A) I've got Firefox. I'm getting popups in a separate Firefox window and not just at Hugh's site. I believe it came from Hugh's site (again, if someone knows better than I do on this subject, feel free to correct me)
B) Hugh's site is worth the trouble of closing a window. It's not worth the trouble of clicking it when you're not at Hugh's site.
Worst. Typo. Ever.
Nah, it ain't.
The true writer's nightmare is dropping the L from "public."
Aw, I dunno. I saw "pray for peach" the other day...
Oh no, there's been worse! :-)
As for your advertising popup maladies, I've got a solution that I found long ago on this here site, FreeRepublic.com
What you need to do is visit this site, Blocking Unwanted Parasites with a Hosts File.
What this site offers is essentially a downloadable text file, called Hosts. You see, your computer comes with the ability to host websites. Everyone's Windows does, that's not a big deal. But since your computer can host websites, in the interest of speeding up requests, your computer can be told what sites in the internet universe you host. Luckily for us, someone at this site maintains a rather exhaustive list of all the ugly sites on the internet. In the Hosts file goes all the web addresses for these sites. They run the gambit from porn sites to advertising sites to click-thru ad counter sites.
After you place this file in the proper place on your computer, every time a URL that exists in the file is requested, your computer thinks it hosts the site. So when you are being served an advertisement from, say, ads.doubleclick.net for instance, your computer thinks you run the site on the very machine you're on. It attempts to load the site but finds nothing. All it displays is PAGE NOT FOUND. Lots of pop ups want to run javascript too that attempt to thwart your browser's pop up blocker, and since that script isn't executed, your browser has a very easy time squelching the pop up.
I have had a hosts file for quite some time now, and I can say, I virtually never get a pop up or advertisement when surfing.
At least you never had a suck emergency!
Are you sure it's spyware, rather than the standard browser pop-up, usually done with Javascript?
If it's spyware, (assuming you haven't done this) you may want to download, install, update & scan with Ad-Aware SE & Spybot Search & Destroy:
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
If it's just some javascript crap, etc., getting by Firefox' pop-up blocker, you may want to investigate Proxomitron:
http://www.proxomitron.info/
I use it to filter (block) a wealth of garbage, including certain types of javascripts, ad banners, shockwave/flash, etc., etc. Surfing is faster, sites are cleaner, life is good.