I have this little program that prevents pop-ups from occuring. It's called the Proxomitron, and it works great. Hesperis installed it on my machine, and I think it's available for free on the Net. Maybe PM her to get info.

And here's how you can clean your own system:

1. Start computer...wait till desktop appears.

2. Open "Windows Explore" (should be an icon on your desktop)

3. Go to the little Windows folder, and click the + box to the left of the folder icon. This shows all the folders within Windows.

4. Open the folder labelled "Cookies". Go to Edit (top of your screen) and click it. See pull down menu. Go to "Select All" and click it. You will now see that all the cookies (on right) have been selected. Hit the "delete" key. They will all be deleted and dumped into the recycle bin. Don't worry. You haven't lost anything you need by doing this.

5. As you did with the folder "Cookies", now do the same with the following 3 folders:

a) History

b) Temp

c) Temporary Internet Files

6. In the case of Temporary Internet files, there may be some regular utility files in there, and the machine will ask you if you really want to delete those specific ones (it will name them one at a time). Click "no" for those ones (there are only a few of them). The machine will delete all the rest of the temporary files.

7. And that does it. You can also just run "Disk Cleanup", off your Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Cleanup path (accessible from the "Start" icon at lower left corner of screen)...but that's not as thorough. It's quick, though.

8. Finally, empty your recycle bin.

I do all this on Windows 98. It may differ slightly on newer versions.

The point is, why be panicked into buying totally unnecessary software to do this when you can easily do it yourself? I recommend doing it fairly frequently (like once a week). Defragment your hard disk once a week too for good running. Go down this path: "Start" Programs/Accessories/System Tools/Disk Defragmenter (indicate your hard disk, usually "C:")

- LH