If your getting a lot of pop-ups, their coming from an advertising site. The problem with pop-up killers is that they only stop the pop-up from displaying, you still really get the ad and their using your bandwidth without permission, slowing everything else down as a result.
In an effort to control advertising and spyware, I spent considerable time assembling a HOSTS file from various sources. Many are my own observations, gathered over time and others came from the WEB. At this time, I think this is about the most comprehensive list of advertising and spyware sites assembled; there are more than 18,000 sites in the list.
When a Hosts file is present on a local machine and an application (browser, etc) attempts a site connect, it makes a system call for DNS lookup. If a site Domain Name is in the Hosts file then the IP address listed in the Hosts file is the address used and there is no access to an external DNS server. If the address happens to be 127.0.0.1 (loopback) then the pop-up, adware, or re-direct fails. This is better than just blocking the information since it doesn't use any of your precious bandwidth, just takes a look at the local machine, finds nothing and gives up.
Blocking url's in the hosts file is better than a pop-up blocker since it uses no bandwidth at all, but it's not a cure-all, you'll probably have to fiddle about some (add or delete) to fine tune the file. As it stands, it will block most of the major advertising sites out there, but it's a sure thing that there will be some entries that may block something you need and you'll find some addresses I missed.
For the most of our users at our office, this file works fine, add a pop-up blocker and run SpyBot from time to time and it should keep things pretty much in control. Just be aware that if something you expect doesn't display, the Hosts file may contain an entry that needs to be modified or removed. It's for certain that there will be plenty more that need to be added as time goes by.
If anyone is interested, I can send the host file and an excel spreadsheet version of it that I use for maintenance alone with some installation instructions. Just PM me a request with your email address.
Al