My Google toolbar was taking care of all my pop up issues until about a couple month ago--I have the pop ups running a muck again. Anyone know why this has stopped working? Have pop ups gotten smarter?

I personally like the ol' Alt-F4 combo, but I've always been a keystroke shortcut kinda guy.

Yep. That'* my exact same issue. I'm going to try Pop-up Blocker mentioned in this thread. I'll report the results!

I use the Google Toolbar for Popup blocking. Make sure you are running IE6 or later in order for it to work. I also run Spybot Search & Destroy periodicially to clean up the system and immunize against new adware/spyware/trojans.

My cocktail:
Google Toolbar
McAfee Enterprise 7
Spybot Search and Destroy (http://www.safer-networking.org)

Look at your processes for anything running that seems dodgy and is named any 5 random characters. For example, they could be named ntee2.exe. If you have something like that, then you have the trojan spyware that so far circumvents all blockers, adaware, spybot, and other such adware detecting tools, and cannot be easily removed. I can supply removal instructions if you have anything like that.

Also, in you Add/Remove Programs, do you have anything called "Home Search Assistent"?? (Yes, assistent, spelled with an "e" )