A Clue?

Bill Hobbs took notice of yesterday's treatise on pop-up ads I was seeing on blogs. Commenters to his post admitted seeing them occasionally, while others said we're all crazy and/or have adware.

I did a little more poking around, and here's how I responded over there:

Good evening. I thought I would follow-up here.

I think the chances of adware are low; as I mentioned at the post on Pop-Up Mocker, I've seen the pop-up ads from two different computers, including one in a highly secure environment where the user cannot install software at all. If it is adware, it's very selective adware; I've seen it only on the two blogs I mentioned, yours and Balloon Juice.

I implied, or tried to, that I suspected it came from an external script called by your template, and when I looked at your page source, I saw the BlogAd script first, which is why I named it.

I would guess it's the free BraveNet counter. Both you and Balloon Juice use the free counter, so it's another external script you share. Also, if you visit the knowledge base for the counter, you can find this insight:
What added features will I receive if I upgrade to Counter/Site Stats Professional?

The Professional Counter/Site Stats service provides these features:
- All banner and popup ads will be removed from your service.
- Your service limit increases to allow you to create 25 counters.
- Ability to turn your Counters invisible.
- Private Statistics allow you to set a password on your statistics page.
- *New* You can now see statistics for up to 12 months!

So that's my working crackpot theory for now: Free Bravenet Counters throw pop-up ads at intervals. I haven't tested to see if it's random intervals, a set number of page loads, or tied to the counter number, but hey, I have a life. I mean, another blog to maintain. That's my additional two cents worth.