How to get rid of pop-ups. (Disable Pricegong.)

I’ve nothing against advertising. As someone who worked for years as a freelance illustrator I can hardly afford to be sniffy about it. So I have no beef with the static banners and sidebar ads that appear on the sites that I visit. I understand that they’re essential to commerce, even useful on occasion - in fact there are a few on this blog.

But I can’t abide pop-ups – those infuriating little windows that appear every time you click the mouse, their function being to simply crowd you out, like feral street beggars, until you respond.

Here’s an example from Ebay. I click on a picture of a Sunbeam motorcycle, and immediately get an ad for some kind of tanning product. The link between the two? The word ‘sun’. Yup, they figure that because I’ve shown a passing interest in Sunbeams, I must surely be gagging for a bottle of their bronzing lotion. God give me strength.

Anyway, this morning I’ve made a determined effort to address the problem. How to disable the kind of pop-ups that continually appear on sites such as Ebay and Amazon?

I discovered that responsibility for these hellish little beasts is often down to a programme called Pricegong. If you can disable Pricegong the world becomes a bearable place once more.

Now I’m no computer geek, so I can’t promise that this will work for all, and there may be knock-on effects that I haven't anticipated. But with this disclaimer in mind, and depending on the toolbar you use, here’s what you do:

1. Go to the far right of your toolbar, and you’ll see a little chevron thingy >>.

2. Click on this, and other areas of your toolbar, to search for the Pricegong logo. It's a green price ticket.

3. Click on the green ticket for a drop down menu.

4. Disable the blighter.

5. Now get on with your life.