Have been trying to get rid of the ads since I dumped Norton's system slowdown. Pop-ups were stopped by the google toolbar, but it's the ones on the pages that flash.

Running XP pro. IE6 and Avast AV on cable access. Spywareguard, spyware blaster, defender.

I tried running outpost firewall, turned off the XP firewall before installing, but ended up with all internet access blocked completely.

I went to the Outpost BB, only thing I found said to disable the Windows DNS Client Service, which I found instructions for at MS support. But after seeing the instructions I wasn't sure if I wanted to attempt that.

Hmmm.....

I wouldn't disable the DNS client service. So, with SpywareGaurd and SpywareBlaster and Outpost and Google toolbars, you are STILL getting popups? Are you saying the ads are the "Flash" ads that come up and float across the screen, etc?

Have you looked into Peer Gaurdian at all? I believe the latest version has a very, very strict setup that will absolutely deny any access from any known advertising site - it's very strict and sometimes will block legitimate pages, but last time I checked it also has a "whitelist" feature that will allow access to certain sites. You just gotta manually punch that crap in, which is a PITA.

Thanks, Shifty. Peer Guardian did the trick. What I meant was ads that appear on web pages that flash to get your attention. I did have a few pop-ups that appeared, but the PG appears to have stopped those, too. You do have to block HTTP . To allow access to web pages you have to display the interface, then right click the blocked site and display permanently. That part will be a pita for a while, but it does work.

PG (peer gaurdian) is a good alternative to using SpywareBlaster (I would keep SpywareGaurd on and updated).

I was turned onto this program when I started using Torrents. They also block a lot of government and/or movie companies and/or music companies computers from connecting to you - you know, the people that would bust you for illegal file sharing? They've evolved this thing into a very useful tool for people who hate advertisments, though.