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The other way these spyware programs get on your computer is when you click on popup windows. There are many web sites on the Internet that spawn popup advertisements as soon as you open that site. These sites do this for revenue because the advertisers pay them good amounts of money to host these advertisements. Some of these web sites know that they are advertising malicious advertisements, some have no idea, while still others have no choice - they need the money. The popups I am referring to are not the type that are advertising AOL or Time Magazine. These are the advertisements that are misleading. For example:

This is a popup that I got while browsing one of my favorite web sites, http://www.newgrounds.com. The real kicker about this particular popup, it is telling you that you have spyware, when in fact the popup itself is trying to get you to click on it, so it can install spyware on your PC, not remove it. It looks like a legitimate Windows warning but it is not. First, notice in the lower left that it faintly says "Advertisement", most people don't see that. Also, it is a picture and no matter where you click on it, it automatically starts to download their software, even if you try to click "No". These types of popups get many people who just don't know not to click on it. The best thing to do in this situation is simply to click the X in the upper right and just close the window. There are two other types of popups that also trick people into clicking on them, which then downloads spyware. The first looks like this:

This is similar to the first popup, however, this one actually looks like a Windows window. See how it has two X's in the upper right-hand corner? Again, this one is just a picture and no matter where you click on it, its starts the download. Make sure when you click the X on this one, that you click the one in the very upper right-hand corner. For this screenshot, I kept my mouse over the image which, automatically brings up the pictures option box, which is what you see in the upper left of the window, directly above the word "WARNING:". This is how you know for sure that it is a picture. In Internet Explorer, when you leave the mouse over any picture for a couple of seconds, that box will come up.

The last two types of popups are the worst kind. They look like this:

and

The reason these are the worst is because they are actual Windows warnings and not fake. The first one is the most popular, the second one is less frequently seen. If you get one of these, ALWAYS click on the X. Never click Yes or No. What makes these so bad, is once you click "Yes", you then authorize the site that is sending that popup to have COMPLETE ACCESS TO YOUR PC! By clicking "Yes", you essentially say, "Sure come on in to my computer, help yourself to do whatever you would like". Occasionally, you may get these popups when going on legitimate web site, i.e. when running Windows update from http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com, you will get one of these from Microsoft, then it is okay to click "Yes".