*GREAT* AOL Browser Popup Blocker??

[quantass]

A friend uses AOL browser (which uses IE underneath) as her web browser to the internet. Is there an effective popup blocker for this browser? Google toolbar is useless for her. Apparently whatever tools AOL supplies doesnt do much to help her. She is using broandband.

[Rob R.]

Friends don't let friends AOL

[The Lodge]

There is an option somewhere in the aol settings to block popups. There is also one to stop those aol ad based popups too. I can’t remember where they are but they’re there. I set them for my uncle when I built him a computer.

[urdvurk]

Why not show her Firefox, and Adblock, and be done with it?

[quantass]

You know how people are. They get comfortable with whatever they are using, in this case AOL browser, and dont want to switch. She claims the AOL blocking methods dont work at all. Any external tools you'd recommend?

[Rob R.]

AOL is an open door for adware and spyware. Heck, I think they're built into the browser. I would give her ad-aware and spybot and spyware blaster and show her how to update and run them. Then I would tell her that she should expect 300+ to be found per month (which is true) and that some are going to be real difficult to remove even with these apps. At this point you have given her the tools to find out what AOL is all about on her own. When she comes back and asks you why she has such problems, you can let her in on how many you find on your non-AOL computer every month.

This method has worked for me to get people off the voluntary virus that is AOL every time.

I am not saying all of this because it's hip to hate AOL, I am saying this because it's true 100% of the time. I have also found this method to be a nice way to deliver the bad news without offending anyone.

[urdvurk]

Making her see what kind of stuff she gets using AOL like Rob R. says is indeed a good idea. Installing Ad-Aware and Spybot S&D is always a good idea, but preventing stuff from getting in in the first place would of course be preferable.

If she doesn't want to switch you can install Firefox alongside her beloved AOL, tell her it works better and faster and that she can always revert to AOL if she doesn't like it. I read somewhere the other day about a company that made employees switch from XP and Office to a nicely configured Linux with OpenOffice, telling them it would work better and that they could always have their XP boxes back if they wanted to. Apparently nobody has wanted to switch back. As it's only a web browser in this case, the switch shouldn't be too hard. After all, what do you do with a browser? Click a few bookmarks, click "Back" a couple of times, that's about it right?

I'm afraid I don't know any pop-up blockers because, well, I don't use any.