I have been trying several different popup-blocker packages, and each one so far has forced me to stop using it after a while because it had problems or limitations.

The one I am currently using and has worked fine so far (and hasn't forced me to stop using it yet) is called AdShield.

It is an IE plugin that is freeware. It is not a proxy (some of the other packages are proxies, which is a bit of a problem in certain configurations). Its advantage is that it doesn't globally blanket-kill all possible ads and popups, it only kills those that are kept in its internal list. This sounds like it would be a pain, but actually it's very convenient, because it doesn't automatically block certain popups that you would actually WANT to have. And it's really easy to maintain its internal list when you want to add one of your own.

Also, the developer is very "reachable" and I have exchanged emails directly with him. He's already working on fixing one minor cosmetic bug that I found.

There is a catch, though: It ships with an "empty" blocker list, which you must populate yourself. This is so that ad companies don't get mad at him and sue him for including their name in his list by default. If you decide to use this product, you can find pre-populated blocker lists elsewhere on the net, or I can send you mine.

The address for AdShield is http://www.adshield.org .

One final note: I installed AdShield on my wife's laptop. This is another indication that this is a good program, as I was never comfortable enough with the others to go that far with it. However, certain popups were still appearing on her PC, ones that weren't popping up on mine for the same sites. It turns out she had some other resident AdWare running (like Gator or CyDoor or something like that). So in addition to running AdShield on your wife's PC, make sure to use Ad-Aware ( http://www.lavasoftusa.com ) to scrub her PC clean of adware and spyware.