Has anyone noticed a sharp rise in the amount of garbage on the internet lately? It seems like there are becoming more and more web pages that have other stuff attached to them, little programs that want to install themselves onto your computer, or popup ads. A variation of the popup ad is the popunder ad, one that pops up underneath the window you are using, so that it won't be seen until you are finished and close out of Internet Explorer (or whatever browser you're using).
In the US, they are considering legislation to limit or ban spam and telemarketing. Ironically, clicking on that link generates a pop-up. If there are any Yanks reading (or in fact anyone at all...), here's a link you can use to register for the "do not call" registry.

Personally, I have my browser set so that I get a message asking if I want any scripting to run when I go to a page. Usually I click "no", and I'm given a message saying that my current settings may cause the page not to display properly, but so far I've never had a single problem. I prefer this to having stuff happen on my computer that I don't know about. As well I run "ad-aware" frequently to clean off any little programs that have found their way onto my 'puter, and it usually cleans off between 5-50 tracking files or programs that have self-installed each time I run it.

I have high-speed internet, but there are still a lot of people who don't and those folks with their 14.4 modems an their 56k modems cannot afford to have malicious software stealing their bandwidth. Actually it's not really stealing, since most dial-up users pay for a certain amount of hours of internet access, as opposed to paying for a set amount of bandwidth use. As a Sympatico user, I am paying for a certain amount of bandwidth usage, so the folks who are sending me extra little programs that I haven't asked for, are stealing some of my bandwidth usage from me.

I love my computer and I'm sort-of addicted to the internet, and it would be a shame to see the 'net go the way of WordPerfect.