I use Opera 'most' of the time these days..(but right this minute I'm in Mozilla)....I get NO pop-ups in Opera unless I specifically go to menu and allow them temporarily.

Mozilla also has extensive settings for security and cookies, new windows..etc.control...

I VERY briefly tried a version of Netscape 7, and found it tried to set everything to AOLs preferred defaults....BOOM...uninstalled it!

Mozilla and Beonex are browers run on the Gecko engine used for Netscape, but with no AOL settings...Opera is totally indepedant...