy and started ignoring these banners, advertisers started paying less for click-throughs and revenues decreased. Pop-up displays have been a natural progression from banner ads and can still be a lucrative source of revenue.
As soon as pop-up displays started appearing on computer screens, enterprising software engineers started developing tools designed to block them. Early on, some major browsers including Opera and Mozilla were able to totally block pop-up displays for their users. Eventually, all major browsers except Internet Explorer had this technology. Finally, in 2004, Microsoft incorporated a pop-up blocker for Windows XP that, when turned on, effectively blocks pop-up displays for Internet Explorer users. However, many computer users find that pop-up blockers interfere with normal use and often disable the blocker when they visit certain websites.
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