What do the experts say about it?

Wikipedia.org - "An advertising method where a banner will pop up out of nowhere and onto your computer. A popup will sometimes pop over web content to get it in your face, or perhaps trick you into clicking on it."

How does it get there in the first place?

Generally these are just irritating. They're pretty harmless usually, just trying to attract you to betting websites or getting you to buy products at supposedly discounted prices that won't last long. There's also a type of popup called a pop-under ad, that loads behind your browser window so when you close it, the advertisement is shown to you. Some even use "mouse trapping" techniques, which cause another popup to come up when you move your mouse over the first. You can get into a seemingly never-ending cycle of advertisements this way.

But how does this affect me?

This isn't the crime of the century, but why should you have to put up with ads for products you don't want? Of course, it's not always just services like casinos, you can get porn popups which, whether you want to see them or not, certainly don't look good in your browser's history!

Get it Sorted

Popups aren't a threat to your personal information but why put up with them when there's a number of escapes?

• Install popup blocking software for your web browser
• Try alternative web browsers
• Pressing Alt-F4 when a popup is visible will get rid it without moving your mouse anywhere near
• Follow the Sorted top 10 rules to privacy online

Find out more

For further reading on popups, take a look at the following sites:

• All About Popups