How Can a Popup Spy On Me?

Imagine yourself surfing the Internet, idly browsing from page to page, when an advertising popup appears on your screen. Not only is this increasingly common occurrence annoying and disruptive to casual browsing, but it can also be dangerous. Dangerous, you ask? How can an extra browser window—albeit a small, annoying one—be dangerous? Read on to find out.

Every day businesses try to find new ways to advertise their products, new ways to get their product into the homes of millions of consumers. With the Internet’s recent boom in general popularity, advertising on computer screens is an obvious way to expose potential consumers to ads of all sorts. While many advertisers limit their efforts to the oh-so-common banner ad and its ilk, some have taken the next step: forced advertising. Enter the popup.

Popups are just that: windows that pop up (and sometimes under) your current browser window. They often advertise services rather than products, such as online spyware and antivirus “cleaning” solutions. While the advertising method is bad enough, the worse news is that many of these popups harbor darker agendas. Clicking on the links in these popups can lead to spyware, adware, viruses and even potentially identity theft.

So how do they do it? How can clicking a single link—and not entering any private personal information—lead to identity theft? The answer is simple: many of these links install small, hidden programs on your computer. These programs can include the following:

• Spyware—Almost everyone has heard of spyware, but what exactly is it? Spyware is a program that lurks undetected in the background of the computer while you use it. It can track everything from what you type into online forms (such as banking sites) to simply your browsing preferences. This program then transmits your information back to the spyware’s author, who can use it for any number of shady and/or illegal purposes.
  
  
• Adware—Adware is very similar in function to spyware. It can lurk in the background of your computer, transmitting your browsing preferences back to its author. These preferences are then used to send you targeted advertising. For example, if the adware detected that you often browsed online clothing stores, you might find yourself bombarded with advertising for other online clothing stores. What makes adware especially insidious is that you don’t even have to be using the Internet for it to send you more advertising. This can disrupt many aspects of computer use.
  
  
• Viruses— We’ve all heard of viruses; they’re common enough that they make the big headlines in newspapers. A computer virus can do nearly anything to your computer, depending on its programming. It might simply create more popups (leading to a spyware/adware-like situation), or it could damage or even delete important data from your computer. Some of the worst viruses “hijack” your computer’s Internet connection and use it to send spam email and even to transmit your personal data back to the virus’ author.
  
  Clearly, popups are nothing to ignore; the consequences of blindly clicking links on them can be disastrous. Now, this isn’t to say that every popup out there links to a virus; some popup advertising is just that: a somewhat obnoxious form of advertising. Still, it would be prudent to not click on any popup unless you’re familiar with the source.
  
  The best solution, of course, is to not deal with popups in the first place. Popup blocker software makes this a snap; some programs such as Pop-Up Stopper Anti-Spyware can even detect and clean spyware and adware. 
  
  All in all, popups are a mainstream form of online advertising and aren’t likely to go away any time soon. That said, it’s easy enough to protect you and your family from this potentially harmful form of advertising.

Popup Killer Software Review and Comparison

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