popSmarts will run on Windows 98, Windows ME, Windows NT4.0 (with Service Pack 6), Windows 2000, and Windows XP. popSmarts requires Internet Explorer version 5.5 or greater. Upgrading Internet Explorer is free! If you need a more recent version, please download the latest release from Microsoft at http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/downloads/default.asp.

Yes!! Please download the trial version of popSmarts here today and enjoy the peace and quiet you get without annoying popup windows! The trial version isn't time limited, but comes with a limited number of uses, with each blocked popup window counting as one use. The trial version will block 120 popup windows before the evaluation period is over.

When the evaluation period ends, popSmarts will partially disable itself. Approximately 1/3 of the browser's popup windows will be blocked normally, and approximately 1/3 of the popup windows will be opened as if popSmarts was turned off. The remaining 1/3 will be replaced by a friendly reminder asking you to register your version of popSmarts!

When popSmarts blocks a popup, a small status messages will appear in the popSmarts window. The status message contains simple session statistics, and if you are running an evaluation copy it will tell you how many popups you have left.

In the upper left hand corner of the popSmarts window there is a small popSmarts target icon. Clicking this icon will open the popSmarts About screen. On unregistered copies, there is an Enter Registration Code button on this page. Clicking this button will open the window where you can enter the registration code.

popSmarts may be purchased using Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover/Novus, Eurocard, Eurocheques, or by check.

Yes! Please contact our Sales staff at sales@birnamlabs.com for an volume discount inquiries.

No! Installing popSmarts simply requires you to close all open copies of Internet Explorer before installing, and restarting Internet Explorer when installation has completed.

After installation has finished, restart Internet Explorer. From the "View" menu item (on the top of the window), select "Explorer Bar" to view a list of all available explorer bars. popSmarts will appear in this list towards the bottom. To activate popSmarts, select it from the list. When popSmarts is activated, there will be a check beside the name on this list.

popSmarts should now be visible in the bottom of your Internet Explorer window! There are four buttons on the bottom next to the popSmarts logo, the first one (on the far left) is an on/off button. You can verify that popSmarts is active and running by looking at this button. If the button is gray, popSmarts is off. If the button is green, popSmarts is ready to work!

If the time ever comes, popSmarts provides several easy methods to initiate the uninstaller. One, there is a shortcut to the uninstaller found in the Birnam Labs -> popSmarts folder in your start menu (if you chose to have start menu icons installed). Two, you can access the unistaller directly on your hard drive, by navigating (via My Computer or Windows Explorer) to the folder that popSmarts was installed to, and running Uninstall.exe. Three, you can go to Control Panel (Start Menu -> Settings -> Control Panel) and select Add/Remove Programs. One of the program items will be Birnam Labs popSmarts. You can select this item and run the uninstall/remove link.

This can happen on older machines that do not have the newer version of MFC42.dll. This .dll file should be installed with your Internet Explorer version 5.5 or higher, but if you have a current version of Internet Explorer and still have this error, you can download the correct version of MFC42.dll in our downloads area, and install it into the system directory inside your Windows folder.

This can happen on machines that are operated by a system administrator where you only have limited permissions, such as a Windows NT4.0 or 2000 machine in a corporate environment. If you see this error, it means that popSmarts did not have adequate permission to add a folder to the Start Menu. Please contact your system administrator and ask that s/he install popSmarts from an Administrator access level.

This can happen on machines that are operated by a system administrator where you only have limited permissions, such as a Windows NT4.0 or 2000 machine in a corporate environment. If you see this error, it means that popSmarts did not have adequate permission to access the registry to add uninstall information. Please contact your system administrator and ask that s/he install popSmarts from an Administrator access level.

Please look in the Installation section above on information on activating popSmarts.

There could be a variety of reasons you might still be receiving popup when popSmarts is activated. First, being active doesn't necessarily mean that popSmarts is turned on! There are four buttons on the botom right of the popSmarts bar, the first and left-most of which is an on/off switch. When this button is gray, popSmarts is turned off. When this button is green, popSmarts is on.

Secondly, the popup might not have originated from Internet Explorer! Some software (such as Morpheus and Kazaa) install extra, third-party applications during their installation, even if you don't want it to! These third-party applications are called adware or spyware and exist to either record your browsing activity or launch advertisements on your computer -- or both! These applications don't even require a copy of Internet Explorer to be running to generate popups! Adware is highly immoral and possibly even illegal, and should be removed immediately. Birnam Labs highly recommends using Ad-Aware to scan your computer for Adware and Spyware applications -- and chances are, you'd be surprised at how much you find. Ad-Aware is available through C|Net Downloads here.

And finally, it's possible that what you're seeing isn't a popup widow at all. Some advertising companies have devised script-based animations that occur inside your browser that mimick the look of a popup window. These are sometimes called "popups on steroids" and carry the same annoyances without opening an actual popup window. popSmarts currently does not stop these animations -- but Birnam Labs is hard at work to deliver this functionality to you in our next release!

On some screen resolutions, the popSmarts bar can take up a healthy percentage of the browser window. There are two things that can be done to make it smaller. First, try dragging the bar separating popSmarts and the main browser window. There is a minimum to how small popSmarts can shrink to in this layout, but it's possible your popSmarts bar might be able to get smaller.

The second option is your best bet -- you can minimize popSmarts completely! This not only shrinks the size of the bar, but changes the layout so that the entire bar takes up about as much vertical space as the status bar immediately below it in the Internet Explorer window. To minimize popSmarts, find the four buttons on the bottom-right of the window and find the second one from the left. When popSmarts is maximized, this button is a thin line, representing the minimized state. You can click to the minimize popSmarts! In the minimzed state, this button will show a small box and can be used to maximize popSmarts.

Another way to toggle between minimized and maximized layouts in popSmarts is using the tab buttons in the lower left of the window. When popSmarts is in the minimized layout, clicking on any of them will not only activate the corresponding tab dialog, but will maximize popSmarts in the process. From a maximized state, cliking on the tab that corresponds to the currently-visible tab dialog will minimize popSmarts.

The Whitelist and Blacklist are rules that you can teach to popSmarts' intelligent popup recognition. They can be used to further refine or modify popSmarts' normal popup recognition. Rules added to the Whitelist define popup windows that should be allowed that would normally be blocked. Rules added to the Blacklist define popup windows that should be blocked that would normally be allowed. The rules can specify full urls, partial urls, or domains of either the popup window's url, or the url of the parent window.

Relax! popSmarts stores all of the information about all of the popups it blocks! From the Popup Windows tab dialog, you can see a list of all of the popups from your session. Each popup is represented by an icon, and in the report view (you can right-click the dialog to change the view) you can even see some of the extended information that was collected by popSmarts. You can double-click on any of these icons to open the window, exactly as it was designed to open!

In some rare cases, a website will create an empty popup and will write the contents of the popup into the blank window, from the parent window. If this is the case, trying re-create the popup will only open the original blank window, without any of the content.

To retreive this type of window, right click the icon in the Popup Windows dialog and select "Add to White List". From the Whitelist dialog you can create a rule to allow popups to be opened from the parent window that tried to open this popup. After creating the rule, try to recreate the popup (usually by refreshing the page, which can be done with the F5 key).

In our tests, nearly 100% of this already-rare event has been for unwanted advertising. It is extremely rare to see this popup method on a desired popup.

This is exactly what the Whitelist is made for! Simply add a Whitelist rule that specifies that popup window originating from your AOL email page should be allowed.

Please contact Birnam Labs' Technical staff immediately! Send email to bugreport@birnamlabs.com