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Disabling or Configuring Your Pop-up Blockers


If you pop-up blocker is blocking pop-ups from the Online Orientation or from WebCT, you will have problems accessing important content.  Your courses on Blackboard have a built in function that assist you in disabling pop-up blockers for Blackboard content. Pop-up blockers can be components in web browser toolbars (see the graphic below) that you've downloaded, or they can be a hidden component of a firewall program such as Zone Alarm Pro, Norton Internet Security, or McAfee Internet Security. Please read the documentation of your software to learn how to enable, disable, or configure its pop-up blocker. 



Below are some quick links to configuring or disabling some common pop-up blockers:
Internet Explorer
Netscape
Firefox
Yahoo Toolbar
Google Toolbar
Zone Alarm [Pop-blocker in 3rd party Firewall]
Norton Internet Security [Pop-blocker in 3rd party Firewall]
Be sure to access the links at the very bottom if you need additional resources on the web on this issue.



Pop-up blockers can interfere with online orientations as well as with WebCT. If, in the Online Orientation, you are clicking on the Welcome link or the Course Syllabus link and are not seeing them in a pop-up window, you probably have a pop-up blocker. As a further confirmation, go to http://www.popuptest.com/popuptest1.html to test your browser. If you did not get those pop-ups, you have a pop-up blocker.   Disable your pop-up blocker for the hccs.edu domain if your pop-up blocker has that capability, or disable it specifically for http://de6.hccs.edu (and any other hccs.edu related websites that you use).  For your courses on Blackboard, follow the instructions from their Browser Check.You can also turn it off altogether if you do not know how to configure it, or if you have mutliple pop-up blockers.  If after you have disabled your pop-up blockers, you still can't see your pop-up Welcome or Course Syllabus, try logging off your computer and logging back in or restarting for the changes to take effect.

Remember that it is highly likely that you have more than one pop-up blocker running.  You really only need one properly configured blocker.

Also remember that you should switch to a different browser if you get "stuck" or can't succeed with your default browser.

It's highly recommended that you install the Firefox browser to get out of jams. 

Most of the third-party toolbars in Internet Explorer that have pop-up blockers will not affect Firefox.

Netscape 7.2 is a WebCT validated browser as well.  The latest Netscape Browser should work too.  (For WebCT, set it to "Display Like Internet Explorer" for best results.)




The graphic below shows you how to either turn-off the built-in pop-up blocker in Internet Explorer:

diable IE pop-up blocker



To configure your built-in Internet Explorer Pop-up blocker, first, you will want to disable ALL others, and then, following the graphic above, click on "Pop-up Blocker Settings".  Then simply type in "hccs.edu" (no quotes) into the filed, and click the Add button: [ You then will see hccs.edu in the list of allowed sites]
                                                                                                                      
Configure pop up blocker in IE                         allowed sites




To quickly disable your other pop-up blockers in Internet Explorer, un-check any Toolbars that appear in the View menu of Internet Explorer that are not there by default:

Disable 3rd Party IE toolbars with Pop-up blockers

The default ones are: Standard Buttons, Address Bar and Links in IE6 and Menu Bar and Links in IE7.   This will disable the added toolbars, many of which come with built-in pop-up blockers, altogether. To keep using them, read their documentation to learn how to enable, disable, and configure any pop-up blocker, or just explore the tool bar. You'll most likely figure it out. Refer to this illustration as a guide:  (There are some useful guides at the bottom of this document as well).

ie toolbars

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In Netscape 7, you can very easily enable, disable, or configure the built-in pop-up blocker.  Just go to Edit menu and select Preferences.  (In Mac OS X, Netscape preferences are found in the Netscape menu.) You will see the following dialogue box:

                                       

Look for the "Privacy & Security" heading in the Category list on the left column and expand it.  Select "Popup Windows".  To turn off all pop-up blocking, simply un-check the box for "Block unrequested popup windows".  This is the default setting, but it may have been changed in the past on your computer.  To enable popup blocking, check the box.  To disable popup blocking for all hccs.edu websites, click on the "Allowed Sites" button as circled above.  You will then see this box at the right.  Simply type "hccs.edu" in the field and click the Add button.

In Netscape 8, it's also easy to manage the built-in popup blocker.  See the graphic below:

Netscape 8 allow pop-ups

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Firefox's built in popup blocker gives a giant alert when it blocks a pop-up across the top of the windo.  To allow pop-ups from that website, just click on the "Options" button as seen below:


Firefox pop-up alert

 
You can also go to Tools>Options>Content and either turn off the pop-up blocker or click the Exceptions button:


  Firefox Options    Firefox Exceptions

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Google Toolbar

Google Toolbar
Google toolbar has two ways that you can turn off the popup blocker.
  • To disable
    1. Open the Google Toolbar Options window by clicking on the options button. Google options button
    2. In the Accessories section click off checkbox next to the pop-up blocker option
  • To allow pop-ups from the Virtual HR Center Website
    1. Click Add to whitelist. OR
    2. Click on the following button on the toolbar. Google popup blocker button
  • For more information you can visit:
    http://toolbar.google.com/popup_help.html

Yahoo Toolbar

Probably the most popular toolbar, this program allows several other functions besides Pop-Up Blocking. Listed below is how the bar will appear within IE:

Yahoo Toolbar

To disable Pop-Up Blocking, Click on the Down arrow to bring up the Menu: Yahoo Toolbar

Uncheck the entry Enable Pop-Up Blocker.
Yahoo Toolbar

Once this is done,  the user should be able to open the assessment window.   If you are still unable to log in, you may have more Pop-Blockers to identify and disable.


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Zone Alarm

To disable the pop-up blocker in ZoneAlarm Pro:

  1. Open the Zone Alarm program by clicking your Start Button and accessing the Zone Alarm folder under Programs.
  2. Click on Privacy.
  3. Turn off Cookie Control, Mobile Code and Pop Up control.



Norton AntiSpam and Norton Internet Security 2005 And 2006

Taskbar with System Tray
  1. Norton Internet Security 2005 usually adds a yellow and orange orb icon to your system tray in the Windows taskbar. You may be able to right-click on it and Disable.(see above picture)
  2. Otherwise, click on Start>Programs>Norton Internet Security>Norton Internet Security.  In the left hand pane of the Norton Internet Security window click on Norton AntiSpam.


  3. Choose the Status and Settings view under Norton AntiSpam.  If Settings for Pop-up Blocking display a green checkmark, then Turn Off Pop-up Blocking.  To do this, Click on the words Pop-up Blocking.


  4. Click Pop-Ups Blocking -> Turn off.


  5. It should now look like this


  6. The last step is to clear your Cache. To do this you can open Tools >Internet Options > click the "Delete Files..." button OR from the assessment page, while simultaneously holding down the Ctrl key & the Shift key use your mouse to press the browsers refresh button.
For more information you can visit:
SymantecSupportSite

Remember that the last step after turning off Norton Internet Security's popup blocker is to to either delete your Cache or to Refresh the assessment page while simultaneously holding down the Ctrl & Shift keys to open a non-cached copy of the assessment page.







Here are other helpful resources for helping your configure or disable your Pop-up blockers:

Instructions with helpful graphics

More Very Easy to Follow Instructions


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