Internet Information Bar

[Ronniebootwest]

Each time I log on to the internet these days, I get that awful message that the 'Information Bar' is blocking pop-ups etc. I really don't know what this does or even if it is essential. I always simply 'allow all pop-ups' just to get the thing off of my screen.

Can somebody educate me please and explain what this annoying newcomer is all about and whether it will do any harm if I disable it completely?

[Alan Lyons]

Ronnie,

This can be abit of a pain at first but once you have "always allow pop ups" from your trusted sites they will run without this bothering you. It's job is to stop thoes anoying "YOU HAVE WON A SQUILLION £££££" pop ups from sites you may visit from time to time. There is one here in Ireland which gives you a pop up after every click cluttering up the task bar and the connection. Leave it on and tailor your favorites.

Alan

[Conflow]

Hi Ron,

To try and give you an 'appraisal' of should you ?, or shouldn't you turn it off ?. I can give you some general background information, but at the end of the day it all depends on the PC and who is your ISP Provider ? and what Home & Search Pages are you using ? and what Anti-Spam and A/Vir Systems are you using ?

These new 'fangled gadgets' in Home and Search Pages are called ~ BHO's ~ Browser Helper Object's. It has been my experience (apart from Microsoft BHO's) that these 3rd Party BHO's are being foisted on to the general Public without any permissions requested. Furthermore as any Computer Engineer will tell, these things are responsible for more Internet Crashes than anything else. Also when a PC encounters a 'Web Hi-Jack' attempt, these 3rd Party BHO's usually succumb to the attack and then proceed to spread the infection through Internet Explorer...and Oh boy...are they loved by the Hi-Jackers.

Having said that, there are some BHO's which are extremely well designed ~ especially the IE Intergrated ones which come with XP-SP2 and the SP.Upgrades ~ tough as old boots.

It all boils down as to how the particular PC is set-up for the Internet and what's its Operating-System, therefore each PC has to be evaluated individually....there is no general answer to your query, excepting, should you be running XP-SP2+Upgrades and proper Anti-Spam+Anti-Virus plus current updates ~ then there is no need for these 'iffy' 3rd.Party BHO devices.

Brian.Conflow.

[bogaertb]

Hi Ron,

I block ALL pop-ups and only allow these I realy would like to see. In fact, I hate these pop-ups since they are a source of a lot of things you do not want to happen on your PC (e.g. they can be a source of ad-ware and other, sometimes less harmless 'things' since a lot of people do not realy read what is in these pop-ups and just hit the enter-key with all - sometimes - nasty effects). If somebody realy wants to tell me something: let him do that in a plain window. With these pop-ups your PC can get 'hi-jacked' and homepages taken to places where you don't want them to go. The next thing you're doing is cleaning up the mess...

I guess that's the price we pay for an open internet where we 'can find it all', otheres do too...

Best regards, Bart

[Nathan]

Each time I log on to the internet these days, I get that awful message that the 'Information Bar' is blocking pop-ups etc. I really don't know what this does or even if it is essential. I always simply 'allow all pop-ups' just to get the thing off of my screen.

Can somebody educate me please and explain what this annoying newcomer is all about and whether it will do any harm if I disable it completely?

I believe it's simply Mr Gates saying, " Look, we've updated security in IE and slipped in a pop up blocker for good measure to stop you being pestered by these annoying adverts." He could not resist letting you know this each time you open IE, hence the information Bar. No need for you to go seek a third party pop up blocker, Bill has your interests at heart, as always.