Pop-up ad

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Within Wikipedia, "popups" may refer to Navigation popups.
Dozens of pop-up ads covering a desktop.
Dozens of pop-up ads covering a desktop.

Pop-up ads or popups are a form of online advertising on the World Wide Web intended to increase web traffic or capture email addresses. It works when certain web sites open a new web browser window to display advertisements. The pop-up window containing an advertisement is usually generated by JavaScript, but can be generated by other means as well.


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[edit] Non-browser pop-up ads

Processes other than the Web browser can also display pop-up ads, or can direct the browser to display them. Many spyware programs do this, as well as some advertising-supported software, although the line between the two is sometimes thin.

A different sort of pop-up ad can be sent via the Messenger Service in Microsoft's Windows operating system. This is not to be confused with the Windows Messenger or Windows Live Messenger instant messaging clients. These pop-ups appear as Windows dialog boxes with a textual message inside, usually directing the user to a Web site. The Messenger Service has been disabled since Windows XP Service Pack 2.

[edit] Pop-up blocking

Opera was the first major browser to incorporate tools to block pop-up ads; the Mozilla browser later improved on this by blocking only pop-ups generated as the page loads. In the early 2000s, all major web browsers except Internet Explorer allowed the user to block unwanted pop-ups almost completely. In 2004, Microsoft released Windows XP SP2, which added pop-up blocking to Internet Explorer.

Most modern browsers come with pop-up blocking tools; third-party tools tend to include other features such as ad filtering.

See also: List of pop-up blocking software

[edit] Blocking of legitimate "pop-ups"

In some cases a pop-up is desirable and problems can arise when they are inappropriately blocked.

  • Many websites use pop-ups to display information without disrupting the page currently open. For example, if you were to fill in a form on a web page and needed extra guidance, a pop-up would give you extra information without losing any information already entered into the form. Most pop-up blockers will allow this kind of pop-up, however, some will reload the page, losing any information that was entered.
  • Some web based installers such as that used by McAfee use a pop-up to install software.
  • On many internet browsers, holding down the ctrl key while clicking a link will allow it to bypass the popup filter.

[edit] Circumventing pop-up blockers

Advertisers continually seek ways to circumvent such restrictions. For example, some pop-up ads are generated using Adobe Flash. Since pop-up blockers only blocked the JavaScript method, the Flash method would bypass the pop-up blocker.

A combination of a banner ad and a popup window is the "hover ad", which uses DHTML to appear in front of the browser screen. With the use of JavaScript, an advertisement can be superimposed over a webpage in a transparent layer. This advertisement can appear as almost anything the author of the advertisement wants. For example, an advertisement can contain a Adobe Flash animation linking to the advertiser's site. An advertisement can also look like a regular window. Because the advertisement is a part of the web page, it can be blocked by using custom style sheets, or third-party ad blockers such as Adblock. DHTML ads can be very CPU intensive, sometimes bogging down older computers to the point of unusability.

[edit] Popup Generators

A popup generator is a computer application used to design, produce, store, install and maintain popup advertisements. Popup generators vary from simple ones that generate blockable old-style annoying popups, to complex and sophisticated computer software applications, used to develop feature rich popup ads and hover ad windows.

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[edit] External links

Look up popup in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.