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This help file is not intended to be viewed outside of KillAd.

You can obtain help by right clicking the [image] icon in the system tray and selecting the Help menu item.

If a dialog opened by KillAd has the [image] sign in the right upper corner you can click it and then click any control in the dialog. This way you'll be given the explanation what this control is intended for.


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KillAd:  a utility to get rid of these unwanted browser popup windows we are all sick of.

Double click the [image] icon in the system tray to enable/disable the watch feature. Press the Ctrl key to disable watching temporarily. Right click the icon to invoke menu.

If you think the program destroys too few or too many popups please throw a glance at Advanced Options. Although, be careful with them, otherwise you may turn the proggie into a real serial killer.

Please don't blame me if your browser crashes after closing a popup. Blame Microsoft or Netscape instead. I did everything I could. Although, feel free to blame me if my proggie crashes.

© FSC, 1999-2000 [BLAM]E-mail: fofcheek@hotmail.com.

For more information please visit KillAd homepage or its mirror.

You can say me "Thanks!" by voting for my page and program.

Distributed as Free[OfAnyKindOfWarranties]Ware.


Hide
Advanced options: Hide

Check this box to completely remove each new popup from both the screen and the taskbar during its lifetime. When unchecked, the popup becomes a background window but its button stays visible on the taskbar.

Do NOT check this box if you use IE4, otherwise you may get lots of "script error" messages. Perfectly OK for NC4.


Wait for caption change
Advanced options: Wait for caption change

If checked, a popup is not destroyed until its window title changes to popup's URL. Increases the time necessary to get rid of a popup but highly decreases the chances of NC4 to crash and the chances of IE4 to complain about script errors. Leave the box checked for both IE4 and NC4.

The option is not accessible if the Kill only listed popups option is checked.


Restore focus
Advanced options: Restore focus

When a popup appears on the screen it receives the keyboard focus. This is especially annoying if you type something in another window. What's worse, the focus may be also taken away when a popup is unable to find its URL and a message box appears on the screen, inviting you to press the "Hurrah!" button.

There are three ways to handle the situation:

Never	Do not control the focus at all.

Once (online)	Restore focus only once immediately after the popup appearance. We suppose here that Net polluters always supply popups with working URLs and your connection is pretty good, therefore  no messageboxes should appear.

Always (offline)	Restore focus every time it was given to a popup or its messagebox. When you are offline, "Can't find URL" boxes are very probable. The main caveat here is that if you happened to switch into another window between appearance of the popup itself and its error box, then after suppressing of the messagebox the focus will be given to the window you had been working with before the popup popped up but not to the window you are currently in.

Unfortunately, the logic does not work well if a page produces two or more popups simultaneously. Another logic must be used in this case - boycott such pages.


Pre-kill extra delay
Advanced options: Pre-kill extra delay

Additional number of milliseconds to wait before closing a popup. The countdown begins only when all other criterions if it is safe to kill a popup have been met. You may want to increase the value if you often get "script error" messages on Java overloaded pages or if your browser crashes after closing a popup (not my bug, in fact, Netscape's one, and this is only a bypass to cure the situation). Don't expect the timing to be extra precise - don't forget, we are under Windows™...


OK


Cancel


Kill listed
Advanced options: Kill listed popups

Kill a popup only if its title (URL or name of the document) is listed in the wicked URLs database. Needs the Wait for caption change option to be checked.


Edit list
Advanced options: Edit list

Edit the wicked URLs database. The database is a plain ASCII text file, each line of it contains one URL you don't like to visit. URLs may be incomplete, in this case all URLs that begin with the given substring will be suppressed. For example, the following two strings

http://www.angelfire.com/ads/toolbar2/afpopup.html

http://www.angelfire.com/ads/

are substantially the same but the scope of the second string is a bit wider. Obviously, the second string will destroy more popups than the first one.


Skip maximized windows
Advanced options: Skip maximized windows

If checked, any new browser window which is maximized is not considered to be a popup. Otherwise, ANY new browser window may be treated as a popup and (depending on other options) therefore destroyed.


Enabled browsers
Advanced options: Enabled browsers

Pretty often there is only one browser in your system. Is there any sense to watch for some other which is not even installed? Because of the obvious waste of precious CPU time this does not seem to be a good idea. By checking only the browser(s) you really use you can avoid this waste and speed the whole system a little bit up.

Don't expect the acceleration to be noticeable - we're talking of times like few microseconds or so. But anyway, please remember - there are NO unnecessary CPU cycles and there always is a program which is ready to devour them all.

Please be warned that occasionally IE4 goes mad and thinks that it is IE5 and vice versa so you may have to determine the best configuration experimentally.


Defaults
Advanced options: Defaults

Reset state of all dialog controls to defaults - quick way to discard any undesirable changes you could cause while experimenting with the controls.

Actual values used by program won't change until you press the OK button.


Not implemented
Advanced options: A button

This is a nice and cute button, don't you think so? So far its main purpose is to please spectator's eye because the underlying fucntionality is not yet implemented.

