Probably one of the most dreaded terms in all the Internet is the popup. Let's face it. We all hate them. But can we really live without them? We're going to take a devil's advocate look at popups and suggest that maybe we should learn to live with them.

Obviously with the invention of the popup blocker, most popups are not only made ineffective, they are virtually made invisible, but this comes at a cost that most of us probably don't even realize.

For the most part, popups are indeed just an intrusion on our space. We go to our favorite web site simply to look around or maybe play a game, maybe even to purchase something. Suddenly popping up all over the place, as evidenced by the increase of open windows on our tool bar, are all these other windows displaying everything from advertisements to blogs to you name it. Sometimes we get a popup that doesn't even display any text at all, just an open window. Makes you wonder what these people are thinking.

But today, with popup blockers we more or less don't have to worry about these intruders. For the most part we don't even know when a popup has been blocked unless we have something like a Google tool bar that flashes something on it each time a popup is blocked and then displays a number showing how many popups to date have been blocked. Don't be surprised to see this number go into the tens of thousands in just a couple of years. In any case, the popup is killed and life is good.

Or is it?

Well, you may be surprised to know that many legitimate sites now use popup technology as the main part of their site.

For example. If you go to Pogo.com to play one of their arcade games such as pool and try to enter a room to play, if you have a popup blocker installed on your computer and it's running you are going to find out that you can't get into the room because the room itself opens in a popup window. So if you want to get into the room to play you have to disable your popup blocker at least for that time. Gets to be a bit of a pain when you have to enable and disable your popup blocker each time you go to a certain site.

Another example is a company called STA Retail. Part of your requirements to being a member is to read their ads for 30 minutes each week. Guess what? The ads are shown in, you got it, a popup window. So if you have a popup blocker on your machine you're going to have to disable it and even that might not work. Why? Because STA Retail is a peculiar site. Some blockers even when disabled, as long as they are still installed, will make it so that the STA Retail ad window doesn't open.

These are just two examples of the many where sites are now turning towards popup technology that requires you to disable your popup blocker if you want to use their site. The reasoning behind it is clear. If enough companies do this then eventually popup blockers will be more trouble than they are worth and we'll have to go back to the days of allowing them.

So while popup blockers may be killing your popups now, don't be surprised if in the future they become as extinct as the dinosaur.