IE problems!!! Not With Mozilla Firefox!!!
IE and all MS Products are like swiss cheese...So full of holes and exploitable vunerabilities. My EE friends (IBM,Moto,AD,etc) use nothing but Mozilla Firefox. I have found it to work much better than IE, IN ALL CASES.
Use the pop-up blocker add-in, along with other add-ins available for Firefox (hundreds are available to fine tune your browser security, knowledge, and pleasure) and it will inform you as to the source of the pop-ups and allow you to ignore them, all without them opening up at all.
And as always use Norton, and AVG anti-virus updates and checks regularly.
Filter, Filter, Filter!!! That's the use of all these governors!!!