Pop-up blocker

Pop-up blockers are an invention that is quite often compared to other notable inventions such as sliced bread and the internet toaster despite the fact a pop-up blocker contains 100% less wheat than the former and 99% less toast than the latter. Either way the pop-up blocker is a useful program people can use to metaphorically give advertisers the finger.

Invention

It is common knowledge that advertising is the devil. Therfore it must have been Jesus to invent the pop-up blocker. Eventually the former would become the tool of insidious corporations and people who really like to pester strangers, and the latter would become the tool with which to smite these digital heathens. So we can take out of this that Jesus is awesome, obviously, but still, he is. Anyway, besides Jesus being awesome so is Tim Bartels, if you don't know who that is just look him up under cool Roman god, or Fan of Dave Destache.

History

It is not mystery that many people have cash, while many other people would prefer to have that cash (as well as any they may already own). In order to get that cash, capitalism was born. And with capitalism came the means to tell people to give them cash, but not quite in those words. However many capitalists were not satisfied with the amount of money and more and more intrusive advertising began to appear such as the historic cow-ups where entrenpeneurial artists would paint "Ye Local Pub" on the side of cows at local farms. When confronted, they would tip the cow and run. Thus cow-tipping was born.

Eventually came the internet and free money was passed around like so much, well, free money. Eventually those giving away such "free money" found little was returned on this investment and took their money and went home where no-one would get to play with it. However, some people will still give some regular money to websites in exchange for hosting advertisements. Eventually these kinds of people found out that normal people hate their guts and eventually created the pop-up to get even.

Metaphor

Imagine that you, as archaic as it might sound, are reading a magazine. You may have to ask someone else to show you one or describe it to you. Now, imagine between two of the pages is an advertisement. Normally, similar to a banner ad, it would not move or interfere with your reading of the magazine, except with less flashing lights than legally required in banner ads. If, however, it were loaded with a spring, and on that spring a comical prop such as a boxing glove, which would, upon opening the magazine, hurl itself into the reader's face at a high velocity and in a surely humorous manner to unrelated parties. Such a device would be annoying and intrusive to the reading experience.

Of course, there is no actual relation between seeing a pop-up and being punched in the face, but we hate pop-ups even more.

The Blocker

The pop-up blocker was naturally invented by people to counteract this problem. Normally to rid oneself of a pop-up they would have to endure the arduous effort of clicking on that little 'X' in the corner of the screen. Yes, that one. Up there. No, your right. Other right.

Assuming they could do this, they were promptly assaulted visually with another infinity plus one pop-ups in their many forms. Only one person was known to endure this ordeal without dying or, worse, rebooting and they are currently assigned to some kind of mental institution muttering about toast. For the rest of us some benevolent souls created a program to prevent these pop-ups and now we can surf the internet with 99% less pop-ups and with only half the calories as regular internet.

There is, however, a figurative war. Those that would pop-up and those that would pop-down are currently fighting to create the better program to either annoy or not annoy the intended victim. Eventually this will escalate until closing some pop-ups call a group of thugs that kill your dog, sending a pop-up will level a corporate building, or surfing ad-free will call in a tactical nuclear strike. Target? Everything you love.

The Moral of This Story Is...

The Internet is populated by those that advertise and those that would like to punch those other people in the face.