Feel free to press it from time to time if this makes you a bit happier. Don't worry, you won't hurt any human beings, living creatures, environment, and the button itself.


Finder tool
Advanced options: Finder tool

Pick up the tool with the left mouse button, drag it over a window whose dimensions you want to obtain and then release the mouse button. Dimensions of the window will be automatically substituted into the corresponding edit controls.

Each time you start using the tool, values from the corresponding X*Y edit pair are preserved and may be restored afterwards by pressing the corresponding Undo button. If you use the tool more than once in succession, original edit values are lost and in case you want them back you'll have to retype them manually or press the Cancel button.


Undo
Advanced options: Undo

Press the button to undo the last changes you made to the X*Y edit controls. The button is disabled (grayed) when there is nothing to undo, otherwise it is enabled.

Undo buffer controlled by the button is only 1 level in depth so it is relatively easy to lose the original edit values. Press the global Cancel button if you want your beloved values to get back.

Current edit values are saved in the Undo buffer each time you start using the Finder tool.


Dimensions
Advanced options: Dimension edits

Each pair of  edits represents dimensions of a window used in a size-aware operation. First edit in a pair specifies the width and second specifies the height of a window in pixels.

You can use Up and Down Arrow keys to increment/decrement value of the currently focused edit.


Kill smaller
Advanced options: Kill if smaller

If checked, makes the program to regard every browser window which is smaller than the given dimensions as a popup without any further checks and therefore destruct it.

This option has higher priority than the Kill listed popups only option, therefore it may be effectively used to kill unknown (that is, unlisted) popups. If the Kill listed popups only option is unchecked, this one is practically meaningless because in this case all popups are destroyed independently of its dimensions.

Please note, the dimensions are inclusive. That is, if you request to kill each window smaller than 200x100 pixels, a 200x100 pixels window will be killed, too.

Window is smaller only when its BOTH sizes are smaller than the given dimensions.


Don't kill bigger
Advanced options: Don't kill if bigger

If checked, makes the program to skip every window which is bigger than the given dimensions. Works the same way as the Skip maximized windows option with the exception that the dimensions may be arbitrary.

Window is bigger if ANY of its dimensions is bigger than the corresponding value.

This option has the precedence over the Kill listed popups only (and all other options), so if a window is bigger than the given dimensions, it won't be destroyed even if the window is listed.

Please note, the dimensions are inclusive. That is, if you request not to kill windows bigger than 500x300 pixels, a 500x300 window will not be destroyed, too. Therefore the proper name for the option should be Don't kill if bigger or equal.

The Kill every window smaller than option has lower priority than this one so there is not much sense (although it is safe) to set conflicting dimensions for these two options.


Use Don't Kill
Advanced options: Use Don't Kill list

If checked, prevents the program from destructing windows whose titles present in the Don't Kill list (killad.dnk file in KillAd folder). Good candidates to add to this list are windows like Control Panel, My Computer, Printers etc.

If a window is mentioned in both lists (Don't Kill list and URL list), this window won't be killed because the Don't Kill list is processed before the URL list.

Needs the Wait for caption change option to be checked.


Edit Don't Kill
Advanced options: Edit list

Edit the Don't Kill list. This list is a plain ASCII text file, each line of it contains title of a window you want to stay alive. Titles may be incomplete, in this case all windows whose titles begin with the given substring won't be destructed.


URL Edit
Add Popup: Edit field

Type here URL or window title of a popup you want to add to a list. Pretty often it is more convenient to use the Finder tool instead of typing.

This field may be not blank immediately after opening the dialog. In this case it contains the URL of the last browser popup as it was seen from the point of view of KillAd. It is empty when there were no popups registered by the program or all of them were found in a list.

After using the Finder tool it is always a good idea to delete suffixes like " - Netscape" or " - Microsoft Internet Explorer". In this case you won't have to add the same popup once again if you later decide to change your browser. Such suffix stripping is possible because list search in KillAd is not exact, in fact it is a sort of substring search.


Which list
Add Popup: Select list

Select the list you want to add the popup to. Choices are: a) Kill list (file killad.url) b) Don't Kill list (file killad.dnk). Both files reside in the KillAd folder. The program reloads both lists automatically each time it detects any change.


Add
Add Popup: Add

Press this button to add the line from the Edit field above to the selected list. The button is disabled (grayed) if the Edit field is empty (i.e., there is nothing to add) or when the line already presents in the selected list (adding a line twice or more times is not harmful but entirely senseless).


Close
Add Popup: Close

I know you had been hoping that pressing this button would produce a small miracle or at least draw a true color pornographic picture. Unfortunately, this functionality is not implemented yet. Maybe in a next release. By now, this button simply closes the dialog.


Add Popup finder
Add Popup: Finder tool

Pick up the tool with the left mouse button, drag it over a window whose title you want to obtain and then release the mouse button. The title of the selected window will be automatically substituted into the edit control